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    Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    Audiobook10 hours

    Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

    Written by Sandra Blakeslee and V.S. Ramachandran

    Narrated by Neil Shah

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments-using such low-tech tools such as cotton swabs, glasses of water, and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, and how we make decisions, deceive ourselves, and dream. Some of his most notable cases:

    A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud's theory of denial.
    A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be "wired" for religious experience?
    A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time.

    Dr. Ramachandran's inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine's last great frontier-the human mind-yielding new and provocative insights into the "big questions" about consciousness and the self.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 24, 2013
    ISBN9781452688572
    Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    Author

    Sandra Blakeslee

    Sandra Blakeslee has been writing about science and medicine for The New York Times for more than thirty years and is the co-author of Phantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran and of Judith Wallerstein's bestselling books on psychology and marriage. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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    Reviews for Phantoms in the Brain

    4.5/5

    35 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love V S Rmachandran and listen to his podcast every week. This is a great deep dive and helped me understand a weird thing that happened to me when I had a stroke.
    • 5/5
      Despite being familiar with some of these concepts from his reith lectures and elsewhere a lot was new as well as being elaborated on. Fantastic convincing and deep. There is a lot to think on.