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A review by sevenlefts
Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains by Helen Thomson
3.0
This tour through some unusual minds from a personal perspective is enlightening. Thomson meets with people who have interesting anomalous brain, interviewing them about the experiences and also following up with neurologists and other scientists to find out what can be learned from them. There's some basic brain anatomy here, as well as references to unique studies.
Along the way we meet people who suddenly loose all sense of direction, think they are animals, or have various forms of synethesia that manifest in associating people with particular colors or numbers, or physically feeling sensations when people within their line of site are touched. We meet people who are (or were) convinced they were dead, people with constant musical hallucinations, people who are convinced they are animals, and people who can remember every moment of their lives.
It's good popular science writing -- just detailed enough to make you want to learn more, but it doesn't get bogged down in the details. The real stories here are the humans behind these brains. Thomson does a great job of highlighting their experiences with compassion, and really makes one realize just how complex the human mind is and how much we have yet to learn about it.
Along the way we meet people who suddenly loose all sense of direction, think they are animals, or have various forms of synethesia that manifest in associating people with particular colors or numbers, or physically feeling sensations when people within their line of site are touched. We meet people who are (or were) convinced they were dead, people with constant musical hallucinations, people who are convinced they are animals, and people who can remember every moment of their lives.
It's good popular science writing -- just detailed enough to make you want to learn more, but it doesn't get bogged down in the details. The real stories here are the humans behind these brains. Thomson does a great job of highlighting their experiences with compassion, and really makes one realize just how complex the human mind is and how much we have yet to learn about it.