Unthinkable
An Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
'Wonderfully clear, fluent and eye-opening' THE TIMES
'A stirring scientific journey, a celebration of human diversity and a call to rethink the "unthinkable"' NATURE
'An utterly fascinating romp around the nether regions of the human mind' BIG ISSUE
IMAGINE . . . getting lost in a one-room flat; seeing auras; never forgetting a moment; a permanent orchestra in your head; turning into a tiger; life as an out-of-body experience; feeling other people's pain; being convinced you are dead; becoming a different person overnight.
Our brains are far stranger than we think. We take it for granted that we can remember, feel emotion, navigate, empathise and understand the world around us, but how would our lives change if these abilities were dramatically enhanced - or disappeared overnight?
Award-winning science writer Helen Thomson has spent years travelling the world tracking down incredibly rare brain disorders. In Unthinkable she tells the stories of nine extraordinary people. From the man who thinks he's a tiger to the doctor who feels the pain of others just by looking at them, their experiences illustrate how the brain can shape our lives in unexpected and, in some cases, brilliant and alarming ways.
Delving into the rich histories of these conditions, exploring the very latest research and cutting-edge medical techniques, Thomson explains the workings of our consciousness, our emotions, our creativity and even the mechanisms that allow us to understand our own existence.
Story by remarkable story, Unthinkable takes us on an unforgettable journey through the human brain. Discover how to forge memories that never disappear, how to grow an alien limb and how to make better decisions. Learn how to hallucinate and how to make yourself happier in a split second. Find out how to avoid getting lost, how to see more of your reality, even how exactly you can confirm you are alive. Think the unthinkable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thomson, a writer for New Scientist magazine, spent two years interviewing people with unusual neurological disorders, and here shares nine of the most fascinating stories she heard. The interviewees include a woman from Denver who gets lost in her own house; a man from Bilbao, Spain, whose synesthesia gives him the impression of seeing other people's "auras"; and a London math teacher prone to musical hallucinations. Rather than focusing on the disorders, Thomson places the people at the forefront, exploring their varying responses to their conditions and intense struggles to live "normal" lives. Lay readers will value her ability to render scientific terms and theories accessible, and her corresponding skill as a storyteller. In one particularly memorable episode, the author travels to the United Arab Emirates to meet with a 40-year-old man suffering from lycanthropy, a rare syndrome involving delusions of transformation in this case, into a tiger. She also visits a British woman who suffers from depersonalization the feeling of becoming detached from oneself and chats with a man who once believed himself to be dead. Throughout, Thomson emphasizes "we are our brains," convincingly showing that these strange minds belong to people from whom much can be learned, in a book that will please fans of the late Oliver Sacks.
Customer Reviews
Super interesting
Instead of the author just giving a boring overview of each strange and unique disorder, she explains it in kind of a narrative way. Additionally she is able to create a connection between the reader and the person she is talking about. This really increased my empathy. Like when she talked about the permanently lost woman and how many doctors kept on telling her she was a manic, it made me feel sympathy and wonder about how there must be other people in the world who feel neglected. This was a really good read I 100% recommend