Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. | Quanta Magazine

Why does mental simulation work? It works because we can’t imagine events or sequences without evoking the same modules of the brain that are evoked in real physical activity. Brain scans show that when people imagine a flashing light, they activate the visual area of the brain; when they imagine someone tapping on their skin, they activate tactile

Is reality what we are able to confirm with our five senses? As New Scientist magazine noted some years back, “This answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the recession and the number 5,” not to mention a heap of phantom limbs.