Debbie Foster

One theory of confabulations holds that the verbal left hemisphere of our brains has evolved to make sense of the onslaught of experiences inherent in moving through the world, a deluge of sights, sounds, and sensations with the potential to overwhelm us. To make sense of this chaos of consciousness, the left hemisphere applies a narrative to our

In 1998 Tani argued that embodiment is what drives subjective experience. When our brain makes a prediction and it proves right, sensory inputs do not rise to the level of conscious awareness; we are on autopilot. But when the prediction is wrong and not easily fixed, the discrepancy summons our attention so that the brain can bring everything it

“That we are all God,” I said, quietly. “The divinity is in all of us and in the substance of the universe. With the right knowledge, we can draw down all the powers of the cosmos. When we understand this, we can become equal to God.”

state changes in several areas (specifically the insular cortex, anterior cingulate, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens) allowed them to predict moments when participants would switch between new emotional states.

The realization that identified problems can become projects and that projects can grow into enterprises can be liberating. It means that you do not have to plan out what you are going to do five or ten years from now. Indeed, if your goal is creativity, you are unlikely to be able to plan in such a way. Instead, you need to pose more questions.

My flesh has become ice, I thought, earthbound and heavy and hard as stone, but so brittle it will shatter with the slightest force.

Wanting, then, is potentially an essentialist enterprise - finding out what you really want and finding out how, if at all, you can get it; the problem being not knowing what you want, but knowing how to get it. Or wanting as an experimental project, in which all you can ever find out is what you might want, and that what you might want changes,

several studies had found that people with vivid imagery tended to be more inward, absorbed in the drift of their own minds.

This is a disconcerting, almost dizzying thought: we’re left thinking not how a child can be so foolish as to imagine that they vanish by hiding their eyes, but rather, how extraordinary it is that the self is not located from birth in the physical body –