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 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 how we make decisions deceive ourselves and dream
perhaps even why we're so clever at philosophy music and art. 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.
