The Hidden Mind

The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist or a group of bystanders into a mob. In a series of compulsively readable narratives, Shankar Vedantam journeys through the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to uncover the darkest corner of our minds and its decisive impact on the choices we make as individuals and as a society. Filled with fascinating characters, dramatic storytelling, and cutting-edge science, this is an engrossing exploration of the secrets our brains keep from us—and how they are revealed.

A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.

THE HIDDEN MIND IS THE GREAT BOOK ABOUT THE MIND By reading this book, you will be able to answer the following questions: ✓ What is the mind? ✓ What is the purpose of the mind? ✓ What does the mind do? ✓ How does the mind work? ✓ What are the risks of the mind? ✓ What can we achieve with the mind? ✓ What are the parts of the mind? ✓ How does each of the parts of the mind work? ✓ How do thoughts work? ✓ What are the types of thoughts that exist? ✓ How is the mind trained? ✓ How do you evaluate the mind? ✓ How do we make the mind become our best tool? When a person has an educated and well-trained mind, he can achieve almost anything he sets his mind into. The mind is the steering wheel of our vehicle, it is the boss of our factory, it is the tool that our soul uses to drive our body. By educating and training our mind, we can control in extraordinary ways: ✓ Our thoughts ✓ Our emotions ✓ Our words ✓ Our actions ✓ Our behavior ✓ Our work ✓ Our life And who takes control of his life, he can achieve a very good life. By working our mind, we will see how we improve: ✓ Our relationship as a couple ✓ Our relationship with our children ✓ Our relationship with our parents ✓ Our relationship with our brothers ✓ Our relationship with our friends ✓ Our relationship with our partners ✓ Our relationship with our bosses ✓ Our relationship with our co-workers ✓ Our relationship with our employees ✓ Our relationship with our neighbors ✓ Our relationship with the world By understanding what the mind is, how it works and training it well, we can build a wonderful life and be an agent of positive change for the world. In the words of the author, Leandro Taub, "The mind is the fundamental tool that shapes matter. Our will carried out through thought, word and deed is the direct result of mental power. If we educate the mind, it will be our great ally. If we don't educate the mind, it will be our great enemy. With an educated mind we can choose objectives, directions and organize our present to advance in our search. With an uneducated mind, we dedicate ourselves to digging, suspecting, limiting ourselves, generating stress and suffering. It is possible to live with an educated mind. It does not depend on external factors, but on the work in the knowledge of ourselves."

New York Times bestselling author Dr. Daniel Amen equips you with powerful weapons to battle the inner dragons that are breathing fire on your brain, driving unhealthy behaviors, and robbing you of joy and contentment. Your brain is always listening and responding to these hidden influences and unless you recognize and deal with them, they can steal your happiness, spoil your relationships, and sabotage your health. This book will teach you to tame the: Dragons from the Past that ignite your most painful emotions; Negative Thought Dragons that attack you, fueling anxiety and depression; They and Them Dragons, people in your life whose own dragons do battle with yours; Bad Habit Dragons that increase the chances you’ll be overweight, overwhelmed, and an underachiever; Addicted Dragons that make you lose control of your health, wealth, and relationships; and Scheming Dragons, advertisers and social media sites that steal your attention. Dr. Daniel Amen shows you how to recognize harmful dragons and gives you the weapons to vanquish them. With these practical tools, you can stop feeling sad, mad, nervous, or out of control and start being happier, calmer, and more in control of your own destiny.

A revelatory new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the center of mental life. For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime’s quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies. Solms is a frank and fearless guide on an extraordinary voyage from the dawn of neuropsychology and psychoanalysis to the cutting edge of contemporary neuroscience, adhering to the medically provable. But he goes beyond other neuroscientists by paying close attention to the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated, whose uncanny conversations expose much about the brain’s obscure reaches. Most importantly, you will be able to recognize the workings of your own mind for what they really are, including every stray thought, pulse of emotion, and shift of attention. The Hidden Spring will profoundly alter your understanding of your own subjective experience.

Discusses the unconscious mind, describing how the use of hypnosis, psychoanalysis, subliminal manipulation, dreams, and hard science can trace the existence of this "hidden mind" within each individual.

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is the elephant in the brain. Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their official ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.