An edition of Mind wide open (2004)

Mind Wide Open

Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

  • 3.5 (2 ratings)
  • 4 Want to read
  • 3 Have read

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

  • 3.5 (2 ratings)
  • 4 Want to read
  • 3 Have read

Buy this book

Last edited by MARC Bot
June 28, 2025 | History
An edition of Mind wide open (2004)

Mind Wide Open

Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

  • 3.5 (2 ratings)
  • 4 Want to read
  • 3 Have read

Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works-its chemicals, structures, and subroutines-and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods. The possibility entertained in this book is that you can follow another path, in which learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug.^

In Mind Wide Open, Johnson embarks on this path as his own test subject, participating in a battery of attention tests, learning to control video games by altering his brain waves, scanning his own brain with a $2 million fMRI machine, all in search of a modern answer to the oldest of questions: who am I? Along the way, Johnson explores how we "read" other people, how the brain processes frightening events (and how we might rid ourselves of the scars those memories leave), what the neurochemistry is behind love and sex, what it means that our brains are teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs, why music moves us to tears, and where our breakthrough ideas come from. Johnson's clear, engaging explanation of the physical functions of the brain reveals not only the broad strokes of our aptitudes and fears, our skills and weaknesses and desires, but also the momentary brain phenomena that a whole human life comprises.^

Why, when hearing a tale of woe, do we sometimes smile inappropriately, even if we don't want to? Why are some of us so bad at remembering phone numbers but brilliant at recognizing faces? Why does depression make us feel stupid? To read Mind Wide Open is to rethink family histories, individual fates, and the very nature of the self, and to see that brain science is now personally transformative-a valuable tool for better relationships and better living.

Publish Date
Publisher
Scribner
Language
English
Pages
288

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Mind Wide Open
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
May 3, 2005, Scribner
Paperback in English
Cover of: Mind Wide Open (Library Edition)
Mind Wide Open (Library Edition): Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
January 1, 2005, Tantor Media
Audio CD in English - Unabridged edition
Cover of: Mind Wide Open
Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
January 27, 2004, Scribner
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Mind wide open
Mind wide open: your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life
2004, Scribner
in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


First Sentence

"I'm gazing into a pair of eyes, scanning the arch of the brow, the hooded lids, trying to gauge whether they're signaling defiance or panic."

The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Number of pages
288
Dimensions
9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
Weight
14.4 ounces

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL7928058M
ISBN 10
0743241657
ISBN 13
9780743241656
LibraryThing
125
Goodreads
1607891

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL2668650W

Source records

Internet Archive item record

Excerpts

I'm gazing into a pair of eyes, scanning the arch of the brow, the hooded lids, trying to gauge whether they're signaling defiance or panic.
added anonymously.

Links outside Open Library

Community Reviews (0)

No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

Lists

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
June 28, 2025 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
March 25, 2025 Edited by Zander Bulk tagging works
August 17, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 6, 2021 Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot Add NYT review links
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page