Your body has a mind of its own. You know it's true. You can sense it,
even though it may be hard to articulate. You know that your body is
more than a vehicle for your brain to cruise around in, but how deeply
are mind and body truly interwoven?
Answers can be found in the emerging science of body maps. Just as road
maps represent interconnections across the landscape, your many body
maps represent all aspects of your bodily self. Your self doesn't begin
and end with your physical body but extends into the space around you.
When you drive a car, your personal body space grows to envelop it. When
you play a video game, your body maps automatically track and emulate
the actions of your character onscreen. If your body maps fall out of
sync, you may have an out-of-body experience or see auras around other
people.
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own explains how you can tap into the power
of body maps to do almost anything better: play tennis, strum a guitar,
ride a horse, dance a waltz, empathize with a friend, raise children,
cope with stress. Filled with illustrations, wonderful anecdotes, and
even parlor tricks that you can use to reconfigure your body sense, The
Body Has a Mind of Its Own will change the way you think about what it
takes to have a conscious mind inside a feeling body.
Praise for The Body Has a Mind of Its Own
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK
WORLD
"You'll never think about your body-or your mind-in the same way
again."
-Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence
"A fascinating exploration of senses we didn't even know we had."
-Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses
"A delightfully original, understandable, and mind-stretching work."
-William Safire, columnist, The New York Times Magazine
"A marvelous book."
-V. S. Ramachandran, M.D., director, Center for Brain and Cognition,
University of California, San Diego
"[An] accessible, practical overview of an important scientific
story."
-Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes' Error
