Incognito

Barnes & Noble Indie Bound

If the conscious mind–the part you consider to be you–is just the tip of the iceberg, what is the rest doing?

In this sparkling and provocative book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate its surprising mysteries. Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Is there a true Mel Gibson? How is your brain like a conflicted democracy engaged in civil war? What do Odysseus and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Why are people whose names begin with J more like to marry other people whose names begin with J? And why is it so difficult to keep a secret?

Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence, and visual illusions, Incognito is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.

"What Eagleman seems to be calling for is a new Enlightenment."
- Sunday Herald
"David Eagleman is the kind of guy who really does make being a neuroscientist look like fun."
- New York Times
"A popularizer of impressive gusto...[Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars."
- New York Observer
"Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness."
- The New Yorker
"David Eagleman offers startling lessons.... His method is to ask us to cast off our lazy commonplace assumptions.
- The Guardian
"David Eagleman may be the best combination of scientist and fiction-writer alive."
- Stewart Brand
"[A] neuroscientist and polymath."
- Wall Street Journal
Livewired
The Brain
Brain And Behavior
Incognito
The Safety Net
Wednesday is Indigo Blue
Sum
The Runaway Species