lindafittante

I love this book. It works wonderfully on many levels. There is lots of good information about the mind and the brain. It becomes very personal as the author goes into (or at least attempts to) all of the states of consciousness in the book. It is inspirational as one learns what the mind and brain are capable of. Also, I was continually inspired by the process of the author's writing of this book. The author(Warren) worked so very hard and long on this book, and this process became for me part of the enjoyment of the book. Warren is just a 'lay person' (i.e. not formally educated in the science and ways of the mind and the brain) that was driven by his extreme curiosity for the subject. Where some would go far, Warren goes farther. This is the best kind of 'self help' book in that the author goes through the process (of learning about and improving the mind) and demonstrates it to us. The author is not an expert that delivers his message on a tablet from above. But he is very knowledgeable and well read and CURIOUS, and this shines through in his writing. I liked the author's casual style, and I would get in line to be his 'drinking buddy'. I continually thought of the Einstein as I read this book. Like Einstein, the author was driven by a desire to find UNITY among different (but related) subjects. Warren continually looked for commonality in all of the states of consciousness. The author even drew his own map of consciousness, demonstrating how much he learned about the subject. There is a section (in the book) for each state of consciousness (as well as a conclusion that I found very satisfying). The author is well aware that his list of the 'consciousness states' is fallible. My fave sections are the meditation and lucid dreaming sections. One particular insightful (and instructing and inspiring and irrestible and on and on) analogy in the book was the 'tornado analogy'. Warren was interviewing an 'expert' about (among other things) the different ways to analyze the mind and the brain. Generally speaking, there are a couple of approaches (top-down and bottom-up). The 'expert' preferred the top top-down approach. He brought up the example of how a tornado gathers up all in its path. So how useful is it to study all of the small things (that a tornado gathers) when one can study the tornado itself? It seems like another way to say "Don't sweat the small things". I realize that there are plenty of examples where this 'tornado analogy' breaks down (sometimes we got to "sweat the small things"). But we have to be careful about not seeing the forest for the trees. But I digress. I think that there are a lot of readers out there that would love to read this book.

2022-11-14 13:52