From the New York Times bestselling author of The Zookeeper's Wife , an ambitious and enlightening work that combines an artist's eye with a scientist's erudition to illuminate, as never before, the magic and mysteries of the human mind. Long treasured by literary readers for her uncommon ability to bridge the gap between art and science, celebrated scholar-artist Diane Ackerman returns with the book she was born to write. Her dazzling new work, An Alchemy of Mind, offers an unprecedented exploration and celebration of the mental fantasia in which we spend our days—and does for the human mind what the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses did for the physical senses. Bringing a valuable female perspective to the topic, Diane Ackerman discusses the science of the brain as only she can: with gorgeous, immediate language and imagery that paint an unusually lucid and vibrant picture for the reader. And in addition to explaining memory, thought, emotion, dreams, and language acquisition, she reports on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and addresses controversial subjects like the effects of trauma and male versus female brains. In prose that is not simply accessible but also beautiful and electric, Ackerman distills the hard, objective truths of science in order to yield vivid, heavily anecdotal explanations about a range of existential questions regarding consciousness, human thought, memory, and the nature of identity. "Ackerman [is] our poetic chronicler of the natural world." -- Chicago Tribune "[A] lovely...arresting...discourse on brain science." -- Entertainment Weekly "Partly close observation, partly free association, Ackerman's paean turns the inside of our heads into...[something] gorgeous, tender, jewelled." -- The New York Times Book Review "A love song to the brain...combines flights of lyricism and autobiographical reflection with a cooler, more cerebral amalgam of science, anthropology, psychology, history, and literature." -- Francine Prose, More magazine "Evocative and meaningful." -- Carl Zimmer, The Washington Post Diane Ackerman is a naturalist and poet and the author of ten books of literary nonfiction, including A Natural History of the Senses, A Natural History of Love, and Cultivating Delight. Also the author of six volumes of poetry and several nonfiction children's books, she contributes to The New York Times, Discover, National Geographic, Parade, and many other publications. Ackerman lives in Ithaca, New York. An Alchemy of Mind The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain By Diane Ackerman Scribner Book Company Copyright ©2005 Diane Ackerman All right reserved. ISBN: 9780743246743 Chapter One What Is a Memory? What sort of future is coming up from behind I don't really know. But the past, spread out ahead, dominates everything in sight. - Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Like tiny islands on the horizon, they canvanish in rough seas. Even in calm weather,their coral gradually erodes, pickled by saltand heat. Yet they form the shoals of a life.Some offer safe lagoons and murmuring trees.Others crawl with pirates and reptiles.Together, they connect a self with the mainlandand society. Plot their trail and a mercurialpast becomes visible. Memories feel geological in their repose, solidand true, the bedrock of consciousness. They mayinclude knowing that it's hard to lead a cowdown steps, or how the indri-indri of Madagascargot its name, or the time you accidentallygrabbed a strange man's hand in a crowd(thinking it was your friend's), or how you felthitting a home run in Little League, or yourfirst car (a used VW that rattled like an olddinette set), or a grisly murder you just readabout that made you rethink capital punishment,or an unconscious detailed operating guide tothe body that manages each cell's tiny factory. Memories inform our actions, keep us company,and give us our noisy, ever-chattering sense ofself. Because we're moody giants, every day wesubtly revise who we think we are. Part of theandroid's tragedy in the Ridley Scott film BladeRunner is that he possesses a long,self-defining chain of memories. Though ruthlessand lacking empathy, and technically not aperson, he can remember. Played by Rutger Hauer,he contains a self who witnessed marvels onEarth and Mars and fears losing his uniquemental jazz in death. Without memories we wouldn't know who we are,how we once were, who we'd like to be in thememorable future. We are the sum of ourmemories. They provide a continuous privatesense of one's self. Change your memory and youchange your identity. Then shouldn't we try tobank good memories, ones that will define us aswe wish to be? I'm surprised by how many peopledo just that. Even tour companies advertise:"Bring home wonderful memories." Here we are, ahappy family taking a Disney cruise , documentedon film. But memory isn't like a camcorder,computer, or storage bin. It's more restless,