Author: Maureen Seaberg
Publisher: Career Press
ISBN: 9781601631596
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"When I spoke of my impressions as a child, I quickly learned that my perceptions were not common; in fact, they were strange. Like many synesthetes around the world, I learned to keep them to myself. Thus I'm grateful for the present day climate of inquiry into and wonder about this nearly forgotten gift.... And while traditional medicine has always fascinated me, and research on this topic is currently burgeoning around the world, I knew I must also call on consciousness experts. As someone who lived inside the experience, I knew that anatomy alone did not, could not, hold all the answers.... The beauty of the individual testimonies in this book is that they are the subjects' truths as only someone who knows the gift intimately can speak about it; many of them are speaking at length about it for the first time. Their words about such an ineffable experience have helped me find my own." --Maureen Seaberg in Tasting the Universe A violinist sees a scarlet form when he plays a certain note; a rock star sees waves of blue and green as she composes a ballad; an actress tastes cake when she utters the word "table." This fascinating mingling of the senses is called "synesthesia," and the people who possess this amazing gift are called "synesthetes." Synesthesia is scientifically described as a cross-wiring, or lack of chemical inhibition, between brain neurons that occurs in about five percent of the population, often among "creatives"--musicians, artists, actors, writers, and so on. Scientific research is currently being conducted throughout the world to discover more about this condition. However, experts in the fields of spirituality and quantum physics are convinced that the truth of synesthesia lies not only within traditional science, but also within the realm of the mystical and the ineffable. Step into Maureen's glittering alternate universe as she explores this fascinating subject, combining clear explanations of groundbreaking scientific research with an exploration of deeper spiritual truths. Tasting the Universe explains and explores: Why survivors of near-death experiences sometimes "return" with this amazing gift. Why all infants are believed to be synesthetes until four months of age. The experiences of famous synesthetes such as Itzhak Perlman, Billy Joel, Pharrell Williams, and Marilyn Monroe (whose biographer, Norman Mailer, first asserted that she possessed this gift). For Maureen, synesthesia is not an idle "brain tick" that can be explained away by science (although it does offer some important clues), but a unique and ineffable ability to tap into and reveal a greater creative universe and even the divine. Follow along with her as she takes you on her own personal "Eat, Pray, Love" of discovery, prompted by her often confounding yet always amazing experiences growing up with this gift.
Author: Maureen Seaberg
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN: 1601636679
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
“Explores a dimension of synesthesia long encountered in reports of synesthetes: its relation to mystical and artistic vision . . . fascinating accounts.”—Patricia Lynne Duffy, author of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens What happens when a journalist turns her lens on a mystery happening in her own life? Maureen Seaberg did just that and lived for a year exploring her synesthesia. The wondrous brain trait is often described as blended senses, but for Maureen, synesthesia is not an idle “brain tick” that can be explained away by science (although it does offer some important clues). It is a unique ability to tap into and reveal a greater creative universe and even the divine. Join her as she visits top neuroscientists, rock stars, violinists, other synesthetes, philosophers, savants, quantum physicists and even Tibetan lamas in her journey toward the truth. Step into Maureen’s shimmering alternate universe as she explores this fascinating subject, combining clear explanations of groundbreaking scientific research with an exploration of deeper spiritual truths. “Tasting the Universe is not only the brilliant writing of a top, professional journalist looking in on a strange but romantic phenomena, but it is the writing of a person who could embrace the feelings of those she interviews, because author Seaberg herself possesses this remarkable gift of synesthesia. I predict when you pick up this book, you will be unable to put it down, as it will open up for you a whole new world in our universe.”—The Amazing Kreskin
Author: Richard E. Cytowic
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461235421
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
Synesthesia comes from the Greek syn (meaning union) and aisthesis (sensation), literally interpreted as a joining of the senses. Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information from one sense is joined or accompanies a perception in another. Dr. Cytowic reports extensive research into the physical, psychological, neural, and familial background of a group of synesthets. His findings form the first complete picture of the brain mechanisms that underlie this remarkable perceptual experience. His research demonstrates that this rare condition is brain-based and perceptual and not mind-based, as is the case with memory or imagery. Synesthesia offers a unique and detailed study of a condition which has confounded scientists for more than 200 years.
Author: Natasha Lammers
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN:
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
Natasha Lammers is a life-long learner who believes that beautiful divine messages of hope that promote healing and comfort to the heart, should be shared with the world. In a collection of mini-lessons, Natasha offers compelling insight into her unique spiritual practice and related teachings [to help one transform one’s view from “self” to “whole”] through the understanding of one’s inter-existence, in order to find the answers to such existential questions as “Who am I?” and “What is the reason for my existence?”; while, intertwining her personal experiences with wisdom from her spiritual teachers and guides, as well as her insightful practices and personal challenges. Natasha leads the readers on their own spiritual journey toward an enlightening path inward to discover that it is they who have the power to transform their ordinary life into an extraordinary one. My Lemonade Lessons offers valuable insight and self-transformational practices gathered from one woman’s spiritual journey of self-exploration to help others discover themselves.
Author: Rodman Philbrick
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545303877
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
This fast-paced action novel is set in a future where the world has been almost destroyed. Like the award-winning novel Freak the Mighty, this is Philbrick at his very best.It's the story of an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz, who begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the planet. In a world where most people are plugged into brain-drain entertainment systems, Spaz is the rare human being who can see life as it really is. When he meets an old man called Ryter, he begins to learn about Earth and its past. With Ryter as his companion, Spaz sets off an unlikely quest to save his dying sister -- and in the process, perhaps the world.
Author: Judith Newton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1938314093
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
Tasting Home is the history of a woman’s emotional education, the romantic tale of a marriage between a straight woman and a gay man, and an exploration of the ways that cooking can lay the groundwork for personal healing, intimate relation, and political community. Organized by decade and by the cookbooks that shaped author Judith Newton’s life, Tasting Home takes readers on an extraordinary journey through the cuisines, cultural spirit, and politics of the 1940s through 2011, complete with recipes.
Author: Barb Stuckey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439190739
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
"The science of taste and how to improve your sense of taste so that you get the most out of every bite"--
Author: Richard E. Cytowic
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262250446
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation—and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human—a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.
Author: Gretel Ehrlich
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140109072
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Gretel Ehrlich’s world is one of isolation and wonder, of pain and grace, and these elements ignite her vivid imagination. She writes of ravens and elk and prairie dogs, and eagles falling out of the sky. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her "bridge to heaven." She captures a "light moving down a mountain slope." One evening there is a contrapuntal dance of death: a calf she has tried to save, and a friend and mentor both die. She remembers what a painter once told her when she was twelve years old, as he was painting her portrait: "You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that. If they are not there I try to mix them. Otherwise, the painting won’t be human." Through these explorations, in prose that is supple and muscular and evocative, Ehrlich begins to understand her own longings, her own nature, and the relatedness of her life to the universe. "A volume of ten deep, wandering essays that at times are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put down the book to settle yourself." -- Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle "Her essays, delicately combining interior and exterior exploration, are as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown... Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart." -- Andrea Barrett, The Cleveland Plain Dealers
Author: Mickey Huff
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609803582
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 497
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Book Description
Every year since 1976, Project Censored, our nation’s oldest news-monitoring group—a university-wide project at Sonoma State University founded by Carl Jensen, directed for many years by Peter Phillips, and now under the leadership of Mickey Huff—has produced a Top-25 list of underreported news stories and a book, Censored, dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship. Seven Stories Press has been publishing this yearbook since 1994, featuring the top stories listed democratically in order of importance according to students, faculty, and a national panel of judges. Each of the top stories is presented at length, alongside updates from the investigative reporters who broke the stories. Beyond the Top-25 stories, additional chapters delve further into timely media topics: The Censored News and Media Analysis section provides annual updates on Junk Food News and News Abuse, Censored Déjà Vu, signs of hope in the alternative and news media, and the state of media bias and alternative coverage around the world. In the Truth Emergency section, scholars and journalists take a critical look at the US/NATO military-industrial-media empire. And in the Project Censored International section, the meaning of media democracy worldwide is explored in close association with Project Censored affiliates in universities and at media organizations all over the world. A perennial favorite of booksellers, teachers, and readers everywhere, Censored is one of the strongest life signs of our current collective desire to get the news we citizens need—despite what Big Media tells us.
