What is Reality?

David explains how the brain is tricked by the checker shadow illusion. What we see doesn’t necessarily match on to the reality beyond our senses.

David Eagleman experiences a new visual reality – with nauseating consequences. He experiences the enormous effort his brain goes to construct the world around him.

In the same way that the economy of a city doesn’t take place in one district, there is no single spot in the brain that works in isolation. The brain is a vast interconnected network of areas that are in constant communication with each other.

David invites subjects to recreate an experiment that demonstrates how much our brains leave out of our perception of reality. One brief look is enough for the brain to model a picture of the situation but just how detailed it that model?

Hannah describes her synesthesia, a reminder that person to person, and brain to brain, our experiences of reality can be quite different.

Why does time seem to slow down when we are in life-threatening situations? Wingsuit pilot Jeb Corliss describes his agonizing experience of time distortion, David explains what is happening in the brain.

Electrochemical signals travel through dense networks of neurons. The brain scans through this non-stop incoming stream of information in search for patterns which becomes your reality.