Getting Inside Your Head

A new study suggests that religious people who believe that God can take over their minds and cause them to “speak in tongues” are at least correct that those in such a state are not fully in control of their own brains at the time. Another study proves that brains can like ice cream. “These studies play with the ticklish notion that our brain mediates all of our inner experience�whether we’re angry, or in love, or enjoying a vanilla ice-cream cone. Every feeling can be expressed in patterns of neural activity spread out on a computer screen. But does the specific pattern associated with enjoying ice cream tell us anything new�about the brain, or ice cream, or ourselves?”