Author(s): Wellcome Foundation

Brain & Neuroscience

The meaning of consciousness, the mechanics of the mind and otherworldly transition or disrupted states - such as trance, sleep-walking, amnesia and locked-in syndrome - are perennially fascinating issues. The subjects of many studies by ponderous philosophers and clinical psychologists, these issues and experiences have also sparked the creative imagination of numerous artists, literary writers, pulp sci-fi authors and Hollywood scriptwriters. States of Mind is an anthology of prose, poetry, real-life accounts and visual interpretations of liminal and disrupted states of consciousness. Key topic themes include the mind-body problem, artificial consciousness, synaesthesia, dreams, nightmares, sleep paralysis, somnambulism, aphasia, amnesia, anaesthesia and being buried alive. The 100+ entries span five centuries and include works by Jane Austen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Arthur Conan Doyle, Francis Crick, Rene Descartes, Emily Dickinson, H L Gold, Franz Kafka, H P Lovecraft, Marcel Proust, Mary Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, Alan Turing, H G Wells and Emile Zola.