The Phantom Mind

A fascinating exploration of sleep paralysis that reveals the inner workings of the human brain.

From a leading Harvard sleep researcher.

At the transition between wakefulness and REM sleep, the dream and waking worlds sometimes collide. Cinematic visions of REM spill over into conscious awakening, which can sometimes feel like a nightmare on steroids. As if being paralyzed when awake weren’t chilling enough, people across the world encounter terrifying bedroom intruders—witches, demons, aliens, vampires, and even gigantic cats.

In The Phantom Mind, Harvard neuroscientist Baland Jalal explains that these apparitions are a result of the brain’s prediction machine making sense of the impossible, filling in the gaps to construct a new reality. One of the world’s foremost researchers of sleep paralysis, he sees it as a window into our brain’s wider functions. Our minds create the dream world and populate it with our own creations—the way we make sense of sleep paralysis and dreams tells us much about our sense of self and of others. Going further, Jalal shows how it is this point on the edge of dreams, stretching the imagination like no other, that enables great artists and thinkers to have their most profound revelations.

Packed with fascinating stories from his research all around the world, the author explains how our expectations and cultures shape the visions we bring to life. Ultimately, he reveals how the activity of tiny wisps of protoplasm in the brain gives rise to consciousness and makes us so uniquely human.