The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

'Nobody bewitched by these mysteries can afford to ignore the solution proposed by Mark Solms' - Oliver Burkeman, Guardian 'A remarkable book. It changes everything' - Brian Eno How does the mind connect to the body? Why does it feel like something to be us? For one of the boldest thinkers in neuroscience, solving this puzzle has been a lifetime's quest. Now at last, the man who discovered the brain mechanism for dreaming appears to have made a breakthrough. The very idea that a solution is at hand may seem outrageous. Isn't consciousness intangible, beyond the reach of science? Yet Mark Solms shows how misguided fears and suppositions have concealed its true nature. Stick to the medical facts, pay close attention to the eerie testimony of hundreds of neurosurgery patients, and a way past our obstacles reveals itself. Join Solms on a voyage into the extraordinary realms beyond. More than just a philosophical argument, The Hidden Spring will forever alter how you understand your own experience. There is a secret buried in the brain's ancient foundations: bring it into the light and we fathom all the depths of our being.

About the Author :
Mark Solms has spent his entire career investigating the mysteries of consciousness. Best known for identifying the brain mechanisms of dreaming and for bringing psychoanalytic insights into modern neuroscience, he is director of neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town, honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, and an honorary fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.

Review :
Nobody bewitched by these mysteries can afford to ignore the solution proposed by Mark Solms in The Hidden Spring ... fascinating, wide-ranging and heartfelt Rather extraordinary ... The thing about these rebel types is that, so much of the time, they're the ones most capable of making the wildest leaps. Not the patient, incremental advances of everyday science, but the world-historical, paradigm-shifting transformations in global consciousness. Or, in Solms' case, a new theory of consciousness itself ... One of the worthiest efforts to come out of neuroscience in recent memory Truly pioneering. This unification is clearly the direction for the future A remarkable book. It changes everything To say this work is encyclopaedic is to diminish its poetic, psychological and theoretical achievement. This is required reading Convincing ... As with all returns of the repressed, Solms's exhumation of psychoanalysis is sure to be unnerving, especially for those who want to deny Freud's lessons about the workings of desire If The Hidden Spring did all that it claims then it would be the greatest book on psychology of the past 100 years ... Readers who find hubris off-putting should nonetheless recognize that there are ideas here deserving of serious consideration ... Persuasive and important Readers who stick with it will be rewarded with interesting ideas about what it means to feel, think and be Important Intriguing ... If he is correct, the implications are substantial Fascinating and deeply affecting ... Solms argues that feelings, not cognition or perception, are the defining feature of consciousness An extraordinarily ambitious undertaking ... Solms is successful, to my mind It has come closer than anything else I have ever read to shining a light on a central facet of our humanity Mark Solms is a serious player in neuropsychology and has contributed serious insights into the mechanisms behind dreaming - returning, interestingly, a degree of lost credibility to Freud ... He posits that consciousness is a measure of our distance at any given point from homeostasis, and an index of the degree to which reality is failing at that instant to match our predictions. You are never more conscious, essentially, than when surveying the reality of life's hotel, with the brochure in one hand and a suitcase in the other Outstanding ... Solms has provided a valuable service with this bold, thorough, occasionally infuriating and always wildly ambitious book This treatment of consciousness and artificial sentience should be taken very seriously Takes aim at the biggest question there is. Solms will challenge your most basic beliefs Solms' vital work has never ignored the lived, felt experience of human beings. His ideas look a lot like the future to me At last the emperor has found some clothes! For decades, consciousness has been perceived as little more than an illusion. Solms takes a thrilling new approach, grounded in modern neurobiology but finding meaning in a fascinating reconception of the self Solms and his colleagues are making a brilliant, determined, scrupulous, and (one wants to say) tactful endeavour to approach, in a new way, the oldest question of them all - the mysterious relation of body and mind A scientific blockbuster