Original subtitles

A firewalker free of pain

by controlling his mental state,

a blind man able to create maps in his mind

by using the power of sound,

and a plane crash deep in the jungle,

where a single survivor was guided by an inner voice.

The human mind.

It is the home of all our thoughts, hopes,

dreams and memories.

The organ we call the brain not only keeps us alive,

it allows us to interpret and experience

the incredible world we live in.

But are there people who are wired differently

than most of us?

Can unique circumstances permit some

to tap into extrasensory abilities

that defy nature?

Or do we all have extraordinary mental skills

that can come to our rescue

with a power that we never knew we possessed?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Here, as they have for centuries,

villagers gather for an evening festival

to celebrate the summer solstice.

They engage in singing, dancing,

wearing elaborate costumes.

But for a select group of villagers,

the festivities aren't so conventional

because their evening also includes something

out of the ordinary--

a dangerous walk over fire.

Now, I've seen many fire walking rituals

in many different contexts in a variety of countries,

but I've never seen a fire as fierce as the one in San Pedro.

This is by far the most important event

in the life of this community.

They have this amphitheater around the,

the place where the actual fire is.

Then these men walk on the embers.

It's five or six steps from one side to the other,

and they do it barefoot

and usually carrying someone on their shoulder.

People often wonder, is the firewalk really hot?

And the answer is yes.

Once the wood is first laid out, the overall temperature

is between 1,000 and 1,200 degrees.

That's really hot--

more than enough to burn flesh, certainly.

So, imagine a carpet that is

20 feet across and several inches deep

and is burning at a temperature

that is hot enough to melt aluminum.

If you look at the temperatures involved,

you're typically talking temperatures

over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit,

and skin burns at 100, 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

Walking on fire is very, very dangerous.

I mean, you're barefoot.

Just one wrong move

and you can be severely burned.

People ask me all the time whether firewalkers

have any kind of special trick,

whether they're on some kind of special drug

that prevents them from feeling pain or getting burned.

The answer to all these is no.

There's no special trick.

Walking on fire,

and at temperatures hot enough to turn metal into liquid.

No one in their right mind would do this

and expect to emerge unharmed, right?

And yet the people of San Pedro Manrique

manage to do just that, and on a yearly basis.

But how?

Walking across hot embers is one of my favorite physics problems.

The trick is making sure the embers are hot enough

that you actually get a very thin but very real layer

of water vapor between your skin and the hot coals.

Some of these same firewalkers--

one day they walk across unscathed.

Another time they try it,

they do burn their feet.

My experience tells me,

the difference is in their mindset.

So, at my firewalks, once we've taken the group out to the fire

and we're getting ready to walk,

first I like to remind them again about their intention,

and this helps motivate them and get them across.

And then we raise people's energy

before a firewalk.

Firewalkers around the world--

regardless of tradition, religion--

they raise the group's energy before they walk.

So, this can be done with meditation, chanting,

singing, dancing.

Whatever the case, you want to get your group

into an excited, pumped-up state

before the firewalk.

There is absolutely something about being

in an excited, uplifted state

that helps you get across safely.

So, what actually happens

there psychologically is, there is this emotional buildup.

There's this highly intense arousal that's happening,

and so you have cortisol and other sort of endocrine hormones

flooding the system,

which will help to block some of the pain receptors.

Water vapor?

Mind control?

But can fire walking without pain or injury

really be just a simple matter of willpower?

Or does it require something even more?

We know we have the capability

to redirect pain or even to numb pain

just by putting ourselves in the right mindset,

but many of these firewalkers don't even have

blisters or burns on their feet, so when you look at physics,

that's impossible.

If you touch something that's hot,

you're going to get burned.

So the question is,

are we dealing with a magical force

that we have yet to fully understand?

So, in one study

with the San Pedro Spanish fire walking ritual,

a team of anthropologists

were curious what happens to a person's heart rate

for the individual who's actually walking

and for any individual who is close to them,

like a relative or a family member.

For this study my colleagues and I went to San Pedro

and used some devices that collected heart rate data,

and we placed those devices

not only on the firewalkers themselves

but also members of the audience.

And what we found is that the ritual itself

created an astonishing level of synchrony

in the heart rates of the participants.

The surprising part is that

you will still have a state of physiology

that's similar to the individual

as if you are walking over the coals,

when, in fact, of course you're not.

It is so much more than just an individual ritual.

It is a community experience.

Yes, it is technically possible

to cross a coal bed unharmed all by yourself,

but it is much easier to experience a firewalk

surrounded by people who are there to support you--

your family, your community.

Crossing barefoot over 1,000-degree coals

doesn't make any practical sense,

and even though I've personally crossed

hundreds and hundreds of coal beds,

I still don't perfectly understand

how and why it works like it does.

The ability to walk barefoot over open flames

and end up unharmed might be a perfect example

of mind over matter.

While it's clear that the human brain is capable

of shielding us from pain while under stress,

can the same be said if we lose one of our senses?

Perhaps clues can be found

in the story of a young boy

who was born blind and developed the ability to see

using the power of sound.

Two-year-old Daniel Kish,

just one year after having both eyes removed due to cancer,

sneaks out of his crib to explore his family's backyard.

Far from being fearful or afraid,

Daniel is as confident as he is curious

because at just two years old,

he has developed an ability called echolocation,

which allows him to see by using his ears.

For those of us that study sensory systems,

Daniel Kish is a rock star.

He is clearly the most studied human

that actively echolocates.

So, he will emit sounds himself.

These sounds will go and bounce off objects

and come back to his own ears,

and these noises provide him information

on distance to a target, what that target might actually be,

how dense it is, how light it might be,

its shape.

I've been able to echolocate for as long as I can remember,

and for me it was as natural as breathing.

It was just my way of seeing.

I didn't really know it was echolocation per se.

I just knew that I was aware of my surroundings

and that I could function with that awareness.

It was just sort of part of the process of learning to see,

which is very much what sighted kids actually do

as they begin to calibrate their vision.

After that, it was just sort of normal.

It was just a matter of course to click and scan

and find things and not really be afraid of what was out there.

For most of us, if you've ever had

any experience with echolocation,

it's probably when you've been told

about how bats work, right?

Bats emit a sound.

The sound bounces off objects and then comes back to them,

so they can actually determine how far away an object is,

what its size and shape may be, and so forth.

And what Daniel's done is, he's taken this idea

and basically turned it into something

that humans can actually use.

Without ultrasonic hearing,

without all of the advantages that bats have evolved,

humans are somehow able to do this,

and relatively easily.

So, how? Why?

I believe that we can do this because we always have.

We've been doing it since man was prey and not predator,

since we had to hide in the dark.

So we don't have to develop these systems from scratch.

All we have to do is turn them on.

By making clicking sounds

and then listening to how those sounds reverberate

off what's around him,

Daniel is able to create a virtual picture

of his surroundings with astonishing accuracy.

Neurobiologically,

I think this speaks to something

that we call sensory substitution.

That his visual cortex has been appropriated, if you like,

because it's not receiving visual information.

Daniel's rare ability

has made him the world's foremost echolocator,

but there are some in the scientific community

who question the extraordinary nature of Daniel's ability.

They argue that it's more likely that Daniel

is simply making lucky guesses

when he claims to sense his environment.

But for Daniel, there's no question.

He sees a map in his mind.

And what's more...

...he can prove it.

Even though he's never seen,

he's clearly using his echolocation skills

to construct some sort of map of the visual world,

although he doesn't have any experience

with the visual world the way someone that's sighted does.

When I visit a new place,

I basically just look around,

and for me that involves, of course,

using my sense of echolocation

to scope out the environment.

I start out with what's most distinctive, what stands out,

uh, what's most unique, uh, what seems to define the space.

Essentially, it resolves into what I call

"three-dimensional fuzzy geometry,"

so all of these features sort of coalesce

into an actual image.

Mapping it is part of the process.

Drawing is a way of sharing

what my relationship with the environment is.

It's a way of giving people a peek into my head.

So, you've got a house here--

that's the most relevant feature.

There's a parked vehicle of some kind there,

and then trees.

And then, just as I got to about here,

I was able immediately to tell, "Okay, this has got to be

some sort of a patio area or maybe a grotto."

And then, as I rounded the area,

this tree line became very obvious,

that bounds one edge of the garden.

Daniel often says that, you know,

he can see these things in his mind,

and skeptics would say, "Oh, that's impossible.

"He must be hearing sounds

"or just making calculations and guesses

that just happen to be true,"

but he's actually able to prove it.

He's actually able to draw what he sees in his mind...

...and it's accurate.

I am a person who is naturally curious.

I've been an explorer since I got out of my crib

and started wandering around.

It didn't really occur to me that,

"Oh, but wait, I no longer have eyes."

My interest is in understanding the world,

knowing about the world,

and sharing whatever it is I think I've learned

about the world with others

to the extent that others may benefit from that.

It's not about seeing or not seeing.

It's about knowing.

It's about understanding and it's about sharing.

Daniel's incredible ability

to make his way through the world

is truly a "sight" to behold.

But how did he unlock such an unusual

and powerful sensory ability?

Perhaps clues can be found in the stories

of ordinary people...

...who experienced traumatic events and saved lives

by tapping into a superhuman strength.

High above the city,

22-year-old Brad Guy

is excited to make his first skydiving jump.

The self-professed adrenaline junkie

wants to push the limits,

but he'll soon find that this is going to be

the fall of his life.

I was given the opportunity

to choose which height I wanted to jump from,

and I decided to go as high as possible,

which was 15,000 feet.

Very high.

So, my tandem instructor ran me through

how it would feel to jump and what I need to do

to ensure maximum safety.

Then he asked me if I had any final questions.

I think because I was so nervous,

I made the joke saying,

"I hope my parachute opens."

I remember when that rickety door of the aircraft opened,

and my instructor just edging me closer and closer,

I was so terrified.

And eventually my instructor said,

"Three, two, one, jump," and he pushed us out.

I was moving so fast that I couldn't even comprehend.

Just that four, five, seven seconds of free fall.

It's totally euphoric. It's indescribable.

- It's kind of like magic. -When a skydiver

jumps out of a plane, they're accelerated by gravity,

at a rate of 32 feet per second, per second.

His speed would have been upwards over 100 miles per hour.

Brad's skydive is an even greater thrill

than he expected.

But as he and his instructor plunge toward the ground,

something goes horribly awry.

There just was this point when, as we're falling,

I was expecting a thrust of a parachute to come

as per the safety instructions, and it never came.

I felt a bit of a thrust, uh, from a parachute,

but it wasn't enough to slow us down.

And that's when I noticed that the first parachute,

it's been deployed but it hasn't opened.

And the emergency parachute got stuck

in the original parachute.

And because they're tangled together,

we're not slowing down.

We were tumbling toward the ground from 15,000 feet.

I start freaking out. I'm really panicking.

All I could really see was the earth

getting closer and closer.

And I knew I was going to hit the ground and die.

The impact just smashed through my body.

It really didn't feel like a fall.

It almost felt like the earth just came and hit me.

And when I hit the ground,

I'm still strapped to my instructor.

He's unconscious.

Eventually, he did come to.

We were just strapped to each other, screaming.

I remember I was just hysterically crying,

so confused, having no idea what had happened.

Partially still thinking that I was actually dead.

Against all odds, the two men survive a fall

of nearly three miles.

Brad and his instructor are rushed to the hospital,

where they both begin a long and miraculous recovery.

My physical injuries-- I broke my upper spine,

fractured my lower spine, tore the ligaments in my neck,

cracked and bruised ribs, mild head concussion.

I had suspected that I was a quadriplegic.

I was numb from the neck down.

It took me a long time to feel my body again.

You would think that, after all these years

and all the time I've had to reflect on it,

that I would be able to look at the situation

and seriously ask myself,

"Was this luck, or is it just all the odds

being in my favor on a particular day?"

I don't know. I don't know.

I would love to know.

Sometimes, when humans face extreme danger,

the normal parts of our operating brain

kind of get pushed aside,

and the sympathetic nervous system kicks in

and can institute an adrenaline rush into the body,

which can do some amazing things.

It forces blood into the muscles

and pumps them up and becomes hard

to strengthen and protect

your skeletal system and connective tissue.

Was a surge of adrenaline

responsible for protecting Brad's body

from the extreme impact?

Or was there something even more incredible going on?

Perhaps an explanation can be found

by examining another case of survival.

One that involves an extraordinary feat

performed by an ordinary man.

Tom Boyle, a supervisor at a local aerospace company,

is driving home with his wife.

The couple are about to exit a parking lot

when another car pulls alongside them.

What happens next actually changes Tom

in ways that seem to defy the very laws of nature.

The driver,

he had taken upon himself to peel out

out of the parking lot, and as he did that,

he sucked in, uh, a bicyclist underneath the vehicle.

I jump out of the car, I go running after the Camaro.

And as I approached the Camaro,

there was a boy underneath on a bicycle

yelling for help and asking people

to please get the car off him.

I just reacted.

As the boy's cries ring out,

Tom has no time to think.

A powerful force comes alive inside him.

A force that allows Tom to do the impossible.

It just got me so...

I guess, nervous, and, uh, compelled to help

that I just lifted the side of the car.

As I start lifting the car, I can hear the bicyclist

telling me, "Higher, higher, mister,

please, go higher," so I did.

I just held it as long as I possibly could,

and I just thought, "Don't let go."

And fortunately, we got him out.

I'm six-three. At that time, I was 275 pounds and, uh,

the most I've ever lifted, I think, was...

...800 pounds?

As I lifted the car,

I never thought about how much it weighed.

I just thought about saving this kid.

Now, Tom's a big guy.

Solid guy.

But we're talking about a car, okay?

This is a car that weighs about 3,000 pounds,

and yet he just jacks it up.

Bare hands, lifts this thing up.

Human beings can't normally just lift cars.

These situations where people manage to do

superhuman feats of strength, like lift a car off someone,

as often happens in science, these are rare events.

We don't have detailed measurements.

And so, really understanding

the true biophysics and physiology

of all the details that go in

remain a bit of a mystery and an interesting area

for us to explore going forward.

We don't use most of our muscles' capability

throughout the day.

It's capable of much more,

but for some reason, only under these extreme circumstances.

If we can learn how to control our minds

and use it at will,

that would be like being a superhuman, a superhero.

That will, that power,

is being driven both not only by the adrenaline

but more importantly, it's that energy.

It's that type of thing in China that's called fa jin,

"animal explosive energy."

It's a burst of absolute decision.

It's that unknown, that unexplained,

energetic place that we all know about, we talk about it,

we have feelings and vibes about these things.

So, this was a once- in-a-lifetime moment for me.

I've never done anything else like this again.

I think you can tap into some amazing power.

I truly do. It's there.

We just have to have a reason to use it.

So, where does this sudden surge

of incredible strength come from?

Is it something special and rare?

Or is it simply adrenaline

and an untapped ability that exists within all of us?

Perhaps the answers lie in the chaos

surrounding another life-and-death scenario,

and the surprising circumstances

of an extraordinary rescue.

Banker Annette Herfkens, her fiancé

and 29 other passengers board a small plane

and head to the coastal town of Nha Trang for a vacation.

But what is supposed to be a short, routine flight...

...is about to turn into a nightmare.

When I saw the plane,

I didn't want to enter it because it was awfully small.

I was-- I am very claustrophobic,

and-and it's... I said,

"There's no way I'm entering that plane."

"I'm not gonna go in there.

It looks old, but mostly small."

And my fiancé said, "Well, don't worry.

"Don't-- you have to, it's only 55 minutes,

"and do it for us, 'cause I have this beautiful vacation planned

"and I knew you were gonna speak up about it,

but please, please do it."

And then we entered from the back of the plane.

So, we sat down,

um, we were told to buckle our seat belts,

and they were going across.

And then, I was restrained enough as it is,

and I did not buckle my seat belt.

And the flight took off.

For the next 30 minutes,

I just kept counting the minutes,

and the 50th minute, there was a...

gigantic drop.

And people were screaming,

and my fiancé looked at me and said,

"Well, this I don't like."

And then, another drop.

More people screaming. And he reached for my hand

and I reached for his, and then everything went black.

I woke up to this eerie sound of the jungle.

The plane broke in three pieces: the wings,

the fuselage and the cockpit.

Then I looked at my left and there I saw my fiancé

still strapped in his seat.

He was dead.

In shock,

grief-stricken and with her legs and hips broken,

Annette painfully pulls herself out of the wreckage...

...only to find that every passenger on board

has perished, except her.

It all seems impossible.

In this plane crash, Annette was the only survivor.

Of 31 people, she's the only one that survived.

Did it have to do with just the randomness

of her being in the right seat

that hit the ground in just the right place

that had just the right structural integrity

based on how they crashed?

Or could it be something else?

Miles from civilization, injured and alone,

Annette finds herself in an unbearable predicament.

But somehow, from somewhere deep inside her,

she finds a way to survive.

I would just be quiet...

...and listen to my instinct.

I just listened to that voice and I acted on it.

And it said, "Make a plan,

"divide it in achievable steps.

"And when you achieve one of those steps,

congratulate yourself."

That's exactly what I did.

I realized that I was gonna need some water.

So, I looked at the wing of the plane.

Insulation material was some kind of foam.

So, I figured that could work as a sponge.

And then, I made seven little bowls

and I lined them up for it to rain.

And then it rained, and it poured.

Then I was very happy to see

these little bowls filling up with water.

Tasted like the best champagne that you can imagine.

She was able to survive the plane crash,

but maybe what was even more remarkable

is that she was able to survive eight days in the jungle...

...with no prior jungle training or experience

and no conditioning to be in the jungle.

On the afternoon on the eighth day, out of nowhere...

...men came up the mountain...

Hey, hey, hey!

...and they showed me a passenger list,

and I had to point out my name.

I just realized how amazing it was

that they actually found me.

It may have been random chance

that allowed Annette to live through the horrific crash...

...but what was the so-called "voice"

that gave her the guidance she needed to survive?

Is it some kind of deep-seated

electro-biochemical, uh, force

that's-that's innate in the brain

that suddenly gets activated?

Or is it something that comes from outside?

Is it faith from an outside power

that brings that energy to the person

who's in desperate need?

Whether or not you view yourself as strong and capable,

you have the potential to tap into these things

and get in tune with these strengths,

with these capabilities, whether you know it or not.

We all have that voice inside of us

that we can listen to,

and in extreme situations, it's always there to help you.

Just listen to that voice.

Be silent. It's there, it's there.

38-year-old Steven Pete

attends to his Sunday chores, like yard work and cooking

and tinkering with several projects in his basement.

All the same things that any person might do on a weekend.

But for Steven,

he has to do all this far more carefully

than the average person, because for him,

doing household chores

is more than just a series of tasks.

It's actually dangerous.

I was born with a rare genetic condition

called congenital analgesia.

At the time, that was the name given to it.

Uh, now it's called congenital insensitivity to pain.

So, uh, I can't feel any pain at all.

A life free of pain?

Sounds like something many of us would pay dearly for.

But for people like Steven,

death or severe injury lurks around every corner.

My parents first noticed something was different

when I was teething and I chewed off half my tongue.

That definitely alarmed them to, uh, something serious going on,

so they took me to my pediatrician,

who, uh, did a couple of tests and determined that,

more than likely, I didn't feel pain.

They ran needles up and down my spine,

uh, poked my feet a couple places.

I still didn't elicit a negative response,

a painful response.

Steven's gruesome injury provides a stark reminder

that while most people probably don't think of pain as a sense,

it may actually be the most important sense of all.

Congenital analgesia is an inherited form

of insensitivity to pain.

"Congenital" means it runs in the family,

and "analgesia" means that you don't feel pain.

You have no feeling of pain whatsoever.

It's some form of mutation in a gene

that's essential for pain perception.

When people first hear that I don't feel pain,

they think it is the greatest thing in the whole world.

They're like, "Wow, you got a superpower."

But my childhood was spending

good chunks of time in the hospital.

I'd stay anywhere between, like, four months

to maybe a year and a half, which isn't normal.

It's an extremely problematic condition.

Pain protects us from self-harm,

and it's often the first sign of disease.

So people who are pain-free often die very young.

It's actually rather amazing

that he's made it through life as far as he has.

I mean, the classic example we would always hear about

is learning not to touch things that are hot.

Pain alerts us when we're doing something

in the external world

that doesn't make sense and we should stop.

The one thing that I really have to keep an eye on

is probably whenever I'm engaged in, like, a physical activity

that's a little bit strenuous, like doing yard work.

It's stuff like that where I can injure myself

and not immediately realize it,

that can cause serious repercussions down the road.

When we think about senses,

we always think about the classic five senses.

Sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing.

One thing that's really interesting, though,

is we basically have another sense,

which is our pain, our sense of pain.

We often just reject that as, "Well, that's just touch,"

but that negates or doesn't think about

the internal pains we often feel,

whether it's headaches or stomachaches

or sore muscles, which really isn't quite touch.

Pain is another sense.

It's a sense. We call it nociception.

It's conveyed by specific kinds of nerves

that get activated when, for instance,

we might touch a hot stove or cut ourselves.

What's interesting is,

the brain can regulate pain dramatically,

but the basic drive that causes pain

is from the peripheral nerves.

The nerves that send information into the brain don't work

in congenital analgesia patients.

This loss of pain is caused by malfunctions

in a very small number of genes that are extremely rare.

One of them is involved in signaling

in the peripheral nerves.

It's called Nav1.7.

It's a protein that's called a sodium channel.

It's like an electrical switch.

And if that protein doesn't function properly,

then you can become pain-free.

Since Steven doesn't feel pain,

it begs the question, what does he feel instead?

It's difficult for me to try to explain,

but even though I don't feel physical pain,

what I can feel is heat,

cold, touch, just like every other person.

What I do feel is probably a byproduct of pain,

is, like, these impulses, almost like a nerve firing.

Since 2012,

I've had the opportunity of being able to participate

in a couple of studies with different universities.

I spent a good portion of my childhood in the hospital,

and during those stays,

it was usually with people who felt pain,

and seeing people, especially that young,

who are going through such painful experiences,

that's really what prompted me

to sign up for a lot of these studies

when I was approached.

And the overall goal in a lot of these studies is

to try and create a non-narcotic painkiller,

because the opioid crisis

that our country is facing is one

that other nations are facing, as well.

So, I've been asked quite a lot,

with all these studies I've been participating in,

if I had the chance to feel pain,

if they could figure out what activates

or deactivates that switch,

would I myself want to feel pain?

Um, and my answer is just "no."

And that's only because I've damaged my body so much

throughout my entire life

that if I were to feel pain right now,

I'd just be in a constant state of pain all the time.

Not only do I have a bad knee,

but my back is a little bit messed up,

so, my quality of life would just be low,

and there's no way I could live like that.

The ability to feel pain is essential

to our very survival.

But are there other senses in addition to familiar ones--

like touch or sight--

that go beyond our common understanding

of what humans are capable of?

Do we all possess

an extrasensory perception?

As we continue to study the human mind,

will we one day be able

to reveal certain extrasensory abilities?

For millennia, there have been people

who could sense an invisible presence,

whether it be a deceased loved one,

a spiritual energy, or even something more sinister.

While it may sound a bit "ooga booga,"

a study published by scientists from Caltech in 2019 suggests

that humans can not only detect energy fields.

They can also sense the magnetic field of the Earth.

The human brain has a lot

of phenomenon going on inside it

that uses electromagnetic charges and electric fields.

And if you change the magnetic field around your brain,

it will impact what's going on inside your brain.

So, small magnetic fields are most certainly detectable.

We just may not realize we're detecting them.

It wouldn't surprise me in any way

if there aren't aspects of brain function

that we are completely unaware of at the moment,

that we'll become aware of later

when we understand more about how the brain actually works.

Since it's already been proven

that humans have more than five senses,

could there really be something to the notion

that we have the potential

to sense the world around us

in what some would consider bizarre or even mystical ways?

According to some researchers, the answer is yes,

and as evidence, they point

to an incredible phenomenon known as paroptic vision.

Paroptic vision was first proposed

by a surrealist writer called René Daumal,

who, as a teenager, practiced seeing color

through his fingertips.

So he'd put different colored handkerchiefs inside a box,

and then he'd test

to see if he could tell what color the handkerchief was.

That sounds quite fringe, but I've done some experiments.

It's a rare ability, but I did find one person

who was able to detect the colors

through the fingertips.

I can't explain it, but she could detect color,

with 80% reliability, through her fingertips.

It's been discovered

that the skin has opsins embedded in them,

and opsins help the body calibrate

to circadian rhythms, to 24-hour rhythms.

So it's not too much of a stretch

to think how opsins could not just detect light,

but they could also detect color.

Many people believe

that there are mysterious ways of sensing things

that don't involve the traditional senses.

And I believe that there's a perfectly reasonable expectation

that may perhaps be true.

We don't really understand how the brain works at all.

As incredible as it is to discover new senses,

it's also a little unsettling.

Because if our brain is just using our senses

to constantly try and guess what reality is,

then how are we to know

when it guesses wrong instead of right?

I like to think of perception

as a kind of controlled hallucination,

because there's no light in the skull,

there's no sound in the skull.

All you've got to go on as a brain

are these noisy and ambiguous sensory signals.

Signals don't come with labels--

"I'm from a coffee cup," or "I'm from a cat."

This is why, for instance, if you look up at the sky,

and there's some fluffy clouds, sometimes you might see faces.

Reality is not quite as real as people think.

We are often told that something looks red

because it reflects more red wavelengths.

But there's no such thing as red wavelengths.

Color is not a property of objects.

It's a property of brains.

It's simply the wonder

that our brain is creating all of this,

and that we can agree on so much.

Perception is about representing the world

and the body and the self

in the way that's most useful for the organism.

So if you see a color, that's not right or wrong.

Color is where the brain meets the universe

in a way that's useful for us.

I think we can all agree, reality exists.

We think, therefore, something exists.

But what it is

and how we will know what it is, is fun to explore.

It's thrilling to think

that we may, one day, witness the next step

in human evolution

by unlocking our so-called extrasensory abilities.

Could things like pain management,

physical strength and even the potential

to heal ourselves be functions that already exist within us?

As we learn more about the power of mind over matter,

perhaps the answers will become second nature.

But for now, the extraordinary capabilities

of the human brain remain...

unexplained.

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