Neuropsychology Quotes

“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Our dreams and stories may contain implicit aspects of our lives even without our awareness. In fact, storytelling may be a primary way in which we can linguistically communicate to others—as well as to ourselves—the sometimes hidden contents of our implicitly remembering minds. Stories make available perspectives on the emotional themes of our implicit memory that may otherwise be consciously unavailable to us. This may be one reason why journal writing and intimate communication with others, which are so often narrative processes, have such powerful organizing effects on the mind: They allow us to modulate our emotions and make sense of the world.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“Each of us needs periods in which our minds can focus inwardly. Solitude is an essential experience for the mind to organize its own processes and create an internal state of resonance. In such a state, the self is able to alter its constraints by directly reducing the input from interactions with others. (p. 235)”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“At the most basic level, therefore, secure attachments in both childhood and adulthood are established by two individual's sharing a nonverbal focus on the energy flow (emotional states) and a verbal focus on the information-processing aspects (representational processes of memory and narrative) of mental life. The matter of the mind matters for secure attachments.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“Psychopathy is like sunlight. Overexposure can hasten one’s demise in grotesque, carcinogenic fashion. But regulated exposure at controlled and optimal levels can have a significant positive impact on well-being and quality of life.”
― Kevin Dutton, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success

“Internal mental experience is not the product of a photographic process. Internal reality is in fact constructed by the brain as it interacts with the environment in the present, in the context of its past experiences and expectancies of the future. At the level of perceptual categorizations, we have reached a land of mental representations quite distant from the layers of the world just inches away from their place inside the skull. This is the reason why each of us experiences a unique way of minding the world. (pp. 166-167)”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“Leaving out appraisal also would render the biological description of the phenomena of emotion vulnerable to the caricature that emotions without an appraisal phase are meaningless events. It would be more difficult to see how beautiful and amazingly intelligent emotions can be, and how powerfully they can solve problems for us.”
― Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain

“How dare a person tell a woman, how to dress, how to talk, how to behave! Any being who does that, is no human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality

“...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person's life.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

“Call it order, call it chaos, it’s all in the brain.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mission Reality

“...he approached these faces— even of those near and dear—as if they were abstract puzzles or tests. He did not relate to them, he did not behold. No face was familiar to him, seen as a ‘thou’, being just identified as a set of features, an ‘it’. Thus, there was formal, but no trace of personal, gnosis. And with this went his indifference, or blindness, to expression. A face, to us, is a person looking out—we see, as it were, the person through his persona, his face.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

“I had stopped at a florist on my way to his apartment and bought myself an extravagant red rose for my buttonhole. Now I removed this and handed it to him. He took it like a botanist or morphologist given a specimen, not like a person given a flower. About six inches in length,’ he commented. ‘A convoluted red form with a linear green attachment.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

“It’s just like the eating,’ she explained. ‘I put his usual clothes out, in all the usual places,
and he dresses without difficulty, singing to himself. He does everything singing to himself. But if he is interrupted and loses the thread, he comes to a complete stop, doesn’t know his clothes—or his own body. He sings all the time—eating songs, dressing songs, bathing songs, everything. He can’t do anything unless he makes it a song.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

“As all fields of human knowledge depend on the functioning of the brain, there is nothing to prevent the application of neuropsychology to disciplines such as economics, aesthetics, pedagogy, theology, etc.”
― Paolo Legrenzi, Neuromania: On the limits of brain science

“There is nothing supernatural about visions - or to be more accurate, contrary to traditional belief, it's not messages from some extraterrestrial domain. Visions are indeed messages from a mysterious realm alright, but like the everyday realm of human perception, the transcendental realm as well is creation of brain chemicals. I won't go into details here, as I already did that in my early days. One of my earliest works, Autobiography of God, contains a detailed analytical account of the neurobiology of transcendental experiences. However, the question is not whether there is an explanation, the question is, is it worth explaining! Because, while sometimes the lack of explanation facilitates superstition, some things are better left unexplained - such as, love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“Neurons giveth,
neurons taketh away.
By neurons we forge self,
with neurons we fade away.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“We are the makers of observable reality, shaped by hopes and biases of our own.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Unlike the West, the “true self” is not created over time but discovered7, which is why Daoist and Zen writings may refer to it as “original nature.” Our original nature is a primordial melody, and to hear it, one must silence all the extraneous noise.”
― Aldrich Chan PSY.D., 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“53. The 9-mile-long river called Rio Celeste (“Celestial River”) in Costa Rica is a perfect metaphor for the harmonious interaction between the original self and the narrative self. While the original self carries the potential (aluminosilicate), it is in interaction with the narrative self that allows it to be realized.”
― Aldrich Chan PSY.D., 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“Every free choice collapses an infinite set of other choices that could be made. In fact, one reason people suffer is precisely this sacrifice. We cannot be everything all at once, and once we choose a way of being, the only direction left is forward. We have to take responsibility for our becoming. Every choice made leads to a meeting with an alternate self, why not consider one over another? When we choose, we also sacrifice”
― Aldrich Chan PSY.D., 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“Every free choice collapses an infinite set of other choices that could be made. In fact, one reason people suffer is precisely this sacrifice. We cannot be everything all at once, and once we choose a way of being, the only direction left is forward. We have to take responsibility for our becoming. Every choice made leads to a meeting with an alternate self, why not consider one over another? When we choose, we also sacrifice”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“Wisdom occurs when intelligence and experience combine into an effective and coherent spontaneous expression.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“87. A clear mirror reflects all things in the world, whether they are judged as “unpleasant,” or “beautiful.” “Unpleasant” things do not damage mirrors. A mirror does not cling to the images it reflects, once something is out of view, no trace is left behind.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“A clear mirror reflects all things in the world, whether they are judged as “unpleasant,” or “beautiful.” “Unpleasant” things do not damage mirrors. A mirror does not cling to the images it reflects, once something is out of view, no trace is left behind.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“To be spontaneous does not mean to simply express any urge and indulge every desire. That would be impulsivity. Impulsivity neglects complexity and context, whereas spontaneity considers them.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“Rather than a linear evolutionary progression, the trajectory is like a spiral, the end eventually incorporates the beginning, though it also extends beyond it. One unlearns to learn, and by letting go we gain.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“From another perspective, death is necessary to sustain the living. In our everyday lives, cells die; indeed, their death is necessary for life. Apoptosis, or selective cell death, is a developmental process that occurs throughout our lives especially in the initial stages. One of the primary risk factors of developing autism is the failure of apoptosis. This is also reflected psychologically; as we get older there are behaviors that must “die” before new psychological structures and behaviors can emerge. Alternatively, too much life can bring death. In adulthood, cells continue to proliferate, and when there is not the added component of death or apoptosis, cancer emerges.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“When the conceptual world of the intellect acts as a gravity well, it collapses the present moment into duality, which is not the actual nature of experience. We start to live farther away from the facts, resulting in a narrowing of vision, further concealing truths that may not benefit from being hidden.”
― Aldrich Chan, 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed and How We Return

“Neuroscience is poetry.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace