Dreams • 2019 • episode "S1E2" • The Mind, Explained

10:20

Professor Shapiro shows us a range of objects that seem simple and unremarkable at first glance, but which on closer examination simply cannot be constructed in reality – or are not at all what they seem.

S1E7 • Illusions • 2017 • Brain

59:20

Imagine a world in which you can think but cannot speak. For many stroke survivors, like former football star Junior and landlord Barry, this nightmare is a reality. Inspired by the experience of his brother-in-law, filmmaker Richard Alwyn has made an intensely moving, personal film about language and its loss. Alwyn's brother-in-law, journalist Dennis Barker, had a stroke in 2011 which left him speaking a bizarre, fluent gibberish – just one manifestation of the condition ‘aphasia' in which people lose or have a severely impaired ability to use language. Speechless tells the powerful stories of two men who can no longer take language for granted. Much of the film is made on the Neuro Rehab Unit of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London's Queen Square. There, Alwyn meets 55 year old Barry who has been in hospital for 4 months since a stroke left him barely able to speak. Courageous and determined, Barry's personality constantly triumphs where his language fails. And two years after his stroke when just 35 years-old, former Premier League and international footballer Junior Agogo is still visiting the Unit as he battles to find his way in the world with depleted language. “I had thoughts but I'm saying, where was my voice? I was baffled, man.” Speechless raises questions that straddle philosophy and science. Can we understand the world if we don't have language to name and describe it? Can we think without language? How much is our identity wrapped up in language? These questions are at the heart of conversations that Alwyn has with clinicians and therapists working to get Barry and Junior back into the world. Speechless is fascinating and moving, upsetting and uplifting in its depiction of the isolating and estranging condition, aphasia.

2017 • Brain

57:40

Todd Sampson puts brain training to the test. A pioneer in the neuroplasticity revolution, Michael Merzenich, mentors Todd, showing him how to radically improve his cognition by turbocharging his thinking speed, attention and memory.

S1E1 • Redesign my brain • 2013 • Brain

58:24

We all like to think we are in control of our lives - of what we feel and what we think. But scientists are now discovering this is often simply an illusion. Surprising experiments are revealing that what you think you do and what you actually do can be very different. Your unconscious mind is often calling the shots, influencing the decisions you make, from what you eat to who you fall in love with. If you think you are really in control of your life, you may have to think again.

Brain

59:09

Roses are red, violets are blue but according to the latest understanding these colours are really an illusion. One that you create yourself. Horizon reveals a surprising truth about how we all see the world. You may think a rose is red, the sky is blue and the grass is green, but it now seems that the colours you see may not always be the same as the colours I see. Your age, sex and even mood can affect how you experience colours. Scientists have unlocked the hidden power that colours can have over your life - how red can make you a winner, how blue makes time speed up, and more.

Brain

24:59

So you say you love your computer or smartphone...but can it love you back? As we become more dependent on technology, and our technology becomes more lifelike, where does the line between human and computer lie? And what happens when our relationships become romantic? In this episode of Mind Field, I look into Artificial Intelligence.

S1E4 • Mind Field • 2017 • Brain