How a Disrupted Brain Operation can Change your View of Reality

We often get our best view of how the brain operates when that operation is disrupted. That is why neuroscientists sometimes use disrupted brain operation deliberately. Brian is part of an experiment being conducted by Alyssa Brewer at the University of California.

Volunteers wear these goggles for weeks at a time. Their brains are forced to cope with a new view of the world that is dramatically altered. This visual distortion creates a disrupted brain.

Alyssa Brewer “What these have inside are two prisms that take the whole visual world and flip it. So whatever you see normally on the left side of the world will now be on the right side of the world.

So as you move through the world, you’re going to have a problem figuring out where things are as you see them on one side but reach for them on the opposite side.”

A Mental Mash Up

What the world looks like is this, but what I’m seeing… is this. It is a straightforward change, but it’s also a massive mind mash. The visual data streaming in through my eyes mo longer makes any intuitive sense, and I’m struggling. My disrupted brain is making little sense of my reality.

So, because the world is left-right flipped, I know cognitively that I am supposed to reach out in the other direction, but, of course, I have had a lifetime of training telling me to reach out in a particular direction. So I feel like this is going to take a little getting used to.

Alyssa Brewer “Can you see my hand in your visual field?”

Yeah, so it looks like if I reach out this way…

Even though I’m consciously trying to get it right… I can’t help but respond in a certain way.

Disrupted Brain Operation

Of course, this is all new to me, but Brian has been wearing his goggles for a week. So how well has his brain adapted?

Alyssa Brewer “It is very difficult to figure out which way to go, so his motor system, his feeling of touchis sending him one direction while his visual system is sending him in the other direction.”

Brian is doing well. Unlike me. I have to consciously reconstruct my reality. This morning, my brain could rely on automated interactions, but now it can’t.

Interestingly, I’ve broken out in a sweat. And, i’m hot, and I’m feeling super-dizzy and nauseated.

Alyssa Brewer “We’re going to go to the maze down here and see how you guys do in navigating your way through a spatial map.”

So, how do I get as good as Brian? Well, it happens intuitively. Just look at my hands. I cross-reference what I see with what I can touch.

In fact, all my senses come into play. This is what Brian has been doing for the last seven days. The result is that his brain is now starting to decode that new visual input automatically.

Brian is not simply getting better at making conscious adjustments - his whole reality is changing.

Brain Training

Alyssa Brewer “If you take those subjects and put goggles on them for two weeks, you find that it takes them about a week to start behaving normally.

They start being able to figure out how to interact with the world, constructing a new reality around them, a new way of dealing with these incoming perceptions.

Alyssa Brewer

They say that initially they can tell there is a new left and an old left, a new right and an old right. By about a week in, they even lose the concept of which right and left were the old ones and the new ones. It is like their whole spatial map of the world is altering.

By two weeks in, they will write well, read without a problem, do all of our walking tasks and reaching tasks. Then when we remove their goggles, it actually takes about a day to go back to normal behaviour.”

When we alter the image of our world our disrupted brain has to work extra hard to correct our normal perception.

What this exposes for me is how much effort the brain goes through to construct our world, because normally you’re walking through the world and it feels like ther’s reality out there. But in fact there is so much work happening behind the scenes to allow that reality to happen.

Seeing requires an intensive training programme, but new recruits come on board every day. We call them babies.

A Baby’s Viewpoint

When babies reach out to touch what’s in front of them, they are not just learning what an object feels like, they’re learning how to see. They’re establishing pathways in the brain that will be used for the rest of their lives. Because vision is a whole-body experience.

The data coming in from our eyes only means something if we can cross-reference it.

If from birth you weren’t able to interact with the world, if you couldn’t work out through feedback what the sensory information meant, in theory, you would never be able to see.

When we become adults, this cross-referencing of our senses continues. It continues throughout our lives.

What we touch influences how we see. Our sense of smell can alter or perception of taste. Our sight informs how we hear. Our senses depend upon each other.

By comparing these streams of data we build our reality. Interweaving all of the data from all of our senses creates our reality.
How we use our Sensory Data Information Timing to Construct Our Reality will determine our view of life.