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By Root 474 0

Controlled processes tend to use linear step-by-step logic and are deliberately employed, and we are aware of them when we use them. Automatic processes operate unconsciously, nondeliberately, and in parallel. Controlled processes tend to occur in the front (orbital and prefrontal) parts of the brain. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known as the executive region because it integrates the other regions for long-term planning. Automatic processes tend to occur in the back (occipital), top (parietal), and side (temporal) parts of the brain. The amygdala is associated with automatic emotional responses, especially fear. During extreme and unusual events there may be a competition between these controlled and automatic brain systems. As in the fight-or-flight response—in which blood flow is shunted toward the center of the body and away from the periphery, where cuts and gashes could result in death through blood loss—the high road of controlled reason begins to shut down due to oxygen deprivation, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, starvation, exhaustion, and the like. The body powers down higher functions in order to preserve the lower functions necessary for basic survival. In the course of normal, day-to-day living, these controlled circuits of reason keep our automatic circuits of emotions in check, and we do not just give in to every whim and impulse. But remove the rational governor and the emotional machinery begins to spin out of control.

Research shows, for example, that at low levels of stimulation, emotions appear to play an advisory role, carrying additional information to the decision-making areas of the brain along with inputs from higher-order cortical regions of the brain. At medium levels of stimulation, conflicts can arise between high-road reason centers and low-road emotion centers. At high levels of stimulation (as in extreme environmental conditions and physical and mental exhaustion), low-road emotions can so overrun high-road cognitive processes that people can no longer reason their way to a decision; they report feeling “out of control” or “acting against their own self-interest.”28 Perhaps this is when the brain calls forth the sensed-presence companion.

3. A conflict within the body schema, or our physical sense of self, in which your brain is tricked into thinking that there is another you. Remember, the primary function of the brain is to run the body, which mostly involves sending and receiving signals from muscles, tendons, tissues, and organs. What we think of as our exalted mind capable of higher-order functions, such as aesthetic appreciation, mathematical computation, or philosophical speculation, is a result of the cerebral cortex that sits atop the massive structure of the brain that mostly concerns itself with countless other mundane and subconscious processes that make a living body possible. As such, your brain develops an overarching portrait of your body, from your toes and fingers through your legs and arms and right into your torso and up your back to the top of your head. This is your body schema, and it extends beyond the body into the world when your thinking engages with other people through language, when you write something down on paper or type it into a computer, or perform any other extended reach from inside your head to outside your body. This is sometimes called embodied cognition, the extended mind, or, in the philosopher Andy Clark’s apt descriptor, “supersizing the mind.”29 Physically touching someone is a mind extension, and if they touch you back it creates a feedback loop. Language was the first evolved form of extended mind, and the written word extended language even further, as did the printing press, printed books, and newspapers. Most recently, radio, television, and especially the Internet have supersized the brain and extended the mind throughout the globe and even into space.

This body schema is you, and there is only one of you.30 If for any reason your brain is tricked (or altered or damaged) into thinking that there is another you—an internal doppelg