This title should give you pause.  Should it not be something like “How to Make Your Dreams Come True”? or “See Your Dreams Fulfilled”?  But then, how often do you see such titles?  And does such thinking really ‘work’?

Some might disagree, those who are always reading self-help books yet never seem to help themselves. Meanwhile, it is the above that occurs most often, the aspiring individual who just gives up.

As a child I wanted to be many things; I wanted to be a minister, novelist, as well as a CEO of my own book company, an actor, musician, baseball pitcher, I wanted to draw and paint, and more than anything, I wanted to be a writer.  I had so many dreams I couldn’t keep track of them.

If you were asked, “Does your hand belong to you?” you would naturally say, “Of course.”

But ask neuroscientists the same question and they will turn the question back on you: How do you know it’s your own hand? In fact, how do you know that you have a body? What makes you think you own it? How do you know where your body begins and ends? How do you keep track of its position in space?

Try this little exercise: Imagine there is a straight line running down the middle of your body, dividing it into a left half and a right half. Using your right hand, pat different parts of your body on the right side – cheek, shoulder, hip, thigh, knee, foot. With your finger, trace a line over your right eyebrow and over the right portions of your upper and lower lips.

Once a wise master had four students who exceeded all others in ability. One day the five gathered, and the master spoke to the first student, “Tell me what you see when you look into the world.”

“I see savagery. The planet is raped. The world hides from the truth. Contaminating material is released everywhere. There is particulate matter in the heavens and acid rain. The rain forests are being destroyed, and so is the ozone. There is such ignorance and selfishness. The world needs so much correction.”

The master replied, “You are right, and I shall call you Correction, for you by your vision have committed to a world of need.”

This book is about the revolutionary discovery that the human brain can change itself, as told through the stories of the scientists, doctors, and patients who have together brought about these astonishing transformations. Without operations or medications, they have made use of the brain’s hitherto unknown ability to change.

Some were patients who had what were thought to be incurable brain problems; others were people without specific problems who simply wanted to improve the functioning of their brains or preserve them as they aged. For four hundred years this venture would have been inconceivable because mainstream medicine and science believed that brain anatomy was fixed.