The mind-brain is lived only from a first-person perspective, and it is a dynamic, plastic organ that changes in relation to the environment.

Worries about the power of a doctor's suggestions to influence and shape his patient's mind, whether they are made under hypnosis or not, are still with us.

Both depression and anxiety disorders, for example, are repeatedly described in the media as 'chemical imbalances in the brain,' as if spontaneous neural events with no relation to anything outside a person's brain cause depression and anxiety.

Each person does see the world in a different way. There is not a single, unifying, objective truth. We're all limited by our perspective.

It's not as if I've been unlucky. My books have been published and reviewed. I haven't lived through terrible literary suffering!

I was 13 when I had my first bout of insomnia. My family was in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the summer, and day never really became night.