Why stories buzz your brain

Ever gotten so lost in a great book that you’ve felt like you’re actually there, experiencing the story-world as if it were real? Ever had the sense that you’re “inside” a character’s mind, looking out through their eyes?

Well there’s a good reason for that, say scientists. A brain-imaging study by a team of US psychologists found that when readers get really engrossed in a story, they create vivid “mental simulations” of the sensory details – sounds, sights, tastes and movements – being described on the page. These vivid mental simulations, known as “situation models”, are an integrated mix of the information given in the story, and the reader’s own prior knowledge of the world.

What’s more – and here’s the exciting bit – the study also found that reading about an experience activates the same brain regions that process similar experiences in real life. Different brain regions track different aspects of a story as it unfolds, including things like a character’s physical location, or their interaction with objects.

So in this study, when story character Raymond picked up a pencil, the corresponding region of the reader’s brain lit up on the scanner – the part that controls grasping hand movements. And when Raymond moved from Point A to Point B, neurons fired off in the part of the reader’s brain that processes changes in spatial location.

It was as if the reader slipped right inside the character’s point of view, re-living their experiences vicariously. Right down at the nitty-gritty cellular level, reading seems to be an embodied activity, a sensory experience without the real-world risks. No wonder it gives us such a kick.

Link to full academic article

Nerd reference: Speer, N. K., J. R. R, et al. (2009). “Reading Stories Activates Neural Representations of Visual and Motor Experiences.” Psychological Science, 20(8): 989-999.

Aural escape tactic

When you want to be else/where… This site, NatureSounds, lets you pick four different nature sounds and remix them into your own customised relaxation soundtrack.

When your brain won’t stop buzzing, it’s hard to lull yourself into a state of rest, so I’m experimenting with audio tracks designed to switch off the incessant mental jabber. I’ve been boringly unwell, and getting better apparently involves taking enforced rest periods (which, to me, sounds a bit like “mandatory fun” or “compulsive spontaneity” – kinda counter-intuitive, and hard to get your head around.) But okay, worth a shot.

What’s the connection with place? Umm, let me see…using aural cues to emotionally relocate to an imaginative space? Escaping the here and now? Aural transportation? Yep. All that sort of thing.

Here’s my nature sounds mix: http://naturesoundsfor.me/load/embedded_player/LieDownAndListen.swf

Machine for a Lost Song

clear as a bird,
his wordless voice
boy in a swimsuit, halo-bright
climbing the rope to our tree house
a black nest swaying high above
as note by note, the kid
sang himself up

we lost his song
for innocent reasons:
years melt, days blur
summer burns out
life puts shadows in your mouth
a mind can only hold so much
& dusk now has its own soundtrack

but now we need to know:
can new machines
summon old echoes back?

and so we listen
to the wires at night
in rooms awash with static:
white noise, black air, the phantom hiss and pop
of memory, the dust and ether
of a million broken songs afloat

turning a dial in darkness
we sift the oxygen, the ghost-filled sky
for that pure cadence
a kid who sang himself aloft
the low note rising up
to reach the high

(Painting credit: copyright Pam Mundell, www.pammundell.co.nz)