
What Does Immersing Yourself in a Book Do to Your Brain? - dpflan
https://lithub.com/what-does-immersing-yourself-in-a-book-do-to-your-brain/
======
justboxing
> A student came to him, a beautiful 13-year-old girl, who said she wanted to
> be part of his theater group performing William Shakespeare’s plays. It
> would have been an ordinary request, save for the reality that the young
> girl had advanced cystic fibrosis and had been told she had only a brief
> time to live.

and then...

> She went on to become one Shakespearean heroine after another, each role
> performed with more emotional depth and strength than the one before. Years
> have now passed since she played Juliet. Against all expectations and
> medical prognoses, she has entered college, where she is pursuing a dual
> degree in medicine and theater, in which she will continue to “pass over”
> into one role after another.

> That young woman’s exceptional example is not so much about whether the mind
> and heart can overcome the limitations of the body...

I don't understand this. Is the writer implying that 'advanced cystic
fibrosis' is a limitation of the body and not a real disease, and so she was
able to 'beat it' by immersing herself in reading and drama?

The 2 statements - "she had only a brief time to live" and "Years have now
passed since she played Juliet. Against all expectations and medical
prognoses" completely contradict each other. Did she 'beat the disease' (which
seems improbable) or was she misdiagnosed in the first place?

~~~
Normal_gaussian
annecdata:

I grew up with two CF children who are nearly as close as sisters to me.

They are both alive, and "healthy", at least five years past what we had
expected to be the years of their demise, and they show no signs of passing
soon - and this is not just limited to them; their CF classes (which do still
dwindle in size) are much larger than had been expected.

There are many different kinds of CF, but across the board the treatment has
improved massively. It's a testament to the advancing field, the strategy of
the NHS, and the persistence of the parents and children, that the lifespans
predicted (on solid evidence) for these children keep being invalidated and
extended.

~~~
Ntrails
> that the lifespans predicted (on solid evidence) for these children keep
> being invalidated and extended.

My understanding is that they are also cautious in generating such estimates,
excluding any non-concrete factors (improvements in healthcare etc) that might
be used to modify a purely frequentist estimation given historical data.

In general it's probably better to tell a cohort that they've an expected
lifetime pessimistically than optimistically?

~~~
hinkley
It's shitty bedside manner though, and provably harmful.

This reminds me of the story a few weeks ago of the hemophiliac kid who got
HIV and then spent his whole childhood believing he would never grow up, never
find love, never have a life.

How many people would just give in and roll over on that sort of news? It's
self fulfilling prophecy.

------
DomreiRoam
On the topic of reading, read "The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to
Understanding How the Mind Reads" by Daniel T. Willingham [1]. It is very
nicely written and each chapter focus on one aspect of reading (recognition of
letters, extracting meaning ... ) and for each the author present evidence and
also links to other work .

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32285196-the-reading-
min...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32285196-the-reading-mind)

------
jasonszhao
I've been thinking that in order to write well, the author has to empathize
with their audience. The effect is that the reader is able to empathize with
the author.

Math, programming, and writing are verbal skills, but _good_ communication
requires empathy, an emotional skill. I realized this was true after I
realized I needed to consciously work on empathy because it is so crucial.

~~~
gusmd
I had never thought about programming (or, for what comes next, application
development) as a verbal skill.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, especially as it pertains
to UI/UX. About empathy -- you need to relate to your users, understand, be
aware and sensitive of their needs and their thought process as they use your
application.

Thanks for the interesting view. Not sure I read it too literally, but it gave
me something to think about.

~~~
amelius
I can't prove it, but I really don't think that programming helps one to
become more empathic. In my case, after a long programming session, I need
about an hour to snap out of my analytical state of mind, and get my
social/verbal skills back to their original level.

~~~
arethuza
I've had the same - I have that quite a lot but have also have the reverse
where immediately after a non-technical presentation being presented with a
trivial technical problem that mind would _not_ engage with.

------
1996
I love the story of the Shakespearian actor. She put her soul into that, based
on the idea she might not survive to adulthood.

I wonder how much this risk taking behavior learned from necessity helped her
overachieve in adulthood, where she will now be an actor... and a doctor.

------
senectus1
I've been getting into old scifi audiobooks. They're quite fascinating.

Not quite as immersive as a dead tree book, but at least I can still enjoy and
be absorbed in it while walking/running.

~~~
themodelplumber
What do you like so far? I used to listen to X Minus One and shows like that.
I really enjoyed them and would love to listen to more scifi.

~~~
senectus1
Right now I'm listing to a Niven/pournell 1977 book

but I've just finished about 4 Robert A. Heinlein books in a row... all around
the 1950's with stories based on the future being late 70's to the year 2000.

Pretty funny listening really. though they're not meant to be.

~~~
themodelplumber
Lucifer's Hammer, by chance? Man I still think about that book really often.
Crazy plot twists.

Heinlein sounds good, I'll have to read more. Thank you.

~~~
senectus1
yup! that's the one.

yeah RAH is an interesting one... some of his stuff is just plain _wrong_. One
time his character cloned himself into little girls, then another he went back
in time to have sex with his mother (when she was a hotty)...

but yeah. dude writes some really odd stuff.

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Dowwie
Great article. I am not so sure about the concern that a new generation isn't
connecting with books as prior generations have.

~~~
dragonsky67
I tend to agree. Books and writing have never been less expensive or more
accessible. There are literally thousands of very inexpensive self published
books available on Kindle and other platforms with quality ranging from
excellent to absolute trash.

Considering the other options now available, it is amazing to see so many kids
around with their heads buried in books.

------
gumby
I find books incredibly more immersive than, say, a film, probably because
books are so full of perspective.

This story about the actor is wonderful

~~~
GW150914
You’re also reading a book, which is far more active than just passively
watching stuff on a screen. A typical two year old has no trouble watching tv,
but can’t read a book. Reading is a more cognitively taxing and attention-
demanding activity, even when you’ve mastered it. Then beyond the raw reading,
you have the activity of your imagination working to conjure images of what
you’re reading, which is yet another layer of attention.

Reading is the best.

~~~
aantix
Why would “cognitively taxing” and “attention demanding” be criteria for an
intellectually superior experience?

Many concepts are simply better described by a visual demonstration. There’s
less communicative barriers that way. Just observe the cause and effect. You
could be illiterate and still understand a visual demonstration.

My three year understands engineering concepts from goofy YouTube videos. He
doesn’t read.

Is all of this proclamation about books being the superior format just akin to
old-timers screaming “back in my day we listened to great music, not like this
crap nowadays!”?

~~~
mtreis86
Many concepts cannot be described visually. You can't visualize how freshly
cut grass smells, so there isn't much of a way to utilize that mental process
as a manner of connecting you to something in your past to base a feeling off
of. And you can't twist and break those feelings either - where you can
easily, in words, take something like fresh cut grass and make it a painful
experience by associating it with something like past trauma. Say, a
description where an accident with a lawnmower led to a character losing an
arm. Now that character is traumatized by the smell and in some manner so are
you. There is less depth to the internalization a visual presentation of those
events creates, as the book is more likely to force you into imagining those
events and empathizing with the character. You may even end up traumatized
yourself as the reader of such a powerfully connected piece.

~~~
aantix
>You can't visualize how freshly cut grass smells

Why can't I? Even to someone illiterate, this is an experience we've all had?
And visually, seeing the blades of up close on a freshly cut lawn, with dew
dripping down, might conjure up memories of summers past and the associated
smells.

You're taking for granted that words are abstractions and aren't learned for
most until they're 5 or 6. Meanwhile, visual recognition is something more
innate and starts to appear in babies in as little as 2 or 3 months (smiling,
recognizing parents, etc).

25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video
wins.

~~~
dorchadas
> 25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video
> wins.

I don't think it's as clear cut as that. Literature doesn't have to be
written; oral literature exists, and has been around for centuries, and was
still fairly common even in living memory of people in the West. You can have
literature without writing, basically... and that's always preceded video,
and, I'd say, is probably the first form that humans encountered literature
(and likely occurred when we first learned to speak, before Homo Sapiens
Sapiens was even a thing)

------
peter303
Humans have been creating virtual realities since telling stories around
campfires hundreds of millennia ago. I can become entraced in an oral story as
well as print novel or movie. Many cultures have had long oral books of myths
or religion. The Greek Illiad and Hindu Bhagavad Gita Are examples.

~~~
dorchadas
This is something I would recommend to everyone. Try and find a master
storyteller, and sit and listen to them tell a story. It's quite a different
experience, but immensely rewarding in my opinion. It can show how literature
doesn't necessarily have to be written, and is something that has existed, in
oral form, likely since the first people capable of speech. It's actually a
shame, in my opinion, that it's dying out. It coexisted with writing for quite
a while, up to living memory of people in the West, I'd say.

~~~
vinceguidry
Or read the Old Testament, or any of the Eastern scriptures. All those
stories, with the possible exception of the Maccabees, were originally passed
down orally, even after they got written down.

The New Testament loses a lot, in my opinion, by being written almost purely
for literary composition.

