In Search of the Mind's Eye

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Writing about the brain can sometimes bring me amazingly close to my readers–so close that I feel like I'm inside their minds. Case in point: my new column for Discover, on the subject of the mind's eye.

Here's how it begins:

One day in 2005, a retired building surveyor in Edinburgh visited his doctor with a strange complaint: His mind's eye had suddenly gone blind.

The surveyor, referred to as MX by his doctors, was 65 at the time. He had always felt that he possessed an exceptional talent for...