The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

by Steven Kotler

In moments of intense concentration, the same efficiency exchange that erases our sense of self and distorts our sense of time begins to impact our relationship to space. Instead of taking place in the prefrontal lobes, this hypofrontality occurs farther back in the cortex, in the superior parietal lobe, a portion of the brain that Newberg and D’Aquili dubbed the orientation association area (OAA) because it helps us orient in space. When functioning normally, the OAA is a navigation system. It judges angles and distances, maps course trajectories, and keeps track of our body’s exact location. But to do this last part, the superior parietal lobe must also produce a boundary line: the border of self, the division between finite “us” and the infinite “not us” that is the rest of the universe. Obviously, drawing this border is no simple task. So the OAA depends on a constant stream of incoming messages. All of our senses send data here. Incredible calculations occur. But all of this takes a lot of energy. When that energy is needed elsewhere—like during moments of intense focus—the OAA stops performing those calculations because it stops receiving those signals. Without this data stream, this part of the brain is temporarily blinded—it too becomes hypofrontal—and to incredible result. “Once this happens,” says Newberg, “we can no longer draw a line and say this is where the self ends and this is where the rest of the world begins, so the brain concludes, it has to conclude, t...