As death approaches, our sense of self can start to disintegrate. Some psychologists and philosophers maintain that this sense of self, of being coherent individuals free to make choices, is little more than a title page to the great musical score of our subconscious, a score with many obscure, often dissonant voices. Much of what we think of as real is a form of illusion, a consoling fairy story created by our brains to make sense of the myriad stimuli from inside and outside us, and of the unconscious mechanics and impulses of our brains.
