About the Author

Mark Solms discovered the forebrain mechanisms of dreaming. He is director of neuropsychology of the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where he lives. He is also honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School and honorary Fellow at the American College of Psychiatrists.

Reviews

"[R]emarkably clear, accommodating and exciting to read…The Hidden Spring provides a necessary reminder that rational thinking isn't all it seems to be."
*Jess Keiser, Washington Post*

"One of the worthiest efforts to come out of neuroscience in recent memory."
*Jason Kehe, WIRED*

"Nobody bewitched by these mysteries [of consciousness] can afford to ignore the solution proposed by Mark Solms…Fascinating, wide-ranging and heartfelt."
*Oliver Burkeman, Guardian*

"Intriguing…There is plenty to provoke and fascinate along the way."
*Anil Seth, Times Higher Education*

"This is truly a remarkable book. It changes everything."
*Brian Eno*

"A remarkably bold fusion of ideas from psychoanalysis, psychology, and the frontiers of theoretical neuroscience that takes aim at the biggest question there is. Solms will challenge your most basic beliefs."
*Matthew Cobb, author of The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience*

"Solms’s efforts…have been truly pioneering. This unification is clearly the direction for the future."
*Eric Kandel, Nobel laureate for Physiology and Medicine*

"This treatment of consciousness and artificial sentience should be taken very seriously."
*Karl Friston, scientific director, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging*

"Solms’s vital work has never ignored the lived, felt experience of human beings. His ideas look a lot like the future to me."
*Siri Hustvedt, author of The Blazing World*

"To say this work is encyclopedic is to diminish its poetic, psychological and theoretical achievement. This is required reading."
*Susie Orbach, author of In Therapy*

"At last the emperor has found some clothes! For decades, consciousness has been perceived as an epiphenomenon, little more than an illusion that can't really make things happen. Solms takes a thrilling new approach to the problem, grounded in modern neurobiology but finding meaning in older ideas going back to Freud. This is an exciting book."
*Nick Lane, author of The Vital Question*