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November 2018
7 Extraordinary Feats Your Brain Can Perform

7 Extraordinary Feats Your Brain Can

Perform
From enhancing memory to reading people, the ordinary brain can do some amazing
things. Here's how to access your superpowers.
By Eric Haseltine Ph.D., published November 6, 2018 - last reviewed on November 7, 2018

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Two days after Thanksgiving in 2016, 19-year-old

Charlotte Heffelmire was at home in Vienna,
Virginia, on a holiday break from college, when
she went to check on her father who was
working underneath his giant pickup truck, fixing
the brake lines.

When she entered the garage, she immediately

saw that a gasoline fire had erupted under the
truck, engulfing one of the tires. Worse, the jack
that held up the truck had collapsed, pinned her
father, and overturned the can of gasoline that
had started the fire.

Newspapers and publications reported that the 5'

6", 120-pound teenager grabbed the truck's
fender and began to elevate it off of her father.
She later recalled that when she lifted the truck
the first time, she almost freed her father, and
when she tried a second time, he crawled out.
Mikel Jaso Charlotte then hopped in the burning truck and
drove it clear of the house, found a garden hose
and extinguished the flames.

Charlotte's amazing feat—lifting many times her own body weight—is an example of "hysterical strength,"
documented in at least a half dozen other cases, in which people of ordinary physical capabilities
momentarily exhibit extraordinary strength in life-or-death emergencies.

Although some experts speculate that hysterical strength arises from an enormous jolt of adrenaline
released from the adrenal glands in dire situations, exactly how it functions in the muscles remains a
mystery. But the phenomenon does attest that, under just the right conditions, we can get astonishing
performance out of our bodies.

Is the same true of our minds? Can we perform superhuman mental feats every bit as awesome as picking
up a pickup truck? To answer that question, let's consider what actually happened to Charlotte Heffelmire.
The remarkable activity in her muscles and adrenal glands had to have started inside her brain, which
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somehow found a way to command her muscles, along with her adrenal glands, to put forth maximum
effort. So in a very real sense, her life-saving feat was a potent example of what the mind can do when it US
wants to.

The mind's desire—conscious or unconscious—is critical, because in Heffelmire's case it was how she felt,
rather than what she thought, that galvanized her response. Often, the most important factor in
transforming an ordinary brain into an extraordinary one is the level of emotional investment.

Your emotional investment in supercharging your brain is critical because the techniques you're about to
learn will require you to change deeply ingrained thinking and problem-solving habits, including many that
you probably don't even realize you have.

The brain is composed of about 100 billion neurons and up to a quadrillion (1,000 trillion) connections
among those neurons. The key to increasing your brain's performance: Use those 100 billion neurons and
1,000 trillion connections more efficiently. Increase the number of neurons that focus on a problem. Inhibit
the neurons that limit your performance.

Here's a good example of using your brain efficiently: Memorizing the Fibonacci sequence—
0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233—would require a lot of rote repetition.

Instead of brute force memorization, try a simple rule: To get the next number in the sequence, add the
preceding two numbers. This will allow you to reconstruct the series instantly—and forever. Remembering
this easy rule requires far less memory, and less memory retrieval time, than storing the number sequence
itself.

Such efficient shortcuts are known as heuristics—from the Greek word meaning "discovery"—fast and
frugal ways to access information and to make decisions in complex situations.

For instance, German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer's research revealed that the best way to predict
winners in the field of 128 players at the Wimbledon tennis tournament is to simply identify the players
whose names are most well known. For predicting winners, this method proved superior to the complex
formulas the Association of Tennis Professionals uses to rank players.

In some cases, your brain already performs amazing feats; you are simply unaware of them (but with
awareness, can deploy them at will). In other cases, nudging your brain into performing new mental feats is
possible. To understand what your brain is capable of, you will want to engage techniques that accomplish
one or more of the the following: They make the unfamiliar familiar, the expected unexpected, and the
unconscious conscious. To help you get there, let's illustrate a few straightforward and painless techniques.
Anyone can deploy these methods to increase the odds of extraordinary performance.

1. [Shortcuts] The Familiar <> Unfamiliar Transformation

Childhood rhymes STICK with us forever: One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. If you want
to commit random information to memory, rhyming is a great familiar method; plus, it puts heuristics to
work. Normally, memorizing a list of random words—such as bun, shoe, tree, door, hive, sticks, heaven,
gate, vine, and hen—would require loads of repetition, and, after a few days, you'd likely recall only a few
words.

This simple rule may help: Rhyme the words with a deeply ingrained memory, then imagine that memory.
You will remember each word instantly and probably never forget it.

Here's how: One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree. [See Figure 1.] This rhyming method works because
it not only requires less memory to store rules than raw information but also links unfamiliar information to
already-stored, or familiar, information (numbers one to three). Rhyming reduces the effort to recall that
information.

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Transforming the unfamiliar into the familiar is useful for overcoming many cognitive challenges other than
memorization. When trying to grasp a novel concept or explain a complex idea, just ask: "What well-known
concept or phenomenon comes closest to this new thing?"  

Just as making the unfamiliar familiar works in some instances, including finding simple rules to better
understand data, there are many cases where, paradoxically, the exact opposite is true: introducing novelty
—that which is unfamiliar—can better encode memories. This is because the brain automatically casts aside
everyday occurrences but holds onto the unusual ones. Common events rarely cause you problems,
because you can predict and prepare for them—rush-hour traffic, winter weather. You know that these
things happen. However, your brain has evolved to retain memories of out-of-the-ordinary events, because
they help keep you out of trouble.

Your brain is alert when unexpected things happen since such occurrences may threaten your well-being—
a mugging in a "safe" part of town, a sudden rainstorm on a sunny day. You're just not prepared for these
things. So it makes perfect sense for your brain to remove normal memories so that they don't interfere
with unexpected information that could help you deal with nasty surprises.

You recall details surrounding births, marriages, deaths, and major news stories precisely for the same
reason: They represent major departures from the normal flow of life.

The implication for learning or communicating new information is that people remember unexpected
information far better than what is expected and that the more surprising we make the information, the
easier it will be for everyone to remember it. For example:

Nrmlly u wldn't rcll ths prticlr sntnc, excpt tht t hs almst n vwls, bt u cn ndrstnd bcs u prcv engh thts fmlr 2
rcgnz th wrds. Vry strng !

If you can improve recall by framing new information as either highly familiar or highly unfamiliar, when
should you choose one method over the other? The answer goes back to the role of emotion in your
brain's performance: If you are most comfortable with the familiar, stay with things you like to stay with; but
if you constantly crave novelty, make the abnormal your new normal.

2. [Memory] The Tricks of Timing

How do you make learning stick? Most of us remember pulling caffeine-fueled, all-night study sessions. But
this tactic limits efficiency and will certainly not lead to extraordinary powers of recall.

When learning new information, your neurons have a limit; in a fixed period of time they can grow only a
certain number of new connections, or synapses, to encode new memories. Accordingly, if you cram for
that exam, you will quickly reach a ceiling on new information that your brain can retain because you will

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have exhausted the ability of your neurons to

synthesize the proteins necessary to grow or US
strengthen synapses.

Neuroscientist Paul Smolen and colleagues, in a 2016

article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, called this limit
on growing neuronal connections through protein
synthesis a learning refractory period. Smolen cites
data from animal studies showing that development of
synaptic dendrites (cell extensions) associated with
learning does indeed progress when exposure to novel
stimuli is spaced out over time.  

With learning, the appearance of a new synaptic

dendrite [see Figure 2B] and the growth of that spine
with added experience [see Figure 2C], are achieved
through synthesis of new proteins. The research on
synaptic development with learning suggests, correctly,
that spacing out studying for an exam is superior to
cramming.
Mikel Jaso

The ANKI flash card memory system—anki is Japanese for memory—for instance, has enjoyed great
success because it spaces out learning over an extended period, allowing neurons that encode memories
to recover their protein synthesis ability between exposures and to form new connections.

An ANKI flash card displays a question on one side and an answer on the other, and each card is
presented over a period of days, weeks, months, or even years to establish and maintain learning,
according to the user's needs.

ANKI strengthens the brain the same way that lifting weights over several weeks or months strengthens
muscles: by waiting out momentary fatigue—and diminished ability to synthesize new proteins—before
continuing training.

3. [Plasticity]  Tap Your "Many Worlds" Mind

You lose your keys because you put them in a certain place, then you forget that one and only place. But
imagine that you inhabit a quantum universe where objects can occupy multiple places at the same time;
you could put your keys in many different locations all at once; you need stumble onto only one of those
places to retrieve them.

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We cannot occupy many worlds in the universe, but we can in a sense create "many worlds" conditions in
our mind by encoding memories in both verbal and visual parts of the brain. US

Here's an example: If you want to memorize a list of unrelated words—comb, egg, wrench, lettuce, key,
pillow, cup, ball, pencil, and chocolate—create a mental image of the object that each word represents,
then form 10 composite images that combine each object with an image from the "one is a bun, two is a
shoe" sequence [see Figure 1]. The idea is to link an unfamiliar verbal sequence to a familiar one, then
visually link those now-familiar images to newer unfamiliar information (a comb stuck in a bun is not easily
forgotten).

By doing this, you transform a list of random words into images. Now the list of words resides in both the
verbal and visual parts of the brain. This creates many more places to "stumble" onto information. The
technique also illustrates how a simple tweak on what is familiar versus unfamiliar allows the brain to
perform better, in this case in the realm of memory.

If memory is improved simply by recruiting new brain regions to the task (therefore using more brain cells
overall), then adding even more brain cells should be better still. Right?

In a 2017 Ph.D. thesis titled "On the Mnemonic Benefits of Drawing," Jeffrey Wammes, at the University of
Waterloo, demonstrated that people have superior memory recall when asked to illustrate the words
presented to them. Drawing improves memory not only by harnessing visual neurons to store new
information but also by using neurons in the motor cortex, where drawing commands originate.

In Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Smolen observes that memories are stored in the parts of the brain
where the information was received or created in the first place—the sensory or motor cerebral cortex—so
the more brain regions engaged in creating and sensing information, the greater the neural storage
capacity available for that information.

These findings suggest that if you really want to retain information you are reading or listening to, instead
of only taking written notes, sketch out the information as well.  

4. [Creativity] Dropping the Cognitive Censors

Just as creating a sense of novelty through image

juxtapositions helps encode memories, an eye for novel
juxtapositions in every corner of life, no matter how
seemingly mundane, can enhance creativity itself.
Indeed, many cognitive scientists argue that "everyday
creativity," simply defined, is the intersection of the
novel and the useful. And how you define novelty is half
the battle. You have last-minute house guests and you
want to whip up a stack of blueberry pancakes, but you
don't have a blender. You do, however, have a pair of
scissors and a drill. Most of us would overlook the
possibility of attaching a pair of scissors to a drill
because parts of our brain have "fixed the functions" of
these two tools.

A lot of people have deeply ingrained expectations of

how things are supposed to work, and that often gets in
Mikel Jaso
the way of solving problems. This functional fixedness
blinds us to creative possibilities. Quieting the parts of
the brain that know what power drills and scissors are supposed to do produces a quick solution to the
problem.

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The greatest advances almost always come not from new inventions, per se, but from novel combinations
of already existing inventions—making the familiar unfamiliar. One place to start is to list as many uses of, US
for example, a brick, that depart from that object's normal function. Grind the brick up to make red pigment
for paint, break it apart to make a fashion accessory, or maybe use it as a paper weight.

You can increase the chance of experiencing such a breakthrough by quieting perceptions that are
unconsciously distracting, so as to tune into information you may be missing. This is illustrated in the case
of drawing. You can dramatically improve your drawing ability just by turning off the part of your brain that
ascribes meaning to what you are looking at.

When you try to draw a face, for example, a part of your brain—the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL), which
perceives meaning in visual imagery—alerts you. It shouts, That's a three-dimensional human face. The
inexperienced illustrator might try, but normally fails, to reconstruct three-dimensional figures when
drawing on two-dimensional paper. You can shut off the meddling LATL with a little trick: Turn the image
upside down so it loses its meaning.

 
 5. [Echolocation] Steering With Different Senses

Imagine if you could be like Black Panther—just a little. His preternatural sensory perceptions are always on
high alert. Without even looking, he can feel his way around and navigate in the dark by listening with his
super senses. His enhanced perception wards off danger.

You may not realize this, but you have an inner superhero, too. Like him, you can feel your way around—
physically. Sometimes you can sense that an object might be in your path, and you know this before you
even look. How? If you're like most people, you just know when you are walking too close to a wall or large
object—without knowing exactly how you know. This knowing without knowing is an example of implicit
learning from the countless times you have unconsciously registered the change in the sound of your
footsteps as you near an object.

You can test this by using a long stick with a hard tip; close your eyes and tap the stick in front of you, as
sight-impaired people do (a hard surface is best). Observe that you can get a rough sense of the presence
of large nearby objects, as well as their distance, just by listening to the clicks.

The clicks made from tapping the floor a few feet from a wall will have a full, hollow quality, from the slight
echoes that immediately follow the original click of contact between the floor and the stick. If you tap the
stick within a few inches of a wall or large object, the click will sound crisper and have a slightly higher
pitch.

6. [Sound Shadowing] How to "See" Behind

You

Sometimes you can feel that someone is standing right

behind you, even if the person has not said or done a
single thing to indicate his presence. How do you feel
that individual's proximity? Once again, sound is key.
This is another way to gain important information about
your environment. When practiced, this is also an
example of your spectacular superhuman-ness and the
ability of knowing without knowing.  

In addition, we can also pick up—without consciously

being aware that we're picking up—breathing, rustling
clothes, and subtle sound reflections (as opposed to
Mikel Jaso sound absorption) off of the person behind us.

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An acoustic or sound shadow is an area where sound waves are blocked by an object and must travel
around the object to reach the ear. A change in volume and a deadening of echoes can be used to judge US
proximity if you know or suspect a sound shadow is being cast. You can train yourself to find such
shadows.

For background noise, place a radio or other sound source some 10 feet in back of you and ask a friend to
sneak up behind you (carpet will hide the sound of her footsteps). Even though you can't see or hear the
friend, you should be able to feel her proximity by the sound shadow, or sound block, that she casts. If you
pay close attention to the sound shadow, you'll perceive two parts to it: a slight lowering of volume as well
as a deadening of echoes from the radio noise off of surfaces behind you. These two effects become
increasingly obvious as your friend comes closer.

If you are highly attuned to your environment and have practiced detecting these shadows, you will be
able to note a new presence just by tracking surrounding change. All of this falls in the category of implicit
learning, where over many exposures the brain unconsciously learns that certain cues that we are not
paying attention to nonetheless correlate with certain phenomena.

7. [People Reading] Read Yourself to Read

Others

If only we could read other people's minds like

Professor X of X-Men. That would be superhuman. Yet,
we are able to read people more than we realize.
Intuition tells us that by paying close attention to
another person's facial expressions, tone of voice,
posture, eye movements, and gestures we can glean
his unspoken thoughts and feelings. Yet recent
research shows that turning off parts of the brain that
perform exteroception (perception of the outside world)
and tuning in to interoception (perception of sensations
inside the body) is the best way to read people.

A big smile and lively eyes are hard to fake. When you
look at a happy person, your own facial muscles make
subtle contractions that mimic that person, and
feedback from those muscles to your limbic system (the
emotional center of your brain) generates your own
emotional response.
Mikel Jaso

Sebastian Korb and colleagues at the University of

Wisconsin reliably predicted whether study subjects were viewing fake or authentic smiles just by reading
the EMG data of the subjects' own facial muscles.

You can do that, too. When looking at a smile that you know is genuine, pay close attention to your inner
feelings. A happy face generates lighter, more pleasing emotions in you than does a face with a forced
smile. Emotions come about because of reactions inside our bodies. Your facial muscles don't contract
because you feel happier looking at a genuine smile; it's just the reverse. The mimicking muscle
contractions happen first, triggering your pleasant feelings.

Research on so-called mirror neurons in the motor cortex of primates, along with studies of subjects who
are observing the behavior of others, suggest that minute muscle contractions associated with
unconscious mimicry routinely occur when we watch other people's behavior, including facial expressions,
gestures, gait, and even manipulation of objects.

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We have an extraordinary ability to accurately assess others when presented with characteristics that are
relevant to our own survival. A recent study by Jordan Raine of the University of Sussex found that men US
and women are highly accurate in determining someone's strength and height relative to their own—and
with no visual cues whatsoever. Subjects heard only aggressive speech or an aggressive vocalization, or
"roar." When listening to roars, men accurately identified stronger males in 88 percent of the study trials.

On the surface, elevating your brain from ordinary to extraordinary requires only a few transformations:
from storing data to storing rules, from changing the unfamiliar to the familiar, the expected to the
unexpected, and the unconscious to the conscious.

As in the case of Charlotte Heffelmire, sometimes the key to unlocking the potential of these
transformations lies not in the domain of cognition, but in that of emotion. And, apart from motivation, the
most important emotion is confidence: confidence that you can supercharge your brain.

Most people go through life learning what they can do, and by implication, what they cannot do.

The adult elephant with colossal strength stays meekly tethered to the wooden stake, one that he could
pull up like a twig if he chose to—but he doesn't because as a baby elephant he learned that he couldn't
pull free. Similarly, many of us learn early in life what's "impossible" and never question it.

But your brain is packed with hidden potential. And, like a full-grown elephant, you can, with certain
techniques, break free from expectations that make the impossible seem possible.

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