Your Mind On Drugs

When reading a good book, your mind wanders into a new reality; a reality where in which the physical limitations of the body have little sway on your exploration. A book is a hallucinogenic drug.

Every day, our brains represent reality. And a part of this process of representation is using previously learned knowledge to interpret or predict incoming information. This process becomes radically altered when under the influence of books; that is, a book fundamentally changes how one interprets the incoming information.

Suppose you had gone to the gym last Wednesday; and at the gym, you noticed how healthy everyone was. This representation of the gym is a-typical, it reflects an understanding of the gym in the way a marketer would understand the gym.

Now suppose you go back to the gym after reading a book on evolutionary psychology. All of a sudden, the gym is a watering-hole full of Alpha male gorillas and females all attempting to display the quality of their genes; only in hopes of convincing someone that their genes are acceptable genes for having an offspring.

In that second instance, it is as if you stepped into a whole new reality; you'll begin to think about people differently, treat people differently, and even view life differently. In essence, a book is a hallucinogenic drug.