Eric Kandel studied the nervous system of the California Sea Snail, Aplysia, for more than 30 years. His perseverance and creativity ended up winning him a Nobel Prize for discovering how the brain makes and stores long and short term memories.

1. The Enchanted Loom
Teasing sturdy threads from
neuroscience masterworks

2. Teasing 10
threads from
Eric Kandel’s…

3. Thread 1:
A fundamental
principle of
dynamic
psychology is
that the
unconscious
never lies.
(pg. 25)

4. Thread 2:
Accidents, slips of the tongue, misspellings,
failures of memory – each has a coherent
and meaningful
relationship to
the rest of one’s
psychic life.
(pg. 39)

5. Thread 3:
Learning and
memory are
central to our
very identity.
They make us
who we are.
(pg. 116)

6. Thread 4:
I learned from experience that there are
many situations that can’t be decided on
cold facts alone.
One ultimately
has to trust one’s
unconscious,
one’s instincts,
one’s creative
urge.
(pg. 149)

7. Thread 5:
Listen to the patient, not the literature.
(pg. 152)
Chinese Symbol for Listening

8. Thread 6:
Day Science is rational, logical and pragmatic.
Night Science is a workshop of the possible.
Hypotheses
take the form
of vague pre-
sentiments, of
hazy sensa-
tions.
(pg. 240)

9. Thread 7:
Recall of memory is a creative process. What
the brain stores is thought to be only a core
memory. Upon recall, this core memory is
then elaborated upon with subtractions,
additions, deletions and distortions.
(pg. 281)

10. Thread 8:
Built into the neural
pathways of the brain
are complex rules of
guessing; they allow
the brain to extract
information from
impoverished patterns.
The brain is an ambi-
guity-resolution
machine par excellence!
(pg. 297)

11. Thread 9:
Our sensory systems are hypothesis genera-
tors. We confront the world neither directly
nor precisely.
Nerve fibers
are not high
fidelity record-
ers. They accen-
tuate certain
features,
neglect others.
(pg. 302)

12. Thread 10:
Unconsciously perceived threats
disproportionally affect people with
high background
anxiety, whereas
consciously per-
ceived threats
activate the fight-
or-flight response
in everyone.
(pg. 387)

13. Image Credits:
Title Page: http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 3 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Aspects-of-your-unconscious-61411124
Slide 12 - http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/category/stereotype-threats/
Slide 2 - https://speakerpedia.com/speakers/eric-kandel
Slide 6 - http://www.seeker.com/shots-of-awe-the-creative-urge-1792462498.html
Slide 5 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/s-e-c-r-e-t-83688742
Slide 11 - https://www.pinterest.com/explore/distortion-art/
Slide 10 - http://www.claredegraaf.com/2016/11/07/second-guessing-god/
Slide 14 - http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 9 - http://lens.elifesciences.org/01834/index.html
Slide 8 - http://en.alukah.net/Thoughts_Knowledge/0/1896/
Slide 7 - http://bit.ly/2cKA5u7
Slide 4 - http://www.andreacatton.co.uk/2013/12/10-unfortunate-tattoo-misspellings/

14. Mark Brady, PhD
TheEnchantedLoom@gmail.com
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