La mente humana by C. Rayner: A Short Popular-Science Guide to the Brain, Dreams and the Stages of Life
A short, easy popular-science book that explains simply the most varied questions about how the human body and mind work: the subconscious, dreams and more. La mente humana (The Human Mind) is written for readers curious about the basic systems of the body and the chemical reactions that go on inside us.
Author: C. Rayner
Title: La mente humana
Format: Spanish hardcover (Ediciones Orbis, 1985)
Scope: Popular science on the brain and mind
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B007EUFDCE (ASIN B007EUFDCE)
A Complex Machine
The book is a brief collection of general facts about the human brain, with the latest studies of its time and their main conclusions. The human body is a complex machine, and some aspects of it still have no complete scientific explanation. There are limits to our understanding of the world around us, and the book sets them out clearly.
The Stages of Life
It follows the stages of human life: the development of the first reflexes, the nervous system and the first teeth; the remarkably fast learning of young human beings; and the differences in perception at different ages.
Curiosities Explained
Many everyday curiosities find their explanation in this compilation, which makes it a pleasant book to dip into.
A Popular-Science Collection
The book belongs to a wave of popular-science collections that flourished in Spain in the 1980s, when publishers such as Orbis issued illustrated volumes in weekly instalments or alongside magazines, bringing science to readers who had never opened a specialised book. This edition, published in Barcelona in 1985, has around 160 pages and appears to have formed part of Orbis’s Biblioteca de Divulgación Científica, sold with the magazine Muy Interesante.
What Has Changed Since
Readers should bear in mind that brain science has moved fast since the 1980s. Imaging techniques such as functional MRI, which allow researchers to watch the living brain at work, were only beginning to be developed, and ideas about memory, sleep, emotion and the brain’s capacity to change throughout life, known as neuroplasticity, have been transformed since then. Some of the book’s explanations will therefore seem simplified or outdated.
Why It Still Has Charm
Even so, the basic facts about how the nervous system develops, how reflexes and senses work and how we change as we grow have not altered, and the book explains them in a clear, friendly way. For collectors of popular science and readers nostalgic for the books of their youth, it has the appeal of a well-made introduction from another era.
What to Read Alongside It
Readers who want an up-to-date introduction can pair it with a recent book on the brain, such as Héctor Ruiz Martín’s guides to learning, which draw on current research and are also available in Spanish.
Dreams and the Unconscious
Two of the subjects the book touches on, dreams and the subconscious, have fascinated people for centuries. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) made the unconscious mind a central idea of twentieth-century culture, although many of his theories are now disputed. In 1953 researchers in Chicago discovered REM sleep, the phase of rapid eye movements in which most vivid dreaming occurs, opening the way to the scientific study of sleep. Books like this one introduced ordinary readers to both traditions, the psychological and the biological, and to the questions that still remain open.
Finding a Copy
Copies circulate on second-hand websites and in used bookshops, usually at modest prices.
Check the condition before buying, as these collection volumes were often well used.
Who Is It For?
Readers who want a simple, non-technical introduction to the brain and mind. It is an old edition, available only in Spanish and second-hand.
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