Is There Really Someone in Our Mind?

What is reality to us? When we are certain that a real object is in front of us, how have we come to believe that it is real?

The objects around us affect our sensory receptors, generating neural signals. These signals enter the brain, where their processing produces an image or representation. We call that image or representation “reality.” On the one hand, without such images and representations being formed in the brain, we would remain unaware of external reality. On the other hand, if a vivid image or representation forms in our mind, we may perceive it as real even when it has no external counterpart—as in a hallucination or a dream.

A person experiencing a hallucination insists that they are seeing real things or hearing real sounds. Likewise, when we dream, we do not doubt the reality of what we are experiencing. In both cases, however, these images and representations are produced entirely by our own brains.

Believers themselves say that they have faith in the presence of supernatural beings. Let us now examine what scientific evidence tells us about the perception of another being’s presence in our minds when we have religious faith, and how real the presence of these supernatural beings feels to us.

Andrew B. Newberg, a neuroscientist and one of the pioneers of neurotheology, used SPECT (single-photon emission computed tomography) imaging to study the brains of hundreds of people during religious practices. At the peak of their worship, he introduced a safe radioactive tracer into the participants’ bloodstream. During worship, the substance circulated through the brain, with greater concentrations reaching areas receiving the highest blood flow.

The resulting images showed patterns of activity in the frontal lobes and in regions associated with language and conversation among Christians and Jews who were speaking and communicating with their God. These patterns resembled the activity seen in the same brain regions when people are actually engaged in conversation with another person.

During Buddhist worship and meditation, where practitioners were not conversing with God but instead sought to experience the presence of an absolute reality, visual regions of the brain became active.

The brain activity of atheists and nonbelievers during contemplation and meditation did not resemble the activity observed in any of the religious believers, even though they had been asked to think about God. Their frontal lobes did not show the same activity, whereas frontal-lobe activity increases when we sense someone’s presence and engage in conversation with them.

For people with religious faith, then, unlike atheists, God appears to be something more than a mere thought or the product of logical or philosophical reasoning. To them, God is a presence as real as the other persons they encounter—or at least this appears to be the case when they are communicating with God.

They speak to this being, confide in him, plead with him, sometimes argue with him or protest to him, make promises or bargains with him, and even uphold their side of those bargains and remain faithful to their promises. They have no doubt about his existence or presence, or about his awareness of the contents of their minds and the flow of their thoughts.

It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that when one person hears and accepts another person’s story about the existence of a supernatural being who is aware of the contents of human minds, from that point onward they genuinely experience another mind as being aware of their thoughts, feelings, and desires.

We might say that the first “guardian of the mind” has now been installed in that person’s brain. Later, the number of supernatural beings endowed with this capacity to guard the mind may increase.

What we believe this guardian of the mind is capable of doing; what kind of temperament it has; what it likes and dislikes; what emotions each of our thoughts and feelings evokes in it and how it reacts to them; whether it is lenient or strict, even-tempered or unpredictable, caring or indifferent, kind or cruel, loving or selfish—all of this depends on what the person who first told us its story has said, and on whatever additional information trusted and supposedly knowledgeable individuals, such as members of the clergy, later provide us about this guardian of the mind.

When we believe we are alone in a room, we behave one way; when we believe that someone else is present in the room, we behave differently. Our brain unconsciously adjusts our behavior according to whether we believe ourselves to be alone or assume that another person is present.

We must now examine how different parts of our brain respond to the presence of this guardian. In the next section, I will try to show how different parts of our brain transform that invisible, ever-present observer into a powerful guardian—and why I have chosen the word “guardian” rather than simply “witness” or “observer.”