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Learning about the different ways of perceiving the nervous system seems to have led me back to Emily Dickinson. I think if Emily Dickinson had known what we now know today she wouldn’t have been in the least surprised. The fact that the brain can produce outputs without any external inputs would not, I think, surprise her. If we believe Emily Dickinson to be right, if everything we perceive is just a function of the brain, then really there should be no difference between external and internal inputs. What the brain perceives and what the brain thinks it perceives is one and the same. It explains why the leech nervous system can think it is swimming when it is detached from the actual leech and no outside stimulus is possible. It explains why you can wake up from a nightmare with your heart racing and cold sweat pouring down your neck in the same way it would if you had really just been pursued by some terrible entity. So perhaps, the great poet is right. Everything is just a function of the brain. To the brain the dream is just as real and just as significant as physical outside input. I’m not sure if I believe it entirely. However I am slowly realizing the grandeur of the idea.