We are told that we only have five senses, touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. All five help us navigate and make sense of what’s going on in the world around us. Yet we use more than five senses almost every day, and most of the time we don’t even realize it.
This episode of Brain Games shows what happens when we take the time to activate our brains more and engage our senses. Each combination or pairing helps to unlock what is known as hidden or extra sense. For example, the combination of touch + sight + sound corresponds to your sense of balance. Balance—like other hidden senses—is constantly helping us cope with our daily lives.
Her staff set up stops throughout New York’s Times Square to attract as many volunteers as possible to the Games. First, one has to guess someone’s age based on how well balanced they are on one leg — without ever seeing them first.
Another game involves hearing. Subjects first listened to music through high-quality headphones. They then heard “disturbing” sounds such as fingernails scratching on a blackboard, a dental drill and someone vomiting. Viewers are disgusted, extremely disturbed and uncomfortable. The game proves that certain sounds trigger the amygdala — or the brain’s fight-or-flight control — to help our bodies recognize impending danger or emergencies.
The next “super” but everyday sense they tackle is proprioception, or when we perceive our body’s position during movement. The show proves that this extra sense can be manipulated. Just introducing a new or unfamiliar movement can confuse our brains and make it impossible to recognize body size or orientation.
Times Square tourists and passers-by also have the opportunity to ride their bikes in reverse — when you turn left, the wheels turn right, and vice versa. All but one professional BMX rider failed at the race and he only rode reverse for two weeks. Strangely enough, when they forced him to ride his regular bike, he couldn’t ride it anymore.
There was also a visual game in which participants could choose which of two boxes of different sizes was “heavier.” Only two weightlifters guessed that the two boxes weighed the same. Finally, a so-called “mind reader” surprised the crowd by seemingly reading/guessing what was going on in their heads. In fact, he practiced the art of microscopic observation, honing his senses to see, hear, and perceive tiny movements many times better than anyone else.
These games prove that our senses are more connected to our bodies than we realize. They also show how to hack our brains to do more with our senses. Like mind readers, cyclists, and weightlifters, with constant practice we can challenge our brains to discover our extrasensory perceptions.
New neural pathways can be formed to help us process new information and do new things with ease. This is useful when we want to break bad habits and develop new positive ones. Of course, there are also benefits to our overall lives.
