Best Of 2020

Whether we look forward to it or not, most of us think we understand the value of a long, uninterrupted sleep every night — often after we’ve gone without it for too long. Laura Lewis and her team of researchers at Boston University have sacrificed a great deal of sleep too — but they understand

For centuries, shamanic rituals have been practiced in numerous cultures across the globe in order to perceive and interact with the spirit world, heal the sick, communicate with the spirits, and escort souls of the dead to the afterlife. These collective ceremonies traditionally involve the participation of the

Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve seen eruptions of protests in a few pockets of the United States, as people demanded their country be “re-opened” — letting people go back to their daily routines — for things that we didn’t miss much before — but now seem like distant memories after several months of

Visualization is something most people do on a daily basis. You’re using visualization when you picture the face of a friend, read a novel, or try to remember where you put your keys. But is it possible to be completely without a mind’s eye? For many, visualizing is a crucial part of memory, learning, and

“A door was accidentally ajar and I heard a child laugh, I hadn’t heard anything as beautiful in more than two decades, my mind was awhirl for weeks,” Ahmed Kathrada, who was jailed with Nelson Mandela for most of his 28 years, told me this after he was released (almost two years before Mandela).