StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson Your Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman
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Aug 21, 2026 
David Eagleman, neuroscientist and author known for work on brain plasticity and perception, shares fascinating takes. He explains sensory substitution and how the brain repurposes cortex for touch. He discusses dreaming, memory as reconstruction, synesthesia and aphantasia, and why time seems to slow in crises. He also covers experiments that probe subjective time and neural timing.
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Ben Underwood Showed Practical Human Echolocation
- Ben Underwood and thousands of blind people use echolocation by making clicks and interpreting echoes.
- Eagleman describes Ben's clicks and documentaries showing echolocation is a practiced, low-resolution but effective spatial sense.
Dreams Defend Visual Cortex From Nightly Takeover
- Dreams may function as defensive activation to protect visual cortex territory during nightly darkness.
- Eagleman links PGO waves that periodically blast visual cortex with evolutionary need to keep visual territory from takeover.
Tinnitus Could Be The Brain Recreating Lost Sounds
- Tinnitus may be the auditory system's defensive activation when inner-ear cells die for certain frequencies.
- Eagleman proposes the brain generates phantom sounds to replace lost inputs, analogous to visual hallucinations during deprivation.
