BrainWake: step inside the human brain

An interactive 3D atlas of the human brain. Explore its regions and networks, see how disorders and altered states change it, and experience what perception looks like under their influence. Every claim is checked against its source.

Conditions

  • ADHD: What ADHD is actually like, what's going on in the brain, and what genuinely helps — whether it's you or someone you care about.
  • Depression: What depression is actually like, how to recognise it in yourself or someone else, what's going on in the brain, and what actually helps.
  • Anxiety & PTSD: What anxiety and PTSD are actually like, how to tell ordinary worry from a disorder, what's happening in the brain, what works, and how to support someone through it.
  • Autism: What autism is like from the inside, how it shows up from toddlers to adults, what's different in the brain, and what helps an autistic person thrive.
  • OCD: What OCD is actually like — it isn't about being tidy — why unwanted thoughts get stuck, what's happening in the brain, the treatment that works, and how to support someone without feeding it.
  • Bipolar disorder: What bipolar disorder is — the highs as well as the lows — how to spot mania early, what's happening in the brain, the treatments that work, and how to help someone through an episode.
  • Schizophrenia: What schizophrenia actually is — the voices, the beliefs, the quieter losses that often come first — what's happening in the brain, the treatments that work, and how to help someone through it.
  • Epilepsy: What a seizure is actually like — including the strange ones that start as déjà vu, fear or a smell — what's happening in the brain, how epilepsy is treated, and exactly what to do if someone has a seizure in front of you.
  • Alzheimer's: What Alzheimer's is like and how it unfolds, how to tell it from ordinary forgetfulness, where in the brain it starts and why that's memory, what treatment can and can't do, and how to support someone through it.
  • Parkinson's disease: What Parkinson's actually is — not just a tremor — the early signs that can come years before it, why losing one small cluster of cells changes how a whole body moves, and the treatments that help.

Drugs and substances

  • Cannabis: What a cannabis high actually feels like, from the first few minutes to coming down — and what THC is doing in your brain at every stage of it.
  • Alcohol: What being drunk actually is, drink by drink — the warmth, the loosening, the double vision, the gaps in memory — and what alcohol is doing in your brain at every stage.
  • MDMA: What MDMA (ecstasy, molly) actually feels like — the come-up, the warmth, strangers who feel like old friends, the comedown — and what it's doing in your brain to cause each of them.
  • Mushrooms: What a mushroom trip actually feels like — from colours getting richer to the sense of self dissolving — what decides whether it's beautiful or terrifying, and what psilocybin is doing in your brain at each stage.
  • LSD: What an acid trip actually feels like — sounds turning into sights, music hitting harder, the self coming loose — why it lasts most of a day, how it compares with mushrooms, and what LSD is doing in your brain.
  • Caffeine: The world's everyday drug: what it actually does to your brain, why it wakes you up without giving you back sleep, how much is too much, what happens when you stop, and when it becomes dangerous.
  • Ketamine: What ketamine actually feels like — the room a step removed, then melting into it, then the K-hole — what it does to your brain and your memory, and why the same drug is now used to treat depression.
  • Opioids and fentanyl: What opioids do to the brain and body, why fentanyl turned an epidemic into a poisoning crisis, how to recognise an overdose and reverse it with naloxone, and the treatments that keep people alive.
  • Salvia: What salvia actually feels like — gravity going wrong, the room turning into somewhere else, the body falling away — why it's unlike any other hallucinogen, and what it's doing in your brain.

States of mind

  • Dreaming: What dreaming actually is — why dreams are so vivid, so emotional and so easy to forget, why you don't notice how strange they are — what your brain is doing all night, and how to have a lucid dream.
  • Deep sleep: What deep sleep is, what your brain does with it — slow waves, memories filed away, waste washed out — how much sleep you actually need, and what genuinely helps when sleep won't come.
  • Sleep deprivation: What running on too little sleep actually does to you — your mood, your memory, your judgement, your driving — why you can't feel how impaired you are, and what an all-nighter does to an exam.
  • Meditation: What meditation is actually like, what it changes in the brain, what it really does and doesn't help with — and the side effects nobody mentions.