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How To Use 100% Of Your Brain

Debbie Hampton
5 min readJun 8, 2021

I recently watched the 2014 movie Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. The general plot is that a college student studying abroad (Johansson) gets abducted by a gang in Taipei and is forced to carry a bag of drugs that they implant in her abdomen. When the bag starts leaking its contents, CPH4 (based on a real molecule that pregnant woman produce which the movie likens to an “atomic bomb for a fetus”), the drug triggers rampant production of new connections between neurons giving Lucy access to the 90 percent of her brain that most of us supposedly never use.

The explosive brain growth renders her superhuman, and levitation, time travel, mind reading, learning Chinese in an instant, mentally controlling electronics, altering and generating new body parts, as well as high-speed car chases, and fight-to-the-death scenes follow.

Lucy is based on a lie.

The director, Luc Besson, knew the idea that we only use 10% of our brainpower was false but went with it anyway. It is science fiction. I get it, but the problem is that too many people accept this brain myth as true. According to a TED-Ed Animation, two-thirds of the public and nearly half of all science teachers still mistakenly believe this myth. There is absolutely no truth to the idea that we only use 10 percent of our brain.

The Battle In Your…

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Responses (3)

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I havent watched Lucy yet Debbie, but Limitless I have seen and it blew my mind that a drug could give us such enhanced abilities. Addiction to those can be detrimental, but thankfully it was a fictional movie. In reality I personally love coffee+good music as neuroenhancers. Work like a charm for me :)

Killed that myth, didn't you!

I've not watched Lucy. When I read your summary of what it is about, I laughed. The story line is ridiculous! But I guess, that's entertainment!
Thank you for sharing the research and correcting the myth that we are only using 10% of our brain. You've shared very interesting information!