Alien abduction reports often follow a strikingly familiar pattern: lost time, immobilization, floating, bright lights, and invasive procedures. These memories are emotionally intense and vividly detailed—even when the events themselves can’t be verified. This chapter explores how neuroscience might explain why such experiences feel real, even when they may not reflect objective reality. Topics include memory formation and reconsolidation, the vulnerability of memory to suggestion, and the ways cultural narratives can shape the content of extraordinary experiences. It also touches on hypnosis, dissociation, and why some individuals may be more prone to magical thinking or altered states of consciousness. Through this lens, alien encounters are reframed as meaningful phenomena rooted in the brain’s powerful (and sometimes flawed) storytelling machinery—offering insight into how belief systems form around experiences that defy conventional explanation.

This chapter explores classical computation fundamentals, starting with Turing machines as a foundation for defining computability. The universal Turing machine is introduced, emphasizing the theoretical basis for all computable functions. Computational complexity is discussed, differentiating between tractable and intractable problems and explaining complexity classes as a framework for problem-solving. The chapter also covers the circuit model, providing a bridge between theoretical constructs and modern computer architecture. Finally, the concept of reversible computation is introduced, which has implications for energy-efficient processing. Through these topics, the chapter delineates classical computation’s limitations, setting up the motivation to transition into quantum approaches in subsequent chapters.

Sleep paralysis is one of the most terrifying experiences a person can have—and it’s surprisingly common. Cultures around the world describe eerily similar episodes: waking up unable to move, a crushing pressure on the chest, and the overwhelming sense that someone—or something—is in the room. This chapter explores how those experiences may arise from the collision of sleep architecture and perceptual ambiguity. It covers the basic neurobiology of REM sleep, explains what happens when paralysis persists into wakefulness, and investigates how hallucinations can emerge in these liminal states. The chapter also examines the role of the temporoparietal junction in out-of-body experiences and the sensation of a nearby presence. Rooted in both science and cultural context, this chapter offers a grounded explanation for a deeply human phenomenon—one that’s haunted people for centuries and continues to blur the line between brain and belief.

If we’re trying to come up with a theory to explain the sound of footsteps behind you, a feeling of a presence, lights that you can’t explain, or the psychic who knows everything about you, we might be tempted to say that supernatural forces are at work. But we also know that each one of these instances can be easily explained with neuroscience and psychology. This is what I’ve attempted to do in this book.

The Science of the Supernatural might, at first, feel like an oxymoron. I don’t think most people would immediately see the myriad connections between the paranormal and psychology. I didn’t at first, either. I’ve always loved ghost stories, horror movies, and scary novels. I have a distinct memory of lying in my bed as a kid, trying unsuccessfully to go to sleep. I had just read Stephen King’s short story “The Boogeyman.” I remember staring at my closet door, sure that it was slowly creaking open. Certain that the boogeyman was on the other side, waiting to kill me.

Of all the ways humans have chosen to divide themselves, none has a history as problematic as race. This concept has significant implications for almost every aspect of contemporary human conduct, irrespective of what ‘race’ we identify with, or even are deemed to belong to. This is particularly so for the field of education. This chapter looks at the complicated history of race as well as some of the current challenges that exist. In order to describe the complex issues within this important area, a wide range of interrelated terms are used. Probably the most important is the underpinning notion of ‘othering’; that is, thinking about a certain person or group as not ‘one of us’, as the ‘other’.

This chapter introduces quantum computation by comparing classical and quantum computers. Core concepts including qubits, superposition, and entanglement are introduced, setting the stage for deeper exploration. Various quantum computing models are summarized, with a focus on the circuit and topological models. The chapter explains why quantum computing is necessary, especially for tasks beyond classical computing’s limits. It discusses existing quantum platforms and provides an overview of their capabilities and limitations. The chapter also offers a brief historical perspective, touches on computational energy efficiency, and forecasts a quantum future where quantum and classical computing work in tandem. This groundwork provides essential insights into quantum computation’s potential and upcoming chapters’ explorations of algorithmic and theoretical principles.

A quick glance through history demonstrates that it has not always been an unbroken chain of human happiness, to put it mildly. Different individuals, groups and peoples have faced persecution for any number of reasons: where they came from, how they looked, their perceived (dis)ability, who or what they believed in, who they loved, how they identified, the family they were born into, or for no reason at all. It is against this backdrop that our current set of human rights has emerged. While this chapter focuses primarily on children’s rights and their relationship with education and educator obligations, it is necessary to understand the history of rights in order to understand why human rights, and particularly children’s rights, are so important to the work that we do as educators.

Zombie myths have captured imaginations for centuries, but their roots may lie in real-world infections that alter behavior in terrifying ways. This chapter explores the biological underpinnings of the zombie archetype, beginning with cultural practices surrounding Haitian Vodou and moving into the realm of neuroscience and virology. Rabies serves as a chilling real-world analog to zombification, with symptoms like aggression, hydrophobia, and loss of cognitive control emerging as the virus travels from the bite site to the central nervous system. The chapter also examines Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite capable of rewiring host behavior and reducing fear responses, particularly in rodents. By tracing the ways infectious agents can alter motivation, movement, and fear, this chapter offers a grounded, scientific perspective on one of the most enduring horror tropes—and explores what happens when the threat isn’t supernatural, but biological, and it’s already inside the body.

While debates may rage around issues of sexuality, sexual identity and sexuality-based rights, if we are to believe what we hear from some of our political leaders and sections of the media, concerns over sexuality itself are to be settled outside of schools. Sexuality, they would argue, is too mature, too controversial and quite simply a biological fact that has no relevance to schooling. However, there are disturbing stories and statistics that point to the significant challenges faced by students, and these surely warrant attention. With this in mind, this chapter examines some of the questions that often arise when talking about sexualities: Are gender and sexuality the same thing? Is sexuality ‘all about sex’? And what has school got to do with any of this? By unpacking some of the emergent literature in the field, the chapter suggests that dominant discourses around sexualities – in this case, heteronormativity – are up for challenge.

This chapter examines the impact of education policy on students, parents, caregivers, and teachers. This chapter argues that ‘big policy’ in education tends to operate under a market-based logic that has been described as ‘neoliberal’. Adopting a more nuanced and ‘problematising’ approach to policy, this chapter explores the nature and effects of policy in education in relation to its valorisation of market principles such as ‘choice’ and ‘competition’. It also explores the nature and effects of such policy as it seeks to regulate the performance of teachers and schools. Underpinning the discussion is the philosophical notion that policy not only addresses and solves ‘problems’ in education and schooling as it does ‘produce’ those problems in the first place. In this respect, policy can be understood as implicitly linked to programs of governance.

This book began with specific goals in mind. The first was to address the issue of mass education in ways that had something to offer a range of different readers. This book is not aimed specifically at undergraduates, any more than it is directed at practising teachers or university academics. Each chapter has been organised with a progressive layering of complexity and density, such that readers with differing levels of knowledge and expertise should still be able to get something out of it. This has not been written as a textbook, with bitesized pieces tailor-made for tutorial digestion. This book was put together for a range of reasons: it is a summary of the current state of play within Australian (and global) theories of education; it is a resource book for those interested in assessing the weight of different conceptual approaches to mass schooling; it is an analysis of various issues within contemporary society as they relate to education; it is a (relatively) gentle critique of reductionist analyses of our schooling institutions and their outcomes; and it is a call for us not to forget the value of philosophy within the broader play of the social sciences.