Hardly a day goes by without some discussion about whether computers can be conscious, whether our universe is some kind of simulation, whether mind is a unique quality of human beings or spread out across the universe like butter on bread.

Of course, most philosophers believe that our experience is locked inside our skulls, an unreliable representation of a quite different reality outside. Colour, smell and sound, they tell us, occur only in our heads. Yet when neuroscientists look inside our brains to see what's going on, they find only billions of neurons exchanging electrical impulses and releasing chemical substances.

Five years ago, in a chance conversation, Tim Parks came across a radical new theory of consciousness that undercut this interpretation. This set him off on a quest to discover more about this fascinating topic and also led him to observe his own experience with immense attention. Out of My Head tells the gripping, highly personal, often surprisingly funny, story of a paradigm shift. It frames complex metaphysical considerations and dauntingly technical laboratory experiments in terms we can all understand, making the reader acutely aware of how much is at stake in this debate, for each of us as individuals and for the human race as a whole.

Above all, it invites us to see space, time, colour and smell, sounds and sensations in an entirely new way. The world will feel more real after reading it.