Moran Cerf — From Bank Robber to Neuroscientist… to Dream Manipulator

3 min readDec 8, 2020

The I Have Cool Friends podcast, hosted by Samantha Peszek, is a show that sparks inspirational conversations with experts about business, wellness, and personal development.

INTRODUCING MORAN CERF:

Sam welcomes speaker, author, and professor of neuroscience, Moran Cerf. Professor Cerf has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, holds multiple patents, and has published over sixty academic papers in highly regarded journals. He is the beneficiary of several awards and grants for his work and was recently named one of the “40 Leading Professors Below 40.” Additionally, he’s the co-founder of Think Alike and founder of B-Cube, which applies neuroscience to help society. He’s also been a consultant to many Hollywood films and TV shows, such as Bull, Limitless, Falling Water, and more.

In this episode, Sam and Moran talk about his extensive academic research in neuroscience. They touch on topics including brain manipulation, understanding the mechanisms of emotion, decision-making, and dreams. Moran talks about dream research, training your brain to become happier, and his experience consulting with businesses on the psychology of consumers.

THIS EPISODE FEATURES INSIGHTS ON DREAM SCIENCE, MANIPULATING THE BRAIN, & THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BUSINESS:

Moran Cerf talks about his extensive background as a neuroscientist, his interest in dreams, and the time he spent as a bank robber
Dream research, the concept of manipulating dreams to eliminate limiting beliefs, and what the future holds for neuroscience
Controlling emotions and training your brain to be happier and more fulfilled
Separating experience from perception
Moran shares the most eye-opening realizations he has had while studying the psychology of business
How businesses can utilize neuroscience to become more engaging and the negative effects of manipulating the brain
Moran provides his thoughts and insights on free will

WHAT DID MORAN SAY?

“The majority of dreams have some residue in reality. It’s just that some of it is made up.”

“The brain doesn’t stop working when we go to sleep. We need to create these settings for what it should practice before we go to sleep.”

“One of the functions of dreams is to simulate future events so our body can practice for them and rehearse them.”

“One thing that everyone should know is that the experience is independent from the perception.”

“The reality is that we make choices at time zero. But when we’re asked to explain them, we have no idea why we made choices at time zero, we just come up with an answer on the spot.”

“We make up our story all the time on the spot. And we change the past to align with that.”

“It turns out, from the brain’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if the content that activates neurons came from the stomach or came from the eyes. As soon as it’s in the brain, it’s just neurons firing. The brain doesn’t even know that it’s different.”

“Silicon Valley is populated right now by former neuroscientists — not by engineers, not by programmers — whose bread and butter is knowing how the brain works and how to manipulate it.”