# Controlling someone else's body with your brain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879 "2013-09-03T11:01:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/1 "2013-09-03T11:01:10Z")
Hi I was talking to a guy at a work get together and he said that it is possible for a person could use their brain and some equipment to control someone else’s body or at least their arms or something. Has anyone heard of that technology? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/2 "2013-09-03T11:14:02Z")
Perhaps he was talking about [this](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/29/not_mind_control_washington_brain_to_brain_computer_interface_has_limitations.html). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/3 "2013-09-03T11:15:31Z")
He could always wear a tin-foil hat. But what he is conceivably talking about is research into have paraplegics control their own bodies. Basically, they would wear exterior robot shells and pickups on their skulls (or, currently, inside the skulls) and learn to control the robots and thus control their limbs. But it still sounds like the tin-foil hat crowd. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/4 "2013-09-03T11:26:25Z")
“Hey, could you get me a beer while you’re up?” No, it’s the article\*\* njtt\*\* linked^^^. It was all over the news for like, 15 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/5 "2013-09-04T05:16:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Perhaps he was talking about [this](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/29/not_mind_control_washington_brain_to_brain_computer_interface_has_limitations.html). Yep that’s it! ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/6 "2013-09-04T13:44:49Z")
Yes, but it only works on John Malkovich for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/7 "2013-09-04T13:49:41Z")
I thought that the answer was sex. Controlling someone else’s body with my mind and an a piece of equipment. Yep, sex is the correct answer in my world. YMMV 😃 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/8 "2013-09-04T21:38:43Z")
> [@babygoat666](#): > > Yes, but it only works on John Malkovich for some reason. \ Hell, sometimes I have trouble controlling my own body, let alone someone elses. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/9 "2013-09-04T22:18:36Z")
Obligatory _Wrath of Khan_ reference. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controlling-someone-elses-body-with-your-brain/667879/10 "2013-09-04T23:23:59Z")
It is perhaps worth pointing out that controlling someone else’s brain with TMS is a bit like trying to type on an iPad wearing boxing gloves. It is a technically impressive achievement that they got this experiment to work at all, for this very simple movement, but it is never going to work well. It is not a practical method for communicating between, or controlling, brains. You are not going to be able to get fine control of someone else’s thoughts and actions using this sort of technique. You might, perhaps, in principle, be able to do that with something like a large array of surgically implanted electrodes (once we know a lot more about the brain than we do now), but not using a non-invasive method like TMS.