You Have an Eye Inside Your Head: What’s it For?

Human beings all have what has been called a vestigial (unused) eye in their brains. This eye has a structure similar to our external eyes, with retinal tissues, and it is sensitive to light.

This eye, known as the pineal gland or pineal body, has been much-discussed in philosophy and medicine. Here’s a look at a few explanations of the role played by the eye in your brain—from it’s function as a “third eye” that can perceive things we cannot see with our external eyes to its role in producing melatonin and more.

1. Galen the Greek Says It’s Just a Gland

In the second century, prominent Greek physician Galen of Pergamum was the first to describe the pineal gland. He said, like other glands, it’s function was to support blood vessels.

He dismissed the prevalent thinking of his time, which he described: some thought the pineal body regulated the passage of psychic pneuma (a material thought to be the vehicle of sensation) the way an esophagus regulates the movement of food to the stomach. 

Galen’s view remained largely unchallenged for many centuries.

2. Descartes Says it the Seat of the Soul, Thought

The pineal body played an important role for famed 17th century French philosopher René Descartes.

Descartes saw it as the origin of thought. He said that it is the only part of the brain that is unique, not duplicated within the brain. He said it must, thus, be the place where all information is centralized—a place in which our consciousness can process information in a single location, and from which our consciousness can send out all messages to the rest of the brain and body.

“Since it is the only solid part in the whole brain which is single, it must necessarily be the seat of the common sense, i.e., of thought,” he wrote, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

His understanding of the precise location of the pineal body in the brain was wrong, but Descartes’s description of its uniquely singular nature was correct.

This view has been echoed by many spiritual disciplines.

In some Eastern philosophies, the pineal body aligns with the location of the crown chakra, a key point for high-level consciousness and enlightenment, or the understanding of higher realms.

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(photos: Wikimedia Commons (top) Wikimedia Commons (bottom))