The notion we're all alone in the world is an illusion

As Dan Brown's new thriller sees Robert Langdon tackling human consciousness and life after death, The Da Vinci Code author, in his only UK print interview, talks to the Express about ignoring the critics, amazing readers... and why AI can't replicate him

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This time Brown tackles one of the biggest subjects of all — human consciousness, the idea of an afterlife and the interconnectedness of our minds. It’s a topic on which he expects our understanding to alter dramatically within the next decade. Social media, he notes, is already a kind of “hive mind”.

“It’s the lens through which we see reality and ourselves,” he explains.

“Our misunderstandings and misperceptions make it so ripe for a very revelatory tale. I thought, ‘This is something I want to learn about’. And if history is any guide, other people will share my taste.”

No wonder it’s taken eight years to write, then.

“Human consciousness is a very ethereal topic. I had to figure out how to make it into something that felt concrete and urgent. It’s kind of like trying to hug smoke — you just can’t quite get your arms around it.” His research — including into so-called ‘near death’ experiences on the operating table, led him to see the world quite differently.

“I fear death much, much less,” he tells me. “I’m not in any hurry but I’ve really come to understand that there is something beyond... I don’t think it’s any religion’s version of heaven or hell, it’s something else entirely.

“But it is something and it sounds quite unifying, quite enlightened, quite affirmative. All the adjectives you hear from people who have skirted the edges [of death] are incredibly positive and peaceful — the notion that we're all alone in the world is an illusion.”