From NPR, this is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
When Jessica Langeman was twelve, she had a favorite tv show.
This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I was crazy about Star Trek.
Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of space.
One day, enterprise.
Several of the actors came to my hometown.
So I begged my mother to take me, and I walked up to a table and there was Leonard Nimoy.
Stand by to bim up.
It was Mister Spock, the cerebral star of the show.
Always calm, ever logical.
For years, Jessica had felt a deep kinship with spark.
And now here he was, right in front of her.
And of course, I knew every angle of his face.
I knew the curve of his ears.
I knew everything about him, or so I felt.
And when I put my notebook down for him to autograph, he looked at me with complete blank non recognition.
And I was so confused in that moment.
I knew him so well, but he did not know me.