Reading fiction has a long-lasting effect on your brain. While previous scientific knowledge on reading’s impact was limited to how reading makes a definite, but temporary, impression on our brains, new research shows that when people read a novel, they also experience what’s been called “embodied semantics” for days after they finish reading.

What this means is that the reader is not merely empathizing with the protagonist during the reading process. In fact, the reader’s brain is stimulated to such an extent that brain regions associated with the actual activities the protagonist is described as performing are activated in the reader. These findings suggest for the first time that the act of reading creates mental experiences at a deeper level than previously thought.

The researchers at Emory University found that when the person reads about a specific action, their language-processing brain area mirrors that activity as if the person was experiencing it themselves. In other words, if someone reads a story in which the main character goes for a jog or plays tennis, the reader’s brain activity shows that those neuron connections associated with those activities are turned on. Reading a novel, concluded the researchers, in essence merges protagonist and reader to such a deep level that that the reader actually experiences the protagonist’s adventures.

What the reader processes on paper is actually felt at physical level — a finding that comes to reinforce previous research on how reading improves skills that have to do with understanding and sympathizing with others. A page-turner that involves you in a story has multiple effects. It lets you experience worlds and adventures otherwise inaccessible, and it also draws you in mentally and emotionally so that you’re “co-starring” in the book.

Fiction, and literature more generally, sometimes don’t lend themselves to speed reading, due to this in-depth experience. But would it be possible to experience the same amount of connectivity with non-fiction content? The answer is that it’s highly unlikely. Non-fiction content is in general simply factual and informative, free of emotion, action, and conflict. Fiction, including poetry and literature, is created with the aim of stimulating both visceral and intellectual responses from the reader.

Use your speed reading skills for non-fiction, and that will leave you more free time to experience embodied semantics by reading good literature at a comfortable pace. Literature is one type of content better enjoyed at a slow reading pace.

Have you ever tried to speed read a poem or novel?