Oliver W. Sacks

Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. People with migraines may see shimmering arcs of light or tiny, Lilliputian figures of animals and people. People with failing eyesight, paradoxically, may become immersed in a hallucinatory visual world. Hallucinations can be brought on by a simple fever or even the act of waking or falling asleep, when people have visions ranging from luminous blobs of color to beautifully detailed faces or terrifying ogres. Those who are bereaved may receive comforting "visits" from the departed. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one's own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. As a young doctor in California in the 1960s, Oliver Sacks had both a personal and a professional interest in psychedelics. These, along with his early migraine experiences, launched a lifelong investigation into the varieties of hallucinatory experience. Here, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition. Permissions Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: American Academy of Neurology: Excerpt from "Anton's Syndrome Accompanying Withdrawal Hallucinosis in a Blind Alcoholic" by Barbara E. Swartz and John C. M. Brust from Neurology 34 (1984). Reprinted by permission of the American Academy of Neurology as administered by Wolters Kluwer Health Medical Research. American Psychiatric Publishing: Excerpt from "Weir Mitchell's Visual Hallucinations as a Grief Reaction" by Jerome S. Schneck, M.D., from American Journal of Psychiatry (1989). Copyright © 1989 by American Journal of Psychiatry. Reprinted by permission of American Psychiatric Publishing a division of American Psychiatric Association. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.: Excerpt from "Heautoscopy, Epilepsy and Suicide" by P. Brugger, R. Agosti, M. Regard, H. G. Wieser and T. Landis from Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, July 1, 1994. Reprinted by permission of BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. as administered by the Copyright Clearance Center. Cambridge University Press: Excerpts from Disturbances of the Mind by Douwe Draaisma, translated by Barbara Fasting. Copyright © 2006 by Douwe Draaisma. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. Canadian Psychological Association: Excerpt from "Effects of Decreased Variation of the Sensory Environment" by W. H. Bexton, W. Heron and T. H. Scott from Canadian Psychology (1954). Copyright © 1954 by Canadian Psychological Association. Excerpt from "Perceptual Changes after Prolonged Sensory Isolation (Darkness and Silence)" by John P. Zubek, Dolores Pushkar, Wilma Sansom and J. Gowing from Canadian Psychology (1961). Copyright © 1961 by Canadian Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission of Canadian Psychological Association. Elsevier Limited: Excerpt from "Migraine: From Cappadocia to Queen Square" in Background to Migraine, edited by Robert Smith (London: William Heinemann, 1967). Reprinted by permission of Elsevier Limited. The New York Times: Excerpts from "Lifting, Lights, and Little People" by Siri Hustvedt from The New York Times Blog, February 17, 2008. Reprinted by permission of The New York Times as administered by PARS International Corp. Oxford University Press: Excerpt from "Dostoiewski's Epilepsy" by T. Alajouanine from Brain, June 1, 1963. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press as administered by Copyright Clearance Center. Royal College of Psychiatrists: Excerpt from "Sudden Religious Conversion in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy" by Kenneth Dewhurst and A. W. Beard from British Journal of Psychiatry 117 (1970). Reprinted by permission of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Scientific American: Excerpt from "Abducted!" by Michael Shermer from Scientifi c American 292 (2005). Copyright © 2005 by Scientifi c American, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Scientific American. Vintage Books: Excerpts from Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1967, copyright renewed 1994 by the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Hallucinations

Oliver Sacks

Describes the author's work with institutionalized patients at Mount Carmel Hospital and the dramatic effects of the drug L-DOPA on twenty patients suffering from encephalitic Parkinsonism

Awakenings

The River of Consciousness

A memoir of the scientific wonder of youth by the distinguished neurologist and author describes his fascination with metals, gasses, and chemicals, especially "Uncle Tungsten," and with unravelling the complex mysteries of the world around him.

Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

Uncle Tungsten

A renowned neurologist investigates the world of the deaf, examining their past and present treatment at the hands of society, and assesses the value and significance of sign language. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

A Journey Into the World of the Deaf

Seeing Voices

The author describes his journey to islands of the Pacific where the natives displayed unusual concentrations of diseases

And, Cycad Island

The Island of the Colorblind

The best-selling author of Awakenings describes the symptoms and history of migraine headaches, identifies the foods and conditions that may provoke attacks, and examines possible treatments for this devastating ailment. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

Migraine

A neurologist describes his struggle to recover from a mountain climbing accident and examines the effects of a neural injury on the sense of self

A Leg to Stand On

Frigyes Karinthy

Vernon Duckworth Barker

The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring—so loud as to drown out all other noises—of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years since Budapest had streetcars. Only then did he realize he was suffering from an auditory hallucination of extraordinary intensity. What in fact Karinthy was suffering from was a brain tumor, not cancerous but hardly benign, though it was only much later—after spells of giddiness, fainting fits, friends remarking that his handwriting had altered, and books going blank before his eyes—that he consulted a doctor and embarked on a series of examinations that would lead to brain surgery. Karinthy’s description of his descent into illness and his observations of his symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, as well as of his friends’ and doctors’ varied responses to his predicament, are exact and engrossing and entirely free of self-pity. A Journey Round My Skull is not only an extraordinary piece of medical testimony, but a powerful work of literature—one that dances brilliantly on the edge of extinction.

A Journey Round My Skull

The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Christopher Payne

Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals.

Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals

Asylum

Profiles seven neurological patients, including a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome and an artist whose color sense is destroyed in an accident but finds new creative power in black and white

Seven Paradoxical Tales

An Anthropologist on Mars

With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable, Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks' latest masterpiece.

Musicofilia

O que têm em comum o pintor que, em decorrência de um acidente, passa a enxergar o mundo em preto e branco, o rapaz cujas únicas lembranças se restringem ao final dos anos 60 e o exímio cirurgião tomado por todo tipo de tiques (verbais e físicos) na vida cotidiana? Para o neurologista Oliver Sacks, esses não são apenas casos clínicos extraordinários. Antes de mais nada, eles dizem respeito a indivíduos cujas vidas, pressionadas por situações-limites (por vezes trágicas, em geral dramáticas), podem nos ajudar a compreender melhor o que somos. Examinando casos clínicos de indivíduos com diferentes tipos de lesões, Sacks constrói uma teoria da inteligência.

sete historias paradoxais

Um antropologo em Marte

Traces the stories of six individuals whose lives have been profoundly changed by unusual changes to essential senses and abilities, including a renowned pianist who lost the ability to read scores and a novelist whose ability to read was destroyed by a stroke.

Oliver W. Sacks

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