Hallucinations
By: Oliver Sacks
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
ISBN-13: 9780307957245
Subjects: Hallucinations; Perceptual Disorders
Description: This book is an investigation into the types, physiological sources, and cultural resonances of hallucinations traces everything from the disorientations of sleep and intoxication to the manifestations of injury and illness. Have you ever seen something that was not 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, the author 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, he 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: label: Chapter 1
title: Silent Multitudes : Charles Bonnet Syndrome; label: Chapter 2
title: The Prisoner's Cinema : Sensory Deprivation; label: Chapter 3
title: A Few Nanograms of Wine : Hallucinatory Smells; label: Chapter 4
title: Hearing Things; label: Chapter 5
title: The Illusions of Parkinsonism; label: Chapter 6
title: Altered States; label: Chapter 7
title: Patterns : Visual Migraine; label: Chapter 8
title: The "Sacred" Disease; label: Chapter 9
title: Bisected : Hallucinations in the Half-Field; label: Chapter 10
title: Delirious; label: Chapter 11
title: On the Threshold of Sleep; label: Chapter 12
title: Narcolepsy and Night Hags; label: Chapter 13
title: The Haunted Mind; label: Chapter 14
title: Doppelgängers : Hallucinating Oneself; label: Chapter 15
title: Phantoms, Shadows, and Sensory Ghosts