Title
Hallucinations / Oliver Sacks.
Edition
1st American ed.
ISBN
9780307957245
0307957241
Publication Details
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.
Language
English
Description
xiv, 326 p. ; 22 cm.
Call Number
RC553.H3 S33 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification
616.89
Summary
"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."--Book jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-309) and index.
Available Note
Issued also in electronic format.
Silent multitudes: Charles Bonnet Syndrome
The prisoner's cinema: sensory deprivation
A few nanograms of wine: hallucinatory smells
Hearing things
The illusions of Parkinsonism
Altered states
Patterns: visual migraines
The "sacred" disease
Bisected: hallucinations in the half-field
Delirious
On the threshold of sleep
Narcolepsy and night hags
The haunted mind
Doppelgängers: hallucinating oneself
Phantoms, shadows, and sensory ghosts.
