This book by neurologist Oliver Sacks is my most recent read, and it's pretty fascinating. It's essentially a rundown of patients with various interesting and rare neurological disorders. (I believe the film Awakenings was based on the author's research and experience.)
It makes my everyday life and ability to function suddenly seem a little more precious and tenuous.
Right now I'm in a chapter pertaining to "body awareness". The whole idea is one I hadn't really considered aside from things like babies gradually realizing that hand waving in front of them is not only attached to them, but it's part of them--they can control it. The idea of suddenly regressing, and losing the sense of ownership of a limb, or of the entire body is pretty terrifying. There's a story of a young man who kept falling out of bed because he would wake in the night with "a disgusting, pale severed leg" in the bed next to him. Horrified, he would push it out of bed, only to fall with it, because, of course, they were attached. Even when the situation was explained to him, he couldn't believe it because it simply did not feel like his. Another woman became paralyzed because she lost sense of her entire body. She couldn't make it move, because she felt completely disembodied. I can't imagine how unsettling that would be.
Fascinating, and a little scary.
This is one you can file in your "Secret Fears" list right under "public speaking," and "spontaneous combustion."
3 comments:
Creepy! Sounds like a good read, though. I'll have to look for that one.
That book is so good. He also has a wonderful little travel narrative about his trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to do some fern hunting. He's a man of many interests.
I finally actually ordered this one from Amazon based on your recommendation. I just got it today; hope it is good!
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