TY  - BOOK
AU  - Sacks,Oliver
TI  - Hallucinations
SN  - 9781447208259
AV  - RC553.H3 S33 2012
U1  - 616.89 23
PY  - 2012///
CY  - London
PB  - Picador
KW  - Hallucinations and illusions
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - Cognition disorders
KW  - Perceptual disorders
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-307) and index; Silent multitudes : Charles Bonnet syndrome -- The prisoners cinema : sensory deprivation -- A few nanograms of wine : hallucinatory smells -- Hearing things -- The illusions of Parkinsonism -- Altered states -- Patterns : visual migraine -- The sacred disease : epileptic auras -- Bisected : hallucinations in the half-field -- Delirious -- On the threshold of sleep -- Narcolepsy and night hags -- The haunted mind -- Doppelgangers : hallucinating oneself -- Phantoms, shadows, and sensory ghosts
N2  - Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication - even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say 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
ER  -