Hallucinations

fascinating stuff. this book is a kind of memoir slash clinical study slash history slash overview of the neurological process behind hallucinations.

there is no complicated scientific jargon, formulae, or indecipherable charts to wade through. in plain language, Sacks gives dozens of brief anecdotes from his decades of practice that give examples of the hallucinations people experience. the sheer number and variety of them experienced by people from all walks of life moved me into a slightly different paradigm of human perception and daily life. not only do we constantly gloss over sensory and semantic illusions (ie they aren’t limited to the optical realm) because our neurosystems are built to eek out patterns that are meaningful to the human mind from the ambient noise of our everyday surroundings, our brains, it seems, can create them whole-cloth, in detail, as if our eyes or ears or skin were truly experiencing them.

it’s hard to refrain from commenting on the ramifications of this information because it could mean so much to changing the world if we could all realize just how mutable our realities are. many of the hallucinations reported by people were not recognized as such at first. this then begs the question of how many times do we have hallucinations and never realize it? profound, i think.

but let me be clear: Sacks does not have an agenda in this book other than to educate people on the fact that hallucinations are a normal part of being a human being with a nervous system. the ethical and existential machinations above are mine alone.

back to the book: Sacks is a clear writer and not afraid to speak informally and even self-disclose. the memoir aspect of the book doesn’t stop and start with him recalling clinical cases, it also involves his own experiences with drug use, trauma, and the hallucinations that stemmed from them.

this is a really good read if you are at all interested in human perception and neuroscience.

Breezy and skips from case study to case study like a frog from one pond leaf to the next, never quite dipping in the waters and getting some depth on any one issue. This is Sacks' style for which he is well liked, but much like a series of interesting magazine articles you start wanting to dig into the meat of the issue at some point and it never really gets there.
What it does do really well is articulate all the variety of hallucinations from a plethora of points of view, (supposedly) real patients with real stories about living with different forms of hallucinations and the impact its had on their lives. From auditory to sensory to visual, the blind seeing visions to hallucinating music to the brain miscoding information making you think everyone you know is a stranger, there's certainly a good spectrum of the scope of possibilities here. Sacks even includes an aside about his personal experiences with hallucinations, mostly derived from drug use - something that could probably have been a fertile book on its own with the renaissance of psychedelics as a therapeutic.

Fascinating but overlong investigation of the variety of hallucinations human beings experience. I never knew, for instance, how prevalent hallucinations were in sufferers of migraines or epilepsy. We also learn about out of body experiences, drug-induced hallucinations, phantom limb syndrome, near death experiences, and a lot more. Surprisingly, Sacks himself experienced a few of these, most notably in his earlier years when he experimented with any number of drugs, stories he relates very frankly here. Reading this shortly after watching Bart Ehrman's "How Jesus Became God" lectures from the Great Courses, I can't help but make connections. Perhaps the stories of Jesus' followers who "saw" him after his death were not made up by later biblical authors, but were simply the type of hallucination many bereaved people have when they lose a loved one (or a loved pet, for that matter.) Everything is connected, and the human mind has corners most of us will never visit. But hearing about some of the fantastic and elaborate visions some of the subjects of this book experienced does make me a bit jealous. It is small compensation that I did have a dream one time--and a dream is very distinct from a hallucination as this book makes clear--where bags of potato chips were falling from the sky and attaching themselves to low branches on trees, so I could take all I wanted. This still doesn't quite compare to watching the Battle of Culloden take place on your dressing gown.

3.25 stars

Oliver Sacks is a neuroscientist, and this book includes essays on the topic of hallucinations. There were chapters on blindness, Parkinsons, epilepsy, drugs, migraines, narcolepsy, and a lot more, as well as a couple of chapters on auditory and smell hallucinations.

It was mostly interesting, but some parts did lose my interest. His books are like that for me (well, the few that I’ve read).

This book was intriguing - it started out being highly engaging, but over time the hallucinations became less weird, but the core concept became more interesting. The core concept for me was the very tight coupling between the physicality of the brain and the strange wide range of hallucinations that people have. And the biggest surprise to me was the connection between hallucinations and religious visions that people have throughout the ages. This book begins to explain a huge array of human culture.

Better than I expected.

Generally, when one thinks of hallucination, perceptions of something not present, a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, comes to mine. Dr. Sacks provides a description of other disorders where hallucinations might be present. Although the most common hallucinations tend to be visual or auditory, hallucinations can involve any of the sense organs. Other disorders or situations which can involve hallucinations include as detailed in this book: Parkinsonism, narcolepsy, and altered states of consciousness induced by psychoactive substances. The author provide detailed descriptions of these hallucinations from literary sources as well as many case studies. Subtleties in the hallucinations depend on which part of the brain is involved. I was drawn to this book hoping for detailed research involving hallucinations among the mentally ill but this area received very little attention. The number of case studies, although enlightening, became tedious after awhile and I had to put the book down.

As usual, Sacks does a stunning job of describing disturbing neurological states in such a way that you realize they are normal. He doesn't exempt himself from his kind, respectful, yet dispassionate examining eye, describing his own experiences of alternate realities. When you finish, you understand that our perceptions of reality are seriously skewed, and that the probing alien of today may just be the night-mare or the succubus of yesteryear.

This is a comprehensive book. It turns out that hallucinations are not just seen by those suffering from mental illness; there are many different types.

There is, for example, Charles Bonnet Syndrome, where blind people, those who have not seen anything for years, suddenly begin to “see things”. This is a reaction of the brain to the loss of eyesight.

Complex visions may be seen. Incongruous figures may appear in the room. Most people with CBS will be aware that they are hallucinating while some hallucinations may be thought to be real.

Faces, text, numerals, or musical notes may be seen.

People subjected to sensory deprivation, e.g. those placed in dark tanks of warm water, may experience visual hallucinations.

Hearing voices occurs in every culture and has often been accorded great importance.

Voices may occur with anyone in situations of extreme threat or danger. Freud himself heard voices on two such occasions. Suicide attempts may be prevented by hearing a voice.

Musical hallucinations are not uncommon.

Parkinson’s patients, particularly those with post-encephalitic syndromes, medicated with L-dopa are prone to vivid dreams, nightmares and visual illusions or hallucinations.

More than a quarter of the author’s patients with ordinary Parkinson’s disease experienced hallucinations after several years on L-dopa.

But there is a more malignant form of Parkinson’s which is accompanied by dementia and visual hallucinations even in the absence of L-dopa. Examination of the brain may show abnormal aggregates of protein (lewy bodies) inside the nerve cells.

In a chapter on altered states, the author describes his own experiences when taking drugs, e.g. Artane, a synthetic drug related to belladonna. He took twenty pills of Artane and found himself having a conversation with a couple of friends whom he thought had dropped in to visit him but it turned out this was a product of his imagination.

The author experimented with many drugs and, among other things, had experiences of seeing a wonderful indigo colour.

After taking large doses of chloral hydrate to get to sleep, then stopping, he began to see “bug-eyed monsters” – he had the DTs, delirium tremens. He had hallucinations for nearly 96 hours.

Migraines often induce hallucinations too, often complex ones, and the author has also experienced these.
There is a chapter about epilepsy which can give “ecstatic” seizures, and one about “hallucinations in the half-field”, when one loses vision in one eye.

The final chapters encompass also “psychical” or “paranormal” experiences. OBEs and also visits by angels.

One thing that bothers me about Oliver Sacks’ text is that his scepticism of spiritual matters shines through since he tends to classify spiritual experiences as “hallucinations”. I absolutely disagree that a spiritual experience indicates something wrong with the brain, on the contrary!

I found the book fascinating; it introduced me to all sorts of experiences that I knew nothing about. Sacks’ language is not just extremely rich but filled with specialized words that not many will have heard of; neither are these likely to be found in the dictionary.

I recommend the book for those interested in the brain and its abnormalities and will be reading further books by this author.

I pretty routinely love Sacks' books, and this one is no exception. Even though I myself have had no hallucinations, induced or otherwise, I have always been fascinated with the topic. I do have lucid dreams, which are sort of related to hallucinations, but still are dreams, nevertheless. Fascinating book.

I’d always imagined hallucinations were dangerous, scary and rare; nothing like those tricks of imagination and under-stimulated hearing on a silent night. A voice says your name when nobody’s there—that’s just a dream isn’t it? Seeing those pulsating puddles of light before a migraine? But Oliver Sacks looks for the common cause, and combines the common experience with the strange, making his book Hallucinations an oddly immediate and compelling read.

Have you ever wondered why tired and stressed out pilots might see alien spacecraft, or where the universal monsters of fairytales come from. The mind plays intriguing tricks, it seems. And while this book includes rather more drug-induced visions that I’d expected, it also lumps together the ordinary and mundane with the only slightly odd and the increasingly strange.

The book touches on PTSD and its effects on the brain, stress and the illness once termed hysteria, cause, effect, and different types of memory. It’s an absorbing, endlessly fascinating read, and it’s far more immediate and personal than I’d expected. Not my favorite book by Sacks, it’s a thoroughly good read just the same.

Disclosure: Bought at an airport bookstore for reading on a plane.

In this book, Oliver Sacks talks about many types of hallucinations. We first think of visual or audial hallucinations, but any sense can be suspect. He also covers disease-based, fatigue-based, phantom limbs, narcotics, shell shock/trauma, and others.

Much of the book is case studies, he throws in some historical context and a little neurology. In some cases he discusses brain imaging relating to the hallucinations.

The book seemed long, the case studies didn't really offer a lot of variety in many cases. Yet at times it became very interesting, but it wasn't sustained.

There is a lot of information, but it isn't one of his better books.

Very educational but sometimes the technical / medical terms need to be read more than once. This was the first Oliver Sacks book I have read and I some times got the impression it was a drawing together of his other works all of which are referenced numerous times. Also the number and frequency of medical terms mean that some people may be put off entirely.

Oliver Sacks was a brilliant neuroscientist but an even better writer. I have read at least 6 of his books and enjoyed every one of them. More to the point, I learned something from each one. This book is no exception. Unfortunately Sacks died a few weeks ago and, unless he had something in the works, his autobiography, On the Move, will be his last book. There are some of his older books that I have not read and I will savour them.
If I had ever thought about hallucinations I guess I would have thought that they were something people with mental health problems experienced. As Sacks has shown in the book hallucinations can be the result of many diseases or conditions and most of them are due to some change in the brain. Hallucinations can be visual, auditory, tactile or olfactory. They can last for a few seconds or persist for weeks. Many famous people including Sacks himself have experienced hallucinations.
Most people are reluctant to tell others that they have experienced hallucinations, fearing that doctors will diagnose them with a mental illness. That is a possible result. In the chapter called “Hearing Things” Sacks relates a 1973 experiment in which 8 people presented themselves at a variety of hospitals across the United States with a complaint of hearing voices. “They told the hospital staff that they could not really make out what the voices said but that they heard the words ‘empty’, ‘hollow’ and ‘thud’. Apart from this fabrication, they behaved normally and recounted their own (normal) past experiences and medical history.” All of these people were admitted to hospital for up to two months and diagnosed with schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis. None of the medical staff discovered that these patients were in an experiment. Interestingly, real patients figured it out. One said “You’re not crazy. You’re a journalist or a professor.”
I would think that people who have experienced hallucinations and not told anyone would be encouraged by this book. It is obvious that hallucinations are much more common than is believed. Since they can be signs of some abnormality in the brain it would be important to have the issue discussed and examined.

Hallucinations is not my favorite Oliver Sacks book, but it’s still quite interesting. I had no idea that there were so many different types and causes of hallucinations. Even though some readers may find the theme and a few of the cases repetitive, it’s well worth sticking with it for Sacks’ personal anecdotes. This is the first book of his I’ve read where Sacks reveals more about his own life experiences, and it was the highlight of the book for me. Overall, Hallucinations isn’t quite as outstanding as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, but I still quite enjoyed it.

More about hallucinations than you ever wanted to know. It starts out kind of neat, learning about the hallucinations brought on by sensory loss or drug use, but it gets very repetitive.

I'll confess that this is the first Oliver Sacks book I have read, although I have seen his work mentioned all over and have always been intrigued. I was not disappointed with Hallucinations, an engaging book that covers hallucinations not caused by psychosis, such as seen in schizophrenia.

The hallucinations Sacks covers are diverse and cover an array of causes: from Charles Bonnet syndrome to sensory deprivation, from sleep paralysis to phantom limb syndrome. Together with a variety of historical sources and patient accounts, he has pulled together a book that covers everything but psychosis. Some hallucinations have roots inside the brain, such as the prelude to an epileptic seizure, while others come from more nebulous sources, like grief or trauma. He even delves into intentional hallucinations, the kind caused by taking psychadelic drugs, which he apparently has ample experience with.

Sacks writes fluidly and has a wry sense of humor that crops up every now and again; though he occasionally delves into decidedly more than "pop" neuropsychology, I never felt bored reading it.

Definitely interesting to those who are curious about the brain and its often strange workings.

As always Oliver Sachs writes fascinating books with really interesting neurological stories. This also adds his usage of drugs which I had never heard of before. My only difficulty was that by the end I was getting a bit bored. The hallucinations I found more interesting were in the beginning of the book.

The individual cases of various patients provided a robust and varied picture or hallucinations from a neurological perspective. However, the best part of the book was the author's own accounts of psychotropic drub use. Over all, I enjoyed the subject and gained some insight to something I had previously thought of strictly in terms of mental disorders.

Not the best Sacks I've ever read, but still interesting. Learned some new things, that's always a plus.

I've read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and this was along the same lines. Rather than being a series of case studies, this book looks at hallucinations topically. Different chapters cover scent hallucinations, hallucinations that occur during and around sleep, drug-induced hallucinations, phantom limbs, visual hallucinations in patients that have gone blind, have different types of brain injuries, different types and feelings for hallucinations, etc.

I loved the way the topics and chapters were organized. Sacks is also great at covering interesting topics and providing just enough of an explanation without getting too technical. And he uses cases to illustrate each topic and chapter, with accounts from different doctors and patients.

A very interesting book. I read it over the course of a few months, but it was always easy to pick back up and get into, since the chapters read like their own separate topics. I plan on reading Awakenings next.

Sacks liest sich leicht und unterhaltend.
Seine Bücher sind immer lehrreich; ich habe eine Menge zu Halluzinationen und Illusionen gelernt: Es gibt nicht nur visuelle, sondern auch akustische, olfaktorische und perzeptuelle, die sich auf Gefühlszustände beziehen (nicht nur Déjà vu und Jamais vu, sondern z.B. auch Gefühle von übermäßiger Vertrautheit oder Fremdheit).

Und vor allem finden sich so viele Bezugspunkte zum tatsächlichen Leben. Ich selbst habe unter meinen Verwandten Menschen mit einer seltenen Form von Epilepsie und mit einer beginnenden Makula-Degeneration (eine relativ häufige Augenerkrankung). Zu beiden Krankheiten gibt es interessante Fakten.

Sacks schreibt aber auch deshalb interessant, weil er sehr viele Beispiele von bekannten Persönlichkeiten bringt und zeigt, was an ihnen pathologisch war.
Er versucht, die zunehmende religiöse Verklärung von Dostojewski zu erklären (manche Formen von epileptischen Illusionen stellen eine sehr starke Erfahrung von „Gottesgegenwart“ dar), mutmaßt, ob Johanna von Orleans eine bestimmte Art von Epilepsie hatte, zitiert Nabokovs Erfahrungen mit Illusionen, nennt Schriftsteller, die eine tatsächliche „Stimme“ der Eingebung hörten wie Rilke, Yeats, Homer, erklärt, welche physiologischen Grundlagen von über die Hirnrinde wandernden „Migräne-Gewittern“ sich in weltweit ähnlichen optischen Mustern wiederfinden, ob in der Aborigine-Kunst oder in Zackenband-Mustern von Swasi-Keramik, und welche neurologischen Grundlagen die Arabesken der maurischen Kultur haben.

Er beschreibt, welche Arten von bewusstseinsändernden Zuständen verschiedene Rauschmittel (oder deren Entzug) auslösen (er hat selbst in den 1960er Jahren ziemlich intensiv mit Drogen experimentiert) – sehr interessant dazu fand ich die extrem übersteigerte Farbwahrnehmung z.B. im Peyote-Rausch und Sacks erfolglose Suche nach dem wahren Indigo, das er nur einmal im Leben sehen konnte.
(Er bringt auch Anekdoten wie die eines Bekannten des Komikers Robin Williams, der sich vorbeugend gegen einen durch Lachen ausgelösten Bewusstseinsausfall immer auf den Boden legt, wenn er ihn trifft).

Und Sacks ist so ein richtiger Gelehrter vom alten Schlag, der sich für sehr viele Gebiete interessiert, kunst- und literaturbegeistert ist. Und der sich nicht nur für die medizinische Seite seiner Patienten interessiert, sondern auch einen zutiefst menschlich-warmherzigen Zugang zu ihnen hat.

Oliver Sacks is a neurologist who's written a number of other books that I haven't read. Through the course of Hallucinations, I was reminded that I hadn't read these other books, since from time to time he would mention a case and then follow up with "which I described in more detail in my book ____." I appreciate that he didn't want to retread ground that was covered elsewhere, but sometimes it felt a little like I was reading a bibliography, or listening to a series of movie trailers.

Aside from that, this was an interesting look at a large range of things that can be classified as hallucinations. You know how sometimes when you're laying in bed at night with your eyes closed and you'll start to see patterns? Mine are usually kind of like an optical illusion - they'll be a series of shapes that seem to be moving toward me or away from me. I didn't realize those are hallucinations, but they are. The ones we typically think of are covered, of course, including ones induced by drugs and hallucinations that involve each of our different senses. The occurrence of phantom limbs is talked about, and I thought this was one of the more fascinating sections. The relationship between what the eyes see and the brain knows is complicated, and although the brain has a long memory for things it hasn't seen in a while, it does eventually forget. This seems to be a cause for pain in a phantom limb or for feeling like a body part that has been immobile and invisible to you for a long time no longer belongs to you.

It wasn't extremely in depth about any particular type or cause of hallucinations, but instead provides a good overview. I stopped the audio a number of times to look up more information about occurrences he described just because some of them seemed too wild to be true, but of course they were true. What more can you really ask for in a book about hallucinations than to be entertained and left with a little wonder and head-shaking at the odd and amazing things that our brains can do?

Neurologist Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the topic of people who see (or hear, or, occasionally, smell or feel) things that aren't actually there. There's a little bit of overlap here with some of his earlier books, but I'd say there's more than enough that's new to make it worthwhile even if you've read everything else he's written. It's not an exhaustive look at the topic of hallucinations, because he doesn't really get into hallucinations that come with psychosis, such as schizophrenia -- a topic that seems like it could well fill another whole book by itself. He talks about a huge variety of other things that can cause hallucinations, though. Indeed, I had no idea there were so many things that could cause hallucinations! There's blindness (total or partial) or sensory deprivation, which can lead to the brain inventing images to fill the nothingness. There's drugs such as LSD, of course. And a number of diseases, including some I never would have associated with hallucinations. Migraines, which often come with visual auras, but can sometimes get even weirder. Fever delirium. Brain damage. Perfectly ordinary brains getting confused on waking up or falling asleep. And lets not forget phantom limbs...

As usual with Sack's books, there are a lot of fascinating descriptions of things his patients and others have experienced, intermixed with some layman's-level explanations about what's going on in the brain when this stuff happens, at least as far as it's actually understood. There are also some relevant accounts of the author's own personal experience; among other things, Sacks took a surprising amount of drugs back in the 60s. In the end, also as usual, I'm left with a bemused appreciation of how incredibly complex our brains are and just how deeply weird things can get when they go a bit wrong. I also keep expecting to start hallucinating myself any moment, but hopefully that will pass.

I've been intrigued by Oliver Sacks when I first saw his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I still haven't read it yet but I will. The reason I read Hallucinations was because it was for one of my book clubs. Thank Goodness for that book club.

In Hallucinations, Dr. Sacks explains that hallucinations are not by-products of people inflicted with dementia and psychosis alone. The very sane and the very mentally stable can have them too. There are various ailments and disorders that can cause them such as Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS), Parkinson's, Narcolepsy. Also, certain drugs can cause altered states that can lead to hallucinations.

Sacks also went into the different types of hallucinations: visual, auditory, and tactile. Also, afflictions that really wouldn't be consider a hallucination, at least by me, like phantom limbs, migraines and certain sleep disorders. Infused within are brief history lessons about when was the first occurrence of the disorder or syndrome, etc.

Also, Sacks also gives personal insights like when he momentarily became addicted to drugs and had a very bad trip with hallucinations galore. It was funny. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely read more.

He's lost his touch a bit - this was much drier than his earlier work. Most interesting and juicier chapter was, of course, the one about the effects of the prodigious quantities of drugs he took in his student days! Found myself skimming by the end; it was all quite repetitive.

This book is a one beat drummer. When you first read it you think this is fascinating but then by chapter nine or ten if feels like you have read it all before. Dr. Sacks gives hundreds of examples of hallucinations and he divides them up based on their causes like loss of eyesight, sensory deprivation and brain injury for example. His sources include, himself, his patients, people who have written to him and other people experiences that he has read about. But the hallucinations start to sound the same and so after initial excitement my interest tailed off. Perhaps if I or my immediate family suffered from this I would have had a more sustained interest..

Excellent Oliver Sacks as usual. Fascinating cases, insightful hypotheses.

The most people think of hallucinations as things on people suffering from a psychosis have, it looks like the majority of hallucinations aren’t caused by psychosis at all. There are all sorts of hallucinations that arise from all sorts of disorders, including migraine, Parkinson’s, sensory deprivation (including loss of sight for whatever reason), and falling asleep and waking up- this last type can be terrifying.

The book starts with one disorder, Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which sometimes occurs in people who have lost their sight. Suddenly, they will begin to see again- except they are the only people who can see the things. Once told that the people (or whatever) are not real and that there is nothing wrong with them, some patients actually find the illusions interesting and amusing and even miss them when the hallucinations abate.

Those things we ‘see’ in the dark as we’re falling asleep are hypnagogic hallucinations; they usually have no emotional impact. Hypnopompic hallucinations and sleep paralysis, however, can be terrifying. Occuring as the person wakes, these hallucinations happen with they eyes open and are projected into the external environment and seem real- the monster is in your bedroom. Add sleep paralysis, where the mind is awake but the body hasn’t gotten the message yet, and you can’t fight or escape from the monster, dubbed in the past as the Hag or the Night Mare.

Told in Sacks’ usual amusing but informative style, this book is rich in detail but easily understandable by the person with no neurological knowledge. In this book, Sacks tells us something of his own history with hallucinations due to drug use in the 60s. One doesn’t expect this sort of openness in a medical book and I found it amusing as well as instructional; he can look at the drugs from the point of view of both doctor and user, providing an unusual balance. As always with one of Sacks’ books, it’s not to be missed if you have an interest in the brain.

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.