Oliver Sac’s book, Hallucinations, explores deep into the circumstances and signs that one has suffered, might suffer, or will suffer from hallucinations. He speaks about these neurological deceptions with personal experience. Sac’s digs deeper to raise awareness to the misconceptions surrounding hallucinations early on in the book. He begins this by focusing on how hallucinations can happen to anybody at anytime. The strategy of opening with this concept helps peak one’s interest in the subject as unknowingly to most, hallucinations affect nearly everybody. I chose to read a book on this topic because I knew little to nothing about hallucinations. In my mind, hallucinations were just a byproduct of the use of extreme drugs. While
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Prisoners or any individual who is isolated in darkness can experience brilliantly colored and varied hallucinations which is known as the prisoner’s cinema. This is so important because it is often why people believe that they see UFO’s or ghosts or simply things that are not there. He looks at stories of those that have suffered this in many ways, some have while driving, others while running, and others from lack of sleep. The absence of perceptual change can cause one to hallucinate in ways that make people feel like they are going insane, but it is normal for the human …show more content…
Narcolepsy is a condition where one has sudden fits of sleep, while night hags are when one wakes up in the middle of the night in terror. Both result in hallucinations, but narcolepsy are more visual, and Night hags are physical and tactical. People in these states would have vivid hallucinations that they have never experienced before. What is extremely fascinating is the toll that narcolepsy and night hags has taken on people which can be seen throughout history. For example, it is highly believed to be the cause for the salem witch trials. People believed that they saw things that they didn’t in reality. Sac explains this because “hallucinatory experiences, whatever their causes generate a world of imaginary beings and abodes” (228). That is one of the reasons that Sac emphasizes the importance of trying to understand the meaning of hallucinations to understand why humans believe in
Prisoners or any individual who is isolated in darkness can experience brilliantly colored and varied hallucinations which is known as the prisoner’s cinema. This is so important because it is often why people believe that they see UFO’s or ghosts or simply things that are not there. He looks at stories of those that have suffered this in many ways, some have while driving, others while running, and others from lack of sleep. The absence of perceptual change can cause one to hallucinate in ways that make people feel like they are going insane, but it is normal for the human …show more content…
Narcolepsy is a condition where one has sudden fits of sleep, while night hags are when one wakes up in the middle of the night in terror. Both result in hallucinations, but narcolepsy are more visual, and Night hags are physical and tactical. People in these states would have vivid hallucinations that they have never experienced before. What is extremely fascinating is the toll that narcolepsy and night hags has taken on people which can be seen throughout history. For example, it is highly believed to be the cause for the salem witch trials. People believed that they saw things that they didn’t in reality. Sac explains this because “hallucinatory experiences, whatever their causes generate a world of imaginary beings and abodes” (228). That is one of the reasons that Sac emphasizes the importance of trying to understand the meaning of hallucinations to understand why humans believe in