Lauren 's Reviews > Hallucinations

One sentence review: Sacks gives a survey of the neurology of hallucinations - visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile - sharing his years of clinical experience, and many of his own experiences with hallucinatory states.

I've read several of Sacks' books, and this one (from 2012) may be my favorite of them all. All of his books are inherently interesting as he explores the human brain, but this one also had more structure than some of his earlier works.
It included many anecdotes like his other books about many (many) patients, but this one was grouped into different hallucinatory phenomena surrounding Charles Bonnet Syndrome, epilepsy, migraines, a lengthy and interesting peek into Sacks' own mind-altering drug experimentations, and several other hallucination-inducing / prone illnesses or states.

Have you ever experienced a hallucination? Sacks shares just how common hallucinations are, and he mentions several that I've experienced myself, specifically "grief" hallucinations, following the death of a loved one, and seeing/hearing/smelling/feeling them again after death. This occurred for me after both the death of my beloved dog, and several years later, after my dear cat passed away. I heard, saw, felt, and sensed them several times for weeks afterward.

He references several of his earlier works in this book, and it reminds me how much he published in his life.