Hi everyone.

As it's my time on this blog, I'd like to tell you about some stories from one of the most interesting books I've ever read. I'd like to recommend it to you by posting some of the stories from it. It's called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". It was written by neurologist Oliver Sacks in 1985 and consists of some stories about his patients. There are 24 stories there and each one of them is an exceptional example of how brain can fool us. These stories are sometimes funny, sometimes scary, but each one shows how much we are slaves of our own mind. Book is divided into 4 parts titled "Losses", "Excesses", "Transports" and "The world of the simple".

First part is about people who lost something that is common for almost everyone. Second part describes people from the other end, people with too much of something. I know, this sounds little too general, but for me, there's no less general term for this type of disesases or whatever you may call it. Third part sticks to cases where someone experiences his past as it was happening at this very moment and the last chapter is a description of experiences with so-called simple minds. This was a mere formality and without further ado, I'd like to start with a set of stories from the first part.

"Losses"

Loss is a term extensively used in neurology and psychology to describe diseases based on lack of something. Let's start with a title story.

1.

Doctor P. was an opera singer that became a lecturer at music academy. He was successfull on both fields for many years. At some point in time, he started to behave a little odd from time to time. He stopped recognizing people and started to treat objects as being part of people. For example, sometimes he had stroke hydrant like it was someone's head. There were countless examples of such behaviour and the frequency of such events was rising.

Doctor P's wife asked him to go to the oculist, but after some tests he was directed to visit a neurologist. That's the moment when mister Sacks met Doctor P. At first, book's author was charmed by P's intelligence and charm. But after a while he started to see that there was no eye contact between them. P was looking at neurologist's ears, nose, mouth but only occasionally in the eyes. After some neurological tests, patient was asked to put back on his shoe, but he couldn't have find it even though it was just beside his foot. He was looking for it everywhere and have fought that his real shoe was his own foot. Yes, he thought his shoe was his own foot! If you think it's more than odd, you should hear what happened later. After a set of more tests, he was asked to describe what he sees, after red rose was given to him. I can't describe it better than it was written by the author himself.

"About six inches in length. [...] A convoluted red form with a linear green attachment.[...] It lacks the simple symmetry of the Platonic solids, although it may have a higher symmetry of its own. ... I think this could be an inflorescence or flower."

Whats more, Doctor P was good at recognizing shapes of simple shapes like cube or rectangle. What's even more puzzling, is that his musical skills didn't suffer from this. He was still a great singer and he could speak about opera for hours. He was recognizing some people, but only if they were charactaristic in terms of large nose, big mole on face etc. He could see those marks, but not the face in general. In terms of losses, he sufferd from lack of cognitive judgement. It's that type of judgement, that gives us information about things and how they relate to each other. It's what makes are able to see things how they are, not as just a set of some properties. Life without this judgement seems like a

2.

There's a chance that you've heard a story similar to this, if you've seen "Memento" movie. If you haven't, I recommend you to do so. So, the second story is about Jimmy G. that was brought to a neurological hospital after he was diagnosed as being "helpless, demented, confused and disoriented". At first glance, he seemed like a normal person telling jokes and all about his life. Mister Sacks was talking to him for some time and left after that for a moment. When he came back, Jimmy seemed not to remember the conversation from a moment before. He knew mister Sacks was a doctor, but that was based purely on the surroundings and an outfit. The whole event took place in 1975, but Jimmy thought it was 1945. He didn't recall anything from between those years. What's even more scary, when Oliver Sacks asked Jimmy to write something, hide it in his pocket and get it from there after a minute or two, he was amazed, because he couldn't recall that writing. When Jimmy looked in the mirror, he panicked because he saw a man 30 years older than he thought he was. But after a minute, he didn't remember that.

The thing that scaries me most about Jimmy G, is what has happened to him. This was revealed after some investigation made by mister Sacks. It turned out, that after the war, Jimmy was a "happy-go-lucky" and "always a drinker" according to his brother. In 1970 his drinking reached a top and he was taken to a hospital where after a month of detoxification, he started to have memory lapses that after a while, turned him into Jimmy G from the start of this story. It's one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. What's surprising, basing on description in the book, Jimmy seems happy. But does he have any other choice?

Trailer for "Memento" movie:

3.

Third story is the one, that made me realize that there are some things, that I can't imagine no matter how I try. Miss S. was in her 60s when she had a brain stroke. After that, she stopped seeing left side. Not left side of something, but left side in general. When she sat in front of a meal, she ate only right half of it. She was mentally aware, thanks to treatment, of the fact that probably there's a left side of this meal, so she turned right on hear wheelchair. When she saw again what was left of her meal, she ate half of that and so on. Everytime she wanted to put on a lipstick, it ended with only half lips painted. There were tries of using a monitor instead of mirror, but she felt sick seeing one part of her face and not feeling the touch of lipstick on the left side that she wasn't aware of. It's amazing and I really can't imagine being in such situation. It must be a horrible experience to know that there's a left side but not able to see it.

Do you think that you could live life with one of those losses?

Can you even imagine how Miss S. may see a world around her?

Have you seen "Memento"? Did you like it?

All citations are taken from "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". Cover taken from Amazon.com.