Hallucinations

Resumen del libro

From the bestselling author of "Musicophilia" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", this is a provocative investigation into hallucinations - auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory - their many guises, their physiological sources, and their personal and cultural resonances. 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.
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Oliver Sacks, geboren 1933 in London, ist Neurologe und wurde in der Öffentlichkeit vor allem als Sachbuchautor bekannt. Seine Bücher wie "Der Mann, der seine Frau mit einem Hut verwechselte" oder "Der Tag, an dem mein Bein fortging" erreichten ein Millionenpublikum. Über seine bahnbrechende Forschung zur Schlafkrankheit, die er in dem Buch "Zeit des Erwachens" schildert, wurde der gleichnamige Hollywoodfilm gedreht. Sacks lebt in New York und schreibt regelmä ig für Zeitschriften wie Time Magazine und New Yorker.

Biografía del autor

x{0026}lt;p Damián Alou nació en Palma de Mallorca en 1959. Reside en Barcelona desde 1977. Como critico li terario ha colaborado en x{0026}lt;em La Vanguardiax{0026}lt;/em y x{0026}lt;em Diari de Barcelonax{0026}lt;/em . Como traductor ha vertido al castellano, entre otros autores, a Harold Brodkey y Richard Rive. x{0026}lt;/p x{0026}lt;p Felipe Hernándezx{0026}lt;/p