Seeing or hearing things that aren鈥檛 actually there? Up to ten percent of the general population is, and they aren't all mentally ill, says Dr. Oliver Sacks. He鈥檚 a professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine and author of the new book Hallucinations. Think host Krys Boyd explores the nuance of this widely recognized symptom of psychiatric disorders with Sacks today at 1 p.m.
Sacks describes the way hallucinations can provide emotional catharsis . Though they were revered as gifts in pre-modern times for mystical reasons 鈥� and still are in other cultures 鈥� there is something distinctly human to be found in these sensory experiences.
In moments of grief, he writes, images of close friends or family we鈥檝e lost can be cathartic. And for patients who are losing their sight or hearing, Sacks says hallucinations are a kind of last goodbye from the fading sense:
鈥淒avid Stewart, a Charles Bonnet syndrome patient with whom I corresponded, writes of his hallucinations as being 鈥渁ltogether friendly,鈥� and imagines his eyes saying: 鈥淪orry to have let you down. We recognize that blindness is no fun, so we鈥檝e organized this small syndrome, a sort of coda to your sighted life. It鈥檚 not much, but it鈥檚 the best we can manage.鈥澛�
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