Observations placeholder
Sacks, Oliver - Assailed by colorful, sometimes violent, involuntary visual imagery
Identifier
014730
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Proof of spirit - inspiration feeds to the imagination function
"when you hallucinate a color, there’s demonstrable visual cortex activity. But when you imagine a color, there isn’t".
Spiritual experience has nothing to do with the brain or the 5 senses, the brain is just a processor of sensory information
and
"a teeming world for which I’m not responsible."
A description of the experience
The Big Idea #5: Oliver Sacks
By Suzanne Koven
July 9th, 2013
nervous system.
Rumpus: I’m fascinated by the relationship between hallucinations and the brain. At one point you say that when you hallucinate a color, there’s demonstrable visual cortex activity. But when you imagine a color, there isn’t.
Sacks: Yes. I mean, it may be a matter of degree. There may be much less. But there is activity of perceptual or “super-perceptual” force in various areas when one hallucinates. There may be a sort of fainter, echo-like color, with imagination. I have very poor voluntary visual imagery, although I’m assailed by colorful, sometimes violent, involuntary visual imagery.
Rumpus: Like PTSD? Or nightmares?
Sacks: Usually lying in bed. I think especially since losing my sight in one eye and having poor vision in the other, the moment I close my eyes there is a teeming world for which I’m not responsible.