The Mind's Eye

Can you even imagine waking up and looking into the mirror and getting startled at seeing a stranger in the mirror.

Or imagine forgetting where one lived or not recognizing one's family members until the member spoke.

Imagine processing each activity in one's mind without doing it subconsciously.

Sounds impossible yet it has happened to people in various degrees of severity.

There was a man who mistook his wife for a hat.

There was a man who thought he was looking into the mirror and grooming but actually he was looking at someone else and grooming himself thinking the other person to be his reflection.

There are musicians with PCA- Posteriar Cortical Atrophy who had no vision problem, preserve some elements of vision and could play perfectly well from memory but could no longer read the music sheets.

There are people with psychic blindness who had difficulty finding their way around their home, as they could no longer recognize how the various objects looked like.

There are people with visual agnosia who cannot connect the letters to make a word.

Oliver Sacks explores such specific cases and more than just talking about the problem he explains how these cases managed to live with their problem by consciously learning and practicing how to overcome their situation.

An interesting read for those who would like to understand more on the workings of the mind and the brain and to enrich their knowledge about possible age related/ congenital problems.

Title- The Mind's Eye

Author- Oliver Sacks

Publisher- Picador (Panmacmillan)

Price- Rs 399