Receive Your Copy The Minds Eye Devised By Oliver Sacks Distributed As Booklet
on The Minds Eye
chapter where dr. sacks describes his own vision loss was my absolute favorite, if only people had highly trained medical friends they could just phone up to check on them whenever they were experiencing problems.
it is a very frightening experience to lose one's vision, and imagine doing so outside of a city, without public transportation, or an assistant to take you everywhere you need to go whenever you need to go there.
i'm very glad my vision is back and i've done all this research and worked with my doctors to determine the cause not a brain tumor.
but for the almost full year it was either gone or wrong it was hell, especially for an impatient person like myself, who could barely do the necessary research to help determine the cause without being able to read properly.
it makes you feel very vulnerable, and nervous, and dependent, dr. sacks obviously felt the same way,
i think it's important for people to realize that doctors are humans, not gods, they suffer the same maladies we do, and make mistakes just as often, it is also crucial for doctors to remember this as well, for when, if ever, they become the patient.
Oh terror of terrors, to start losing your ability to see letters and connecting them together into words.
Visual anomalies, the stuff of nightmares with names such as alexia, agraphia, agnosia,anomia, prosopognosia face blindness etc.
May the odds be with you! A reminder of the things we take for granted and we could lose with no warning and so, like they say: count your blessings!
Oliver Sacks delivers another annotated and poignant account of real cases, including his own with a melanoma tumor on his retina, of people faced with these conditions.
Another fascinating look at how the brain works and specifically of how vision is interpreted by the brain.
For me, a special new appreciation for life in a three dimensional world, This is a remarkable testimony not only of the power of adaptability and creativity of the brain, but the different ways people find to cope and thrive despite their circumstances.
Oliver Sacks writes his scientific research and explorations of the mind with compassion in his well known flowing prose and captivating style.
If you have read any other books by Oliver Sacks you will know that they are collections of fascinating and obscure medical case histories, usually linked together by a theme.
In this case the theme is sight and particularly the role of the brain in vision, We meet people who have lost the ability to read words but can still write, people who have no depth of vision, people whose ability to read music comes and goes, people who cannot recognise faces and people who cannot forget them.
But what sets this book apart from Sacks' other case reports which can be a little detached and clinical is the moving account of his own experience of ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye.
In a diary style chapter we see how the melanoma impacts on Sacks' sensory world and how the treatment ultimately affects his vision.
A compelling read. Having readother books from Oliver Sacks I am am than certain that the contents of this book, like his others is fascinating, captivating and above all deeply human.
However,
I am starting to grow tired of receiving these books in a somewhat poor condition The man who mistook his wife for a hat for example was scuffed on the edges of the cover, An anthropologist on Mars came with a bent front cover.
Not a big deal,
This product however arrived in much worse condition, front and back cover bent and scuffed and damage to the top of the book so bad that a good portion of the pages are slightly ripped.
Not what one expects when buying a New! Book, .
I can get over these faults as I am not overly obsessive over keeping my books well preserved.
I know others however, are and this is who this review is for so keep this in mind when thinking of purchasing on here.
This book,"The Mind's Eye", by Oliver Sacks, is fascinating, absorbing, and vastly entertaining, Like most of his other books, it is the true story of his personal experiences this time, with his sight, along with his neurological analysis of what was happening
in his eye and in his brain.
The optical "delusions" are fascinating, and perhaps difficult to truly appreciate if you haven't experienced them, I have experienced the loss of three dimensional vision several times, upon awaking it only lasted a few seconds, thank goodness and my daughter has had vision problems in one eye due to detachment and folding of the retina she sees a normal view in the bottom half of that eye's sight, but on top she sees only a quarter of the scene, and it is turned sideways.
And the most amazing thing is not what the physical eye sees, but what Sack's brain does with that information.
Probably everyone has experienced whether or not they realized it the completing of a scene over the natural blind spot of the optic nerve connection at the back of the eye ball, or the continuation of a motion that you didn't actually see.
Although he mentions some of his other books "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", and "Awakenings" made into a wonderful movie starring Robin Williams, you do not have to have read those to appreciate and be highly entertained by "The Mind's Eye.
" I strongly recommend this book, Although they aren't reviewed here, I have read, I believe, at least half of Dr Sack's works, As you would surmise, I am a big fan of his,
I watched the two hour special that ran on PBS detailing his life and his pending death due to melanoma that had metastasized.
This book touches on this as he is the last patient discussed in his book as he was diagnosed with ocular melanoma.
i>The Mind's Eye/i> is about the sense of sight, specifically, what happens when their eyesight fails them.
Not that they become blind, but they are no longer to use their vision the way they were used to.
If the book demonstrates over and over again, it our ability to adapt to the situation and thrive.
This isn't to say that this is easy but with perseverance, we can overcome,
My only qualm with the book is knowing that as I was reading Dr Sacks' experience with his ocular melanoma and having one eye not quite in sync with the other, knowing that he would succumb to his cancer.
His chapter was a melancholy read,
As with his other books, I cannot recommend this book any higher, For anyone interested in patient experiences and the ability to overcome, this is a book for you, You will not be disappointed, I loved this book, especially the chapter 'Recalled to Life' because of its insights into how stoke victims could lose certain faculties but learn to compensate for them by developing tactics in other areas, to cope.
It also disclosed how strokes could lead to an inability to either translate sensory data into verbal terms or interpret input, to make sense of the world around them.
Some people suffered word blindness others lost facial recognition as an ability, Some were able to talk in an intelligible manner but when asked analyse what they'd said or done, they couldn't make sense of their thoughts or actions.
It affected verbal and visual memory as well as passive receptive or active transmittive states of mind in other words input or output.
It was like they never reached a perception point of realizing what they were seeing or a recognition point because their memories of what they were seeing weren't there any or available to them.
Some of these difficulties involved abstract knowledge as opposed to objective reality written or spoken language as 'representational' data: Could lack of a sense of direction be down to the same magnetic sense in migrating birds, being lost or damaged
In The Beth Abraham Hospital for Incurables, residents / patients found ways round their disabilities through mimicry that is using other sensory input to kick start memory in lost areas or to communicate in new ways visual or verbal mostly as for instance, tracing the shape of letters in mid air or forming words with their tongues 'Only connect' CS Forester: Children's books teach the alphabet by simulcra that resemble the abstract forms of letters e.
g's a post for, a sail for, a catapult for Y etc,
Phil Beadle, the teaching trouble shooter, says that there are three ways of sensory learning input visual, sonic and tactile.
This reflects the areas of difficulties for stroke victims as they try to relearn communication skills, In The Minds Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight.
For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.
There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties.
There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read.
And there is Dr, Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side.
Sacks explores some very strange paradoxespeople who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper visual or who navigate by tongue vision.
He also considers fundamental questions: How do we see How do we think How important is internal imageryor vision, for that matter Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading
The Minds Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation.
And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another persons eyes, or another persons mind.
Yet another wonderful book from Oliver Sacks, Excellent reading for anyone interested in visual perception and neurology, Very readable you don't need a degree in physiology, Oliver Sacks, now nearlyis the respected neurologist behind the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and the well known book and film Awakenings.
In this volume he discusses visual perception, what blind people can "see" for example and relates a journal of his own, terrifying, experience of eye cancer.
It was different from the book I thought it was going to be because it did have a lot to do with actual vision as opposed to what we see when we visualise inside our own minds and how that works, inner visualisation is only really discussed in reference to blind people, and not how it works neurologically for most people.
Like in "Hat" Sacks includes several case studies of people he has known or treated who have had to adapt to unusual types of blindness, and then a new case study, his own, as doctor becomes patient.
It was still, despite not being the book I expected, very readable and I will certainly continue to read Sacks.
it is a very frightening experience to lose one's vision, and imagine doing so outside of a city, without public transportation, or an assistant to take you everywhere you need to go whenever you need to go there.
i'm very glad my vision is back and i've done all this research and worked with my doctors to determine the cause not a brain tumor.
but for the almost full year it was either gone or wrong it was hell, especially for an impatient person like myself, who could barely do the necessary research to help determine the cause without being able to read properly.
it makes you feel very vulnerable, and nervous, and dependent, dr. sacks obviously felt the same way,
i think it's important for people to realize that doctors are humans, not gods, they suffer the same maladies we do, and make mistakes just as often, it is also crucial for doctors to remember this as well, for when, if ever, they become the patient.
Oh terror of terrors, to start losing your ability to see letters and connecting them together into words.
Visual anomalies, the stuff of nightmares with names such as alexia, agraphia, agnosia,anomia, prosopognosia face blindness etc.
May the odds be with you! A reminder of the things we take for granted and we could lose with no warning and so, like they say: count your blessings!
Oliver Sacks delivers another annotated and poignant account of real cases, including his own with a melanoma tumor on his retina, of people faced with these conditions.
Another fascinating look at how the brain works and specifically of how vision is interpreted by the brain.
For me, a special new appreciation for life in a three dimensional world, This is a remarkable testimony not only of the power of adaptability and creativity of the brain, but the different ways people find to cope and thrive despite their circumstances.
Oliver Sacks writes his scientific research and explorations of the mind with compassion in his well known flowing prose and captivating style.
If you have read any other books by Oliver Sacks you will know that they are collections of fascinating and obscure medical case histories, usually linked together by a theme.
In this case the theme is sight and particularly the role of the brain in vision, We meet people who have lost the ability to read words but can still write, people who have no depth of vision, people whose ability to read music comes and goes, people who cannot recognise faces and people who cannot forget them.
But what sets this book apart from Sacks' other case reports which can be a little detached and clinical is the moving account of his own experience of ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye.
In a diary style chapter we see how the melanoma impacts on Sacks' sensory world and how the treatment ultimately affects his vision.
A compelling read. Having readother books from Oliver Sacks I am am than certain that the contents of this book, like his others is fascinating, captivating and above all deeply human.
However,
I am starting to grow tired of receiving these books in a somewhat poor condition The man who mistook his wife for a hat for example was scuffed on the edges of the cover, An anthropologist on Mars came with a bent front cover.
Not a big deal,
This product however arrived in much worse condition, front and back cover bent and scuffed and damage to the top of the book so bad that a good portion of the pages are slightly ripped.
Not what one expects when buying a New! Book, .
I can get over these faults as I am not overly obsessive over keeping my books well preserved.
I know others however, are and this is who this review is for so keep this in mind when thinking of purchasing on here.
This book,"The Mind's Eye", by Oliver Sacks, is fascinating, absorbing, and vastly entertaining, Like most of his other books, it is the true story of his personal experiences this time, with his sight, along with his neurological analysis of what was happening
in his eye and in his brain.
The optical "delusions" are fascinating, and perhaps difficult to truly appreciate if you haven't experienced them, I have experienced the loss of three dimensional vision several times, upon awaking it only lasted a few seconds, thank goodness and my daughter has had vision problems in one eye due to detachment and folding of the retina she sees a normal view in the bottom half of that eye's sight, but on top she sees only a quarter of the scene, and it is turned sideways.
And the most amazing thing is not what the physical eye sees, but what Sack's brain does with that information.
Probably everyone has experienced whether or not they realized it the completing of a scene over the natural blind spot of the optic nerve connection at the back of the eye ball, or the continuation of a motion that you didn't actually see.
Although he mentions some of his other books "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", and "Awakenings" made into a wonderful movie starring Robin Williams, you do not have to have read those to appreciate and be highly entertained by "The Mind's Eye.
" I strongly recommend this book, Although they aren't reviewed here, I have read, I believe, at least half of Dr Sack's works, As you would surmise, I am a big fan of his,
I watched the two hour special that ran on PBS detailing his life and his pending death due to melanoma that had metastasized.
This book touches on this as he is the last patient discussed in his book as he was diagnosed with ocular melanoma.
i>The Mind's Eye/i> is about the sense of sight, specifically, what happens when their eyesight fails them.
Not that they become blind, but they are no longer to use their vision the way they were used to.
If the book demonstrates over and over again, it our ability to adapt to the situation and thrive.
This isn't to say that this is easy but with perseverance, we can overcome,
My only qualm with the book is knowing that as I was reading Dr Sacks' experience with his ocular melanoma and having one eye not quite in sync with the other, knowing that he would succumb to his cancer.
His chapter was a melancholy read,
As with his other books, I cannot recommend this book any higher, For anyone interested in patient experiences and the ability to overcome, this is a book for you, You will not be disappointed, I loved this book, especially the chapter 'Recalled to Life' because of its insights into how stoke victims could lose certain faculties but learn to compensate for them by developing tactics in other areas, to cope.
It also disclosed how strokes could lead to an inability to either translate sensory data into verbal terms or interpret input, to make sense of the world around them.
Some people suffered word blindness others lost facial recognition as an ability, Some were able to talk in an intelligible manner but when asked analyse what they'd said or done, they couldn't make sense of their thoughts or actions.
It affected verbal and visual memory as well as passive receptive or active transmittive states of mind in other words input or output.
It was like they never reached a perception point of realizing what they were seeing or a recognition point because their memories of what they were seeing weren't there any or available to them.
Some of these difficulties involved abstract knowledge as opposed to objective reality written or spoken language as 'representational' data: Could lack of a sense of direction be down to the same magnetic sense in migrating birds, being lost or damaged
In The Beth Abraham Hospital for Incurables, residents / patients found ways round their disabilities through mimicry that is using other sensory input to kick start memory in lost areas or to communicate in new ways visual or verbal mostly as for instance, tracing the shape of letters in mid air or forming words with their tongues 'Only connect' CS Forester: Children's books teach the alphabet by simulcra that resemble the abstract forms of letters e.
g's a post for, a sail for, a catapult for Y etc,
Phil Beadle, the teaching trouble shooter, says that there are three ways of sensory learning input visual, sonic and tactile.
This reflects the areas of difficulties for stroke victims as they try to relearn communication skills, In The Minds Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight.
For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.
There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties.
There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read.
And there is Dr, Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side.
Sacks explores some very strange paradoxespeople who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper visual or who navigate by tongue vision.
He also considers fundamental questions: How do we see How do we think How important is internal imageryor vision, for that matter Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading
The Minds Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation.
And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another persons eyes, or another persons mind.
Yet another wonderful book from Oliver Sacks, Excellent reading for anyone interested in visual perception and neurology, Very readable you don't need a degree in physiology, Oliver Sacks, now nearlyis the respected neurologist behind the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and the well known book and film Awakenings.
In this volume he discusses visual perception, what blind people can "see" for example and relates a journal of his own, terrifying, experience of eye cancer.
It was different from the book I thought it was going to be because it did have a lot to do with actual vision as opposed to what we see when we visualise inside our own minds and how that works, inner visualisation is only really discussed in reference to blind people, and not how it works neurologically for most people.
Like in "Hat" Sacks includes several case studies of people he has known or treated who have had to adapt to unusual types of blindness, and then a new case study, his own, as doctor becomes patient.
It was still, despite not being the book I expected, very readable and I will certainly continue to read Sacks.
Oliver Sacks was born inin London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings.
.