A review by jessicajane
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

3.0

Not quite as good as some of Oliver Sacks' other books, but this was nonetheless very interesting. The main takeaway was that hallucinations 'do not belong wholly to the insane'; they are normal under a variety of circumstances. Sacks doesn't really cover schizophrenic hallucinations in this book, since they have been extensively written about elsewhere, and instead devotes a much of the book to the lesser-known, but often more common, hallucinations brought on by loss, be it of a limb, a sense or a person. Understanding how the brain behaves when it misjudges or misinterprets stimulus allows a deeper appreciation of how it works, and how intricate and advanced a structure it is. I was particularly interested by the final chapter on distortions of body image and how phantom limbs can change over time and even be subject to change by outside stimulus. I am once again finishing a book wanting to read 10 more, and Sacks wrote a lot (a quick google suggests I have yet to read 11 of his 16 books), so I'll be kept busy with them for quite a while yet.