Hallucinations

 In 2012 Oliver Sacks wrote another book and this one is about hallucinations. I learned many fascinating things. For example, did you know, people who go blind including those who have macular degeneration, will most likely have hallucinations within a few months of loosing most of their vision? I did not know this and, by golly, this would have been super helpful to know a dozen years ago. Most doctors don't know this either which lead them to prescribe anti-psychotic meds for people who are blind but not psychotic. Hallucinations is a book that describes patients with respect and honor. I myself have had hallucinations. After 29 mosquito  bites, I hallucinate more mosquito bites. After picking 4 wood ticks off my body, I feel wood ticks crawling on me when there are no wood ticks and when there are more wood ticks. Last week I was on a large lake in Pennsylvania. I was standing up and talking to the naturalist when I felt someone poke me in my right kidney. I turned around to see who poked me in the back. Being on a moving boat makes it easy to think someone might bump into me. No one poked me in the back. The rocking motion of the boat realigned my spinal cord which caused my spinal stimulator to create a sensation in my right kidney. One summer day in 1982 I was sitting on my couch in my home all alone. I heard someone call my name is a sing song voice. I quit reading my book. I looked around. I heard my name called again. I thought I was loosing my mind. The third time I heard my name called I hesitantly answered, "Yes?" As it turns out my nice neighbor, Rose, had locked herself out of the house on her deck and she hoped I would enter her house and unlock the patio door. I was happy to do so because this meant I wasn't having a hallucination.