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In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases theyre not.

Oliver Sacks

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Oliver Sacks
Age: 82 †
Born: 1933
Born: July 9
Died: 2015
Died: August 30
Chemist
Neurologist
Physician Writer
Science Communicator
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Oliver Wolf Sacks
Happening
General
Hallucinations
Afraid
Whereas
Cases
Immediately
Brain
Acknowledge
Something
Sign
People
Awful
Happenings

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We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognize and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses - secret senses, sixth senses, if you will - equally vital, but unrecognized, and unlauded ... unconscious, automatic.
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Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.
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Eccentricity is like having an accent. It's what other people have.
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There is only one cardinal rule: One must always listen to the patient.
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If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.
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Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
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For 'wellness', naturally, is no cause for complaint - people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill - not well ... Thus, though a patient will scarcely complain of being 'very well', they may become suspicious if they feel 'too well'.
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If a man with a dog sits quietly enjoying music and smiling, his dog might sit down beside him and smile, too. But who knows whether the dog is having a comparable experience or whether the dog is simply happy that his master is happy.
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It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.
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It is easy to recollect the good things of life, the times when one's heart rejoices and expands, when everything is enfolded in kindness and love it is easy to recollect the fineness of life-how noble one was, how generous one felt, what courage one showed in the face of adversity.
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The miracle is that, in most cases, he succeeds - for the powers of survival, of the will to survive, and to survive as a unique inalienable individual, are absolutely, the strongest in our being: stronger than any impulses, stronger than disease.
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Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more - it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.
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It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads.
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I have often seen quite demented patients recognize and respond vividly to paintings and delight in the act of painting at a time when they are scarcely responsive, disoriented, and out of it.
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Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.
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I am now face to face with dying. But I am not finished with living.
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When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, smoked salmon and Bach.
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Music is part of being human.
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A disease is never a mere loss or excess. There is always a reaction on the part of the organism or individual to restore, replace or compensate for and to preserve its identity, however strange the means may be.
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At 11, I could say ‘I am sodium’ (Element 11), and now at 79, I am gold.
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