Amazing (and Horrible) Diseases and Disorders

Have you ever heard songs in your head? Mistook your leg for someone elses? Thought your wife (or anybody...) was a hat? If so, then you're like one of Dr. Oliver Sacks's patients, in the book he wrote called The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. 

Dr. Oliver Sacks

This book is a collection of short stories and tales of Dr. Oliver Sacks's life, about his most interesting patients.  There are four parts: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and the World of the Simple. Two of my favorite stories from Losses were a man in the hospital that woke up in the middle of the night and didn't recognize his own leg - he thought that the nurses were playing a trick on him by putting a severed leg in his bed, and one about an old man that tilts 20º when he stands up. One of my favorite stories from Excesses was about to partly-deaf women who heard music in their heads. An interesting story from Transports was about a man who killed his child while on drugs, but didn't remember the crime, and then he hit his head while in an institution and had it all come back to him. A story from the World of the Simple, is about John and Michael, two autistic twins.

I thought that this book is very interesting, it has a lot of crazy stories that you would think are completely fake. It's hard to understand at times, because the language was difficult, and the science can be confusing. It takes a long time to read. If you have too much time, and are interested in the brain (and you like to read), you should read this book. I would give this book four stars.

Oliver Sacks talking about a question he has about the brain.

Deciphering The Senses

Have you ever had a déjà vu? Felt like someone was staring at you, without looking? Predicted an incident, it happened, and you thought you were some sort of "psychic"? Had a falling sensation as you were descending into a deep sleep and unconsciously jerked your body (hypnic jerk)? Experienced extremely strange coincidences and thought something unusual was behind it? Wondered why people react the way they do to certain things? If so, I recommend Phenomena!

Reading Phenomena by Donna M. Jackson was definitely a challenge. Although the writing is easy to comprehend and very informative, the book moves at a slow pace and is quite challenging to remain attentive to.

I believe Donna M. Jackson's reasoning behind deciding to put this information out in the world as a published book was that it is extremely important to be aware of our surroundings as well as our minds and bodies, etc. It is also interesting to learn about the mysteries and complications our dreams and senses entail, as well as perception, what it is and how it works. I learned so much from this book and definitely do not regret reading it! I must admit, Phenomena is very unusual, it is not similar to any of the books I have read. However, it has helped me understand more about brain science, the stages of dreams, why humans react to certain things the way they do, emotions, sensations, how the brain perceives information, coincidences, why we have déjà vus, and much more about life than most-if not all books that I have read.

Phenomena is not the most exciting book, though it is definitely informative and entails some mind-blowing moments! I recommend Phenomena if you are the type of reader that is able to deal with slow-paced books. I enjoyed Phenomena very much and guarantee you will not regret reading it, if you do decide to!