In his new book, the neuroscientist Oliver Sacks writes about his own history using psychoactive drugs. He’s said that apart from being both pleasurable and dangerous, those experiences gave him empathy for his patients suffering from hallucinations. Sacks says hallucinations are far more common than we realize, and his new book is filled with bizarre encounters with the unreal brought on by disease, syndromes and disorders. Doug talks to Oliver Sacks on Thursday about the many and fascinating ways we perceive things that aren’t there.
Oliver Sacks is a physician, a professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine and the author of many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Musicophilia and his newest, Hallucinations.
