Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, recently released a new
book entitled Hallucinations. In this book, Sacks discusses different types of organic
hallucinations, orĀ Ā hallucinations that occur outside of a primary psychotic disorder.
Sacks uses his decades of experience in the field of neurology to describe various forms of hallucinations. For example, did you know that experiences of perceptual disturbances in the form of hallucinations can occur in the geriatric population who experience vision loss? This experience is called Charles Bonnet Syndrome and can be extremely scary for those experiencing it. Many of these individuals would be incorrectly diagnosed with a form of psychosis. In reality, these individualsā brains are āfilling in the gapsā in their loss of vision.
Danielle M. McNeill, M.S., M.A.
WKPIC Doctoral Intern