A Radiolab podcast reviews the career of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, who turned 80 this week. In an interview with Suzanne Koven of The Rumpus, Sacks discusses his new book Hallucinations and the connection between hallucinations and creativity:
Rumpus: You describe the hallucinations Henry James had on his death bed—vivid scenes of the Napoleonic Wars—and novelist Amy Tan’s hallucinations when she had Lyme disease. Do you think that creative people have more interesting hallucinations? Or do you think they simply describe their hallucinations in a more interesting way?
Sacks: Well that’s a very nice, contrasting pair. Amy called them “a detritus of a dream,” or something like that and had not much interest, whereas Henry James thought it was some subjacent fantasy which he’d had all his life and finally sort of took over. At one time I did read a book called The Voices of Poetry, where the thesis was very much that a “voice” is not just a metaphoric reference to the muse.
Rumpus: Have you had that experience in writing? Of hearing a voice?
Sacks: No. Yes. Although I wouldn’t call it … I’m not sure what to call it. I have it less now, but with my first book, with Migraine, there were many, many problems, including a sort of mad, internal threat in which I said to myself, in September of ’68, You have ten days to write it and if you’re not finished by ten days, you’ll commit suicide. This sounds even madder than it was. You have to know some of the background. Anyhow, under my own threat or joke, I first started writing and within hours the feeling of terror was replaced by a feeling of joy in the writing and, in particular, a feeling that I was taking the book down to dictation. It came to me absolutely fluidly by a sort of inner voice. I was excited. I didn’t want to go to bed. I slept for two or three hours a night and no more. Perhaps I was hypomanic. I’m not sure what word to use.
So that was very much like hearing a voice. I can’t say it was anyone’s voice in particular. But my verbal auditory imagery is as vivid as my visual imagery is poor. My musical imagery is somewhere in between.
The Dish 