Hallucinations and Identity
Oliver Sacks speaks about a patient he had in the past who was experiencing hallucinations, which would later be discovered to be Charles Bonnet Syndrome ( hallucinations for the visually impaired). In the video, Dr.Sacks is talking about how this patient would describe her hallucinations. She found them repetitive in nature, which then focused later on her identity, and how that is perceived as the bigger picture. This follows in connection to Franco Magnani’s repetitive nature of painting Pontito and obsessing over Pontito, this elaborates on his true identity that the seizures brought out within him. Within the Anthropologist on Mars, Dr.Sacks writes about Magnani's repetitive nature and how somehow by going back to Pontito his obsession and vivid memories would cease to occur any longer (175-184). Yet, this wasn't the case, but what did occur was a cognitive dissonance upon his visit back to Pontito. Magnani described it as "... two 'newsreels,'... running simultaneously in his head, with the more recent, the new, tending to blot out the old," (181-182). This depicts a crisis of identity, disallowing Magnani's already "mutated" sense of self, into someone who may be overcoming the disability.
By: Ibrahim Bazyan