Neurologist Oliver Sacks—who found the deaf could “hear,” the blind could “see,” the catatonic could dance, and the mute could sing—died of cancer on Sunday.
Sacks revived men and women who had been catatonic for decades, as chronicled in his book “Awakenings” (which was made into a movie starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro in 1990). They began to walk, talk, and even dance.
He explored the marvelous networks in the brain that lead from memories to sounds, to colors, to abilities we never imagined our brains had.
If a patient couldn’t talk, he would get her to sing instead—literally. He investigated fascinating phenomena, including “musicophilia” (the ways in which the brain interacts with music) and synesthesia (a condition in which the senses are intermingled, so that one may taste the color green, for example).
Sacks discovered that about 10 percent of hearing-impaired people have musical hallucinations and about 10 percent of the visually impaired have visual hallucinations. Parts of the brain connected to music or vision can trigger even if the person is unable to perceive sight or sound from the outside world. He opened our minds to what our brains can do.
