Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds

http://www.ted.com Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks brings our attention to Charles Bonnett syndrome -- when visually impaired people experience lucid hallucinations. He describes the experiences of his patients in heartwarming detail and walks us through the biology of this under-reported phenomenon.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[staphinfection]

I can listen and read this man's case stories endlessly. His books are tough reads because of lots of medical jargon, but if you like this stuff, try reading "The man who mistook his wife for a hat". It has more crazy neurological cases that he had, and it's really fascinating stuff, at least for me.

[MrLindenson]

Years later, they found out that he had just hallucinated all of these patients.

[SherwinGooch]

What TED needs is more of the bureaucrat at the end.

[WatchingPup]

I sometimes hear music where is noisy or there's white noise. I also hear my phone or door bell when they are not going off. Other people assure me they don't hear any rings or music when sometimes I do. But I have very good hearing. Maybe I am going to be deaf.

[Jen H]

It is an illusion.

[MikeWanDoe1]

Agreed :)

[earthy205]

Somewhat. I'm no expert but I do also think that they shouldn't have banned his speech either. You don't invite people to TED just to not let them do what they came there for.

[MikeWanDoe1]

It's not typical academic jargon/rhetoric, but I get your point it's not necessarily taboo either.... I'm assuming you're aware of the nature of Hancock's speech.

[earthy205]

Why would they ban this speech?

[1PigfartsHereICome1]

Very interesting speech, but his being out of breath is getting om my nerves a bit.:P

[MaxWHYz]

you sense so much kunda