Dr. Oliver Sachs talks of the experience of his patient, Tony Cicoria, being hit by a bolt of lightning as he steps out to use the phone booth to converse with his mother. Subsequently, he undergoes a range of changes in the way his mind once used to function. The ‘Bolt from the Blue’ inculcated in him a rather sudden and increasingly urgent appetite for music.
While I find it humanly impossible for humans to have no inclination toward music, Dr. Cicoria was one such individual. Though all else went back to the usual, and things often do, his craving for listening to and producing music only grew with time, as if his neurological state had been completely altered. His inspiration for music successfully accompanied him in the later years of his life, ever since he was hit by the bolt. His sudden onset for music, as it turned into a budding passion, alas ended up in a divorce, which, though tragic in its own manner, didn’t impede Dr. C’s passion for music.
Most doctors found it rather odd for such a behavioral change to occur in a manner so unique, it was medically suggested that an intensified functional connection between perceptual systems in the temporal lobes (which play a key role in processing emotions, language, and certain aspects of visual perception) and parts of the limbic system (which is involved in the emotional response generated by the brain).
Dr. David Bear, in the good old 1970s, stated that owing to this scientific explanation, it makes near perfect sense for the emergence of unexpected artistic, or any other range of emotions, which previously may not have been present in rich abundance.
Dr. Sachs believed that certain out-of-body experiences often present themselves as disturbed functions in the cerebral cortex, the outer surface of the brain that is associated with mature processes of the brain such as consciousness, emotions, reasoning, language, and memory.
Under such circumstances, people such as Dr. C are ‘drawn towards a Beyond – beyond life, beyond space and time’.
Mandir Gali | مندر گلی 