You are the music, while the music lasts.
~ T.S. Eliot
Dr. Oliver Sacks – the New York Times’ “Poet Laureate of Medicine” – has written many books about strange conditions of the human mind/brain in his long and illustrious dual careers as a neurologist and psychiatrist on one hand and a soul-stirring non-fiction writer on the other. While all his books are worth any intelligent reader’s time, one book has always stood out for me: Awakenings. In the preface, Dr. Sacks described writing the book as a struggle of escape from habitual modes of thoughts and expression. Indeed, this book espoused the unfamiliar perpetual darkness of some ill-fated human minds; but it did so only to coax latent seedlings of light out of the tenebrous in a way that enlightens the reader at many levels.
For those of you who haven’t read Awakenings (or, seen its brilliant screen adaptation), here Dr. Sacks profiles lives of patients in a ‘chronic hospital’ (that most medical professionals find ‘uneventful’) and explores deeper meanings of being a human being, especially under the ‘strangest and darkest of circumstances’. His patients – survivors of the great Encephalitis Lethargica epidemic that came and went mysteriously after the first world war and affected about five million people worldwide – had substantial lethargy, somnolence, and were in a sleep like state for decades. They showed no behavior, perhaps they registered none either. As Dr. Sacks puts it, “they would sit motionless and speechless all day… registered what went on about them with active attention, and with profound indifference. They were as insubstantial as ghosts, and as passive as zombies…”. If thoughts crossed these brains, if any at all, it's unlikely they were the usual ones that cross yours and mine every now and then.
From a clinical standpoint however, these zombies reminded neurologists of another debilitating brain disorder: Parkinson’s disease, which is caused by loss of dopamine. Yes, the same dopamine that is often labelled these days as the ‘happy’ neurotransmitter due to its role in brain’s reward circuit. In 1967, around the time Dr. Sacks was working with his catatonic patients, western medicine learned that symptoms of Parkinson’s can be attenuated by providing patients with L-DOPA (a chemical precursor of dopamine), the ‘miracle drug’. Dr. Sacks introduced L-DOPA to his patients experimentally in 1969. What followed was a mix of miracles and adverse effects, but ‘awakening' of most patients from their perpetual sleep. They started expressing themselves and were ‘visibly better in all possible ways’ as they ‘forged a deep and affectionate relationship’ with the doctor and each other.
One small molecule – one gigantic outcome.
With the newfound ability to express themselves after L-DOPA treatment, some patients subsequently revealed inner churning of their minds while catatonic. Patient Rose R. explained how she thought about 'nothing' the whole time: “It’s dead easy, once you know how”, she said, “One way is to think about the same thing again and again. Like 2=2=2=2; or, I am what I am what I am what I am…”. Other patients expressed how it felt to be cured, and expressed thoughts that may sound uncannily familiar to many. “Hey, Doc!” would say Mr. Ronaldo P., “I’m sick of L-DOPA – what about a real pill from the cupboard the nurses lock up? The ‘euthanazy’ pill or whatever it’s called… I’ve needed that pill since the day I was born”.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-------
I was reminded of Oliver Sack’s Awakenings while processing the above image from the Isaac Hale Beach, Hawai’i. During May-July, 2018, the Big Island experienced an unprecedented series of volcanic eruptions that gained international attention. From 24 fissures, rivers of lava rolled towards the ocean burning, vaporizing, and annihilating everything in its path. Skirting the parking lot by meters, the two story high lava engulfed most of the park, stopping only a mere 270 feet from the boat launch. After almost an year, when we visited the park, a brand new black sand beach – the Pohoiki beach – had come into existence from the eroding lava. The sand here was coarse with painful sharp edges (no one was barefoot on the beach), and intermediate rocks that broke off from the main body of lava were rolling back and forth under the surf in their destined journey to being rounded off into finer sand. As waves rolled in, these rocks collided and churned with a distinct grumble that could be heard easily above the ocean. These psychedelic groans under the cloudy sky, now that I think of it, were probably utterance of a newborn land trying to play itself a music of nothing, something like patient R; I am what I am what I am what I am…
Loading contexts...
