Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T15:42:18.639Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hey! What’s that Gorilla Doing over There? On the Illusory-Hallucinatory Nature of Everyday Living

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

Michael N. Marsh
Michael N. Marsh*
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, University of Oxford, UK. E-mail: mikemarshmd@uwclub.net
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our experiences, through day and night, are not as clear-cut as might seem on first thought. Considerable aspects of life comprise illusory phenomena, some of which are realised, while others are not. Moreover, the boundaries between illusion and hallucination can be very blurred. This essay considers specific situations exemplary of these aberrations – the phantom limb phenomenon, the effects of migraine and temporal lobe epilepsy, sleep disturbances, out-of-body and near-death experiences, conjuring, and the technique of pick-pocketing. Life is never as certain or as sure as we think.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 455 - 472
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Gregory, R. L. (2004) Illusions. In: R. L. Gregory (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 426–443.Google Scholar
2.Loxton, D. and Prothero, D. R. (2013) Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and other Famous Cryptids (New York: Columbia University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Morgan, C., Hazlett, G., Doran, A., Garrett, S., Hoyt, G., Thomas, P., Baranoski, M. and Southwick, S. (2004) Accuracy of eyewitness memory for persons encountered during exposure to highly intense stress. International Journal Law & Psychiatry, 27, pp. 265–279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
4.Marsh, E. (2007) Retelling is not the same as recalling: implications for memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, pp. 16–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Goodwin, G., McCloskey, D. and Matthews, P. (1972) Proprioceptive illusions induced by muscle vibration: contribution by muscle spindles to perception? Science, 175, pp. 1382–1384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6.Lackner, J. (1988) Some proprioceptive influences on perceptual representation of body shape and orientation. Brain, 111, pp. 281–297.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7.Podoll, K. and Robinson, D. (1999) Out-of-body experiences and related phenomena in migraine art. Cephalalgia, 120, pp. 886–896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Lippman, C. (1952) Certain hallucinations peculiar to migraine. Journal Nervous Mental Diseases, 116, pp. 346–351; C. Lippman (1953) Hallucinations of physical duality in migraine. Journal Nervous Mental Diseases, 117, pp. 345–350.Google Scholar
9.Devinsky, O., Feldmann, E., Burrowes, K. and Bromfield, E. (1989) Autoscopic phenomena with seizures. Archives Neurology, 46, pp. 1080–1088.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10.Brugger, P., Regard, M. and Landis, Th. (1996) Unilaterally felt ‘presences’: the neuropsychiatry of one’s invisible doppelganger. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology & Behavioural Neurology, 9, pp. 114–122.Google Scholar
11.Poeck, K. (1964) Phantoms following amputation in early childhood and in congenital absence of limbs. Cortex, 1, pp. 269–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Brugger, P., Kollias, S., Muri, R., Crelier, G., Hepp-Reymond, M.-C. and Regard, M. (2000) Beyond remembering: phantom sensations of congenitally absent limbs. Proceedings National Academy Sciences [USA], 97, pp. 6167–6172.Google ScholarPubMed
13.Sacks, O. (2012) Hallucinations (London: Picador), p. 280.Google Scholar
14.Ramachandran, V. S. and Hurst, W. (1998) The perception of phantom limbs. Brain, 121, pp. 1603–1630.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15.Blanke, O., Ortigue, S., Landis, Th. and Seeck, M. (2002) Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions. Nature, 419, pp. 269–270.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16.Bunning, S. and Blanke, O. (2005) The out-of-body experience: precipitating factors and neural correlates. In: S. Laureys (Ed.), Progress in Brain Research (Amsterdam: Elsevier B.V.), 150, pp. 331–350.Google Scholar
17.Marsh, M. N. (2010) Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences: Brain state phenomena or glimpses of immortality? (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Drab, K. (1980) The tunnel experience: reality or hallucination? Journal Near-Death Studies, 1, pp. 126–153.Google Scholar
19.van Lommel, P. (2010) Consciousness beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: Harper One).Google Scholar
20.Grey, M. (1985) Return from Death. (London: Arkana). Grey not only talks about cosmic consciousness – a term easily written but difficult to analyse and to know its real meaning – but also the ‘fourth dimension’, ‘luminosity’ and ‘prana’ – the pathway to energy.Google Scholar
21.Sireteanu, R., Oertel, V., Mohr, H., Linden, D. and Singer, W. (2008) Graphical illustration and functional neuroimaging of visual hallucinations during prolonged blindfolding: a comparison to visual imagery. Perception, 37, pp. 1805–1821.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22.Brugger, P., Regards, M., Landis, Th. and Oelz, O. (1999) Hallucinatory experiences in extreme-altitude climbers. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology & Behavioral Neurology, 12, pp. 67–71.Google ScholarPubMed
23.Arzy, S., Idel, M., Landis, Th. and Blanke, O. (2005) Speaking with one’s self: autoscopic phenomena in writings from the Ecstatic Kabbalah. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, pp. 4–30.Google Scholar
24.Macknik, S. L., King, M., Randi, J., Robbins, A., Teller, T., Thompson, J. and Martinez-Conde, S. (2008) Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research. Nature Reviews in Neuroscience, 9, pp. 871–879.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
25.This is a vast balloon, often shaped like a castle, and used in fairgrounds for the amusement of young children. It is inflated by compressed air and is made to wobble around because it comprises several compartments that can independently be either inflated or deflated.Google Scholar
26.Chabris, C. and Simons, D. (2011) The Invisible Gorilla and other Ways our Intuition Deceives Us (London: Harper Collins), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar
27.Hallinan, J. T. (2009) Why we make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and are Pretty Sure we are Way above Average (New York: Broadway Books [Random House]).Google Scholar
28.Macknic, S. and Martinez-Conde, S. (2011) Sleights of Mind (London: Profile Books).Google Scholar