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Oliver Sacks discusses hallucinations—including his own—and how they inform otherworldly beliefs.
"I awoke and saw a younger version of my face about two feet away."
The hallucinations that accompany sleep paralysis, for instance, can be very vivid and visceral, auditory, visual and tactile, with the sense of a malignant presence nearby, and a sense of abject terror—what one of Dr. Sacks' colleagues called the "ominous numinous." ("The 'mare' in 'nightmare' originally referred to a demonic woman who suffocated people by lying on their chests," Dr. Sacks wrote in Hallucinations.)
Read article in Motherboard VICE.
