I had a mini stroke that was classed as a TIA at the time, though it later turned out to have some lasting effects. It's a fascinating and overwhelming experience to unlearn reading.
To me, the immediate physical aspect was that all text started to look like Star Wars languages. Another aspect was that it was difficult to even concentrate on the text. It no longer stood out from the environment. It was an irrelevant detail, a decoration you wouldn't pay particular attention to.
I can also appreciate what the author is saying about how their perspective of the world shifted. I expect that her shift was a lot larger than mine, but mine already made me appreciate that in the modern world, when we look at things, we often seek to retrieve some bit of information. We don't look at them holistically. Our tunnel vision is tremendous.
As you are reading this comment, you are so focused on the words that you don't see the boxy proportions of the rectangular screen you're looking at. You don't see the contrast on the screen; you're not even paying attention to the colors, likely. The texture of your display is expected to be different on the back, the corners, and its surface. Your display is also a rectangular light, casting a shadow of your head behind you now. Some parts of the light are stronger than others; it's not a uniform light. The device you're reading this on (whether a monitor or a phone) has hot spots and cold spots on its chassis that you may not have thought about, despite looking at it or touching it for thousands of hours.
But if you can't read, you see all these things on a computer monitor, on a TV, on a road sign, on a book, and that's all that your brain finds significant about that object. That's quite interesting - how our language abilities shape our everyday perception of reality.
I would even say that it can be an enlightening experience to take a holiday from reading. Though I don't think anyone can come close to enjoying it, considering how much anxiety the thought of whether they'll learn it again causes. In some ways, experiencing the world around them freshly anew, without that anxiety (as the author has), is a blissful and beautiful experience few people have had in their lives.
I had gone blind in my right eye. There was one person standing before me at the reception in the emergency room arguing with the receptionist because he did not have health insurance (before the ACA). I remember thinking about a post card I saw in Powell's Books on Hawthorn St. in Portland Oregon out of the corner of my eye years earlier that said (paraphrasing) "Be thankful for our enemies, for they give us the opportunity to learn patience and understanding -- The Buddha." (The Buddha never said that.) While waiting I thought this was a good opportunity for me to learn patience and remain calm letting the man finish. That was a good thought because I was suffering from a stroke and if I had not been calm likely I wouldn't have survived. Turns out, every prior moment I had learned patience and understanding was for that one single moment.
I had a dissection of the right carotid artery also with a small aneurysm at the same location as the tear went through the artery wall. There was a massive blood clot dangling in my neck and I went blind because a little piece of this huge blood clot broke off and went into my retina which cut off oxygen to the nerves in my retina, fortunately, because if it had gone further into my brain I likely would have been paralyzed or died. There is about one hour window to clear the blood clot in the eye before permanent damage to the oxygen starved nerves starts. That morning I had been suffering from ischemic strokes.
By being calm I decreased my blood pressure so small pieces of the blood clot in my neck stopped breaking off going into my brain and the whole huge blood clot didn't break off which would have been lethal.
Had a minor stroke a couple of months ago - scans show two holes in my brain, one was in my right arm's motor control (I realised what was happening when I kept missing the keys on my laptop) which came right within hours. The other is a mystery, it's hard to think of things that are gone, I'm hoping it was something I don't need anymore from a long time ago like COBOL or Fortran
No one knows how he would deal in such a situation and cope with it, some would give up or even kill themselves, other fight to come back.
Being able to reflect on that traumatic experience in such a calm and thoughtful process is inspiring.
Side note, could it be possible that the 'inner voice', which the author lost during a while is what separate us from animals ?
She mentions being at peace, calm without it. Not thinking about the past nor the future, just present.
I kept thinking this experience made her behave just like an animal : can't speak, extremely limited thought process, basic instinct. Is that what separate us from ape ? A small part of the brain that gives consciousness.
Edit: author seem to have written a book called 'a stitch of time', if you enjoyed the reading.
> A small part of the brain that gives consciousness.
Not to get too tangental, but it was common thought at one time to think the brain is the center of consciousness. However, I have come across new data [1] that has convinced me that consciousness is entirely a full-body experience. According to the definition of some, consciousness might not even be a binary state, but rather a property of our universe like heat.
She didn't only lose her inner voice but the capacity to communicate and understand language properly. She also lost a lot of other, harder to detect, stuff. She also writes that she was capable of complex thought, just in a different way.
There are people naturally without an inner speech who can think just as well.
The Calm she speaks about is something else, it may be similar to animals or it may not but I doubt it was only caused by her loss of speech.
Beautifully written. Especially when you consider that the author suffered a brain injury to her language centers. Fascinating insights to how the mind works and how we process our world. I was supposed to be working, but I read the whole thing.
Yeah, I was struck by the thought of my child-self, perhaps 2 years old before I had a good grasp of the words I heard around me. Before I had language myself.
I scarcely remember but a couple things anyway, but even into the early years when I could speak, understand language, the memories of those times are as though of a time that seems not within the current continuum. It's like I was seeing the world but only through a small B&W TV.
This piece is a gift. Read it the second time today, but was only vaguely sure I've read it before (I think also through HN submission).
It might sound cynical to people who suffer from these severe neurological injuries.
But it also is also a great piece about "not thinking".
If you are a person who feels tormented and fascinated by inner monologue or generally have issues with self-perception, trauma, mental health, depression, this is a great read.
Especially if you feel trapped in your inner monologue. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels like this more often than not.
Same message like many spiritual or self-help strategies (mindfulness, living in the now, etc).
But this story is visceral, captivating.
I'm not a doctor, but I would even recommend it as a therapeutic device.
A friend of my wife's showed me a video of herself, post-stroke, reading from a Barney (purple dinosaur) book. She read with a strange accent that was more of an exaggerated Southern mixed with something completely alien. It was fascinating, and saddening, to see the precise ways in which her linguistic ability had been hit.
My father recently passed, and on the way there had 3 strokes (he's been smoking since he was 8).
The unnerving thing about his first stroke recovery is that as the brain healed, his personality seemed to change.
My dad is friends with everyone, my mental picture is of him telling a fascinating story while everyone listens. For a few months, the confident man I'd known for 40 years became like a teenager, quiet and timid. I think the timidity came from him not being able to find the words as easily, but it felt like there was a different person inside him for a moment.
My mom's had some personality changes since coming down with dementia. For one, she doesn't attend church anymore. Church is really close by; with assistance she could walk or be driven there easily. She just doesn't want to go. She'd been a Catholic all her life, and was just suddenly tired of all that Catholic stuff, in a way I thought I'd never see her be.
My mom's personality changed a lot with dementia. After a couple of months she forgot she was a heavy smoker. Watching documentaries and sitcoms pre-dementia was replaced with aimless watch anything but not really caring about it at all. She lost a lot of self restraint so it was hard to go out to places because she'd make an insulting remark about a stranger. We tried anyway. This was all after she forgot who her children were so we were getting pretty late stage.
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To me, the immediate physical aspect was that all text started to look like Star Wars languages. Another aspect was that it was difficult to even concentrate on the text. It no longer stood out from the environment. It was an irrelevant detail, a decoration you wouldn't pay particular attention to.
I can also appreciate what the author is saying about how their perspective of the world shifted. I expect that her shift was a lot larger than mine, but mine already made me appreciate that in the modern world, when we look at things, we often seek to retrieve some bit of information. We don't look at them holistically. Our tunnel vision is tremendous.
As you are reading this comment, you are so focused on the words that you don't see the boxy proportions of the rectangular screen you're looking at. You don't see the contrast on the screen; you're not even paying attention to the colors, likely. The texture of your display is expected to be different on the back, the corners, and its surface. Your display is also a rectangular light, casting a shadow of your head behind you now. Some parts of the light are stronger than others; it's not a uniform light. The device you're reading this on (whether a monitor or a phone) has hot spots and cold spots on its chassis that you may not have thought about, despite looking at it or touching it for thousands of hours.
But if you can't read, you see all these things on a computer monitor, on a TV, on a road sign, on a book, and that's all that your brain finds significant about that object. That's quite interesting - how our language abilities shape our everyday perception of reality.
I would even say that it can be an enlightening experience to take a holiday from reading. Though I don't think anyone can come close to enjoying it, considering how much anxiety the thought of whether they'll learn it again causes. In some ways, experiencing the world around them freshly anew, without that anxiety (as the author has), is a blissful and beautiful experience few people have had in their lives.
That's what makes great art sometimes, sharing an obvious truth that everyone overlooks. (Proof of work kinda - difficult to find but easy to prove)
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By being calm I decreased my blood pressure so small pieces of the blood clot in my neck stopped breaking off going into my brain and the whole huge blood clot didn't break off which would have been lethal.
No one knows how he would deal in such a situation and cope with it, some would give up or even kill themselves, other fight to come back.
Being able to reflect on that traumatic experience in such a calm and thoughtful process is inspiring.
Side note, could it be possible that the 'inner voice', which the author lost during a while is what separate us from animals ?
She mentions being at peace, calm without it. Not thinking about the past nor the future, just present.
I kept thinking this experience made her behave just like an animal : can't speak, extremely limited thought process, basic instinct. Is that what separate us from ape ? A small part of the brain that gives consciousness.
Edit: author seem to have written a book called 'a stitch of time', if you enjoyed the reading.
Not to get too tangental, but it was common thought at one time to think the brain is the center of consciousness. However, I have come across new data [1] that has convinced me that consciousness is entirely a full-body experience. According to the definition of some, consciousness might not even be a binary state, but rather a property of our universe like heat.
[1] Found this video on this site, and I found it to be a fascinating discussion if you have the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8iFtaltX-s
The Calm she speaks about is something else, it may be similar to animals or it may not but I doubt it was only caused by her loss of speech.
I scarcely remember but a couple things anyway, but even into the early years when I could speak, understand language, the memories of those times are as though of a time that seems not within the current continuum. It's like I was seeing the world but only through a small B&W TV.
It might sound cynical to people who suffer from these severe neurological injuries. But it also is also a great piece about "not thinking".
If you are a person who feels tormented and fascinated by inner monologue or generally have issues with self-perception, trauma, mental health, depression, this is a great read.
Especially if you feel trapped in your inner monologue. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels like this more often than not.
Same message like many spiritual or self-help strategies (mindfulness, living in the now, etc).
But this story is visceral, captivating.
I'm not a doctor, but I would even recommend it as a therapeutic device.
She's fine now, though, so no worries.
The unnerving thing about his first stroke recovery is that as the brain healed, his personality seemed to change.
My dad is friends with everyone, my mental picture is of him telling a fascinating story while everyone listens. For a few months, the confident man I'd known for 40 years became like a teenager, quiet and timid. I think the timidity came from him not being able to find the words as easily, but it felt like there was a different person inside him for a moment.