it's one of those days

have you ever heard of blindsight? it's confusing, but very interesting. people that have a very specific area of their visual cortex damaged (or removed), lose their ability to see. however, they are able to locate objects in space. say that i was dealing with a person who had blindsight and i held up a ball. "what is this that i am holding?" they would reply, "i can't see anything. i'm blind!" and they would be right. they are blind in that they have lost all visual consciousness, that is - they do not know that they can see. by all rights they are blind. BUT if i were to throw that ball at them, they would catch it. or if gave them a shape and said put it in the proper hole, they would do so as a person with sight would, not feeling around like a blind person would. bizzarre, hey? they are blind in that they have lost their visual consciousness, but there is a secondary region of the visual cortex that, if left intact or undamaged, can still see certain things, without relaying to the right side of the brain any images whatsoever. odd.

the brain is far more complex than i thought. maybe because i've never thought about the brain before. mine works most days, so i leave it at that. there is also something, and i currently can't recall what it's name is, where a person feels as though part of their body is not actually part of their body. has something to do with a split brain disassociatism...but the story is of one guy that woke up after having some sort of brain surgery and saw this leg lying at the end of his bed. he thought the nurses were playing a joke on him, so he picked up the leg and threw it off the bed. well, as you can imagine, he went tumbling off the bed, since he was attached to the leg he had seen as being something unattached to him. crazy stuff, hey?

i can't wait until i'm done school and get to see some of this stuff in real life. movies are great and everything, but i want to see it for myself firsthand. not that i want to see someone get all stressed out and throw themselves off the bed...but you gotta admit - that's a freaking funny mental picture!