Oliver Sacks Quotes

When I imagine some music in my mind, almost automatically, I imagine the piano keys.

A dissection of music perception and creation that starts slowly and inexorably builds to a grand finish. I loved reading that listening to music coordinates more disparate parts of the brain than almost anything else--and playing music uses even more! Despite illuminating a lot of what goes on this book doesn't "spoil" enjoyment- it only deepens the beautiful mystery that is music.

Thinking is movement confined to the brain

It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads.

I'd say that we dream primarily the same way that we have consciousness of the world for the same reason. Basically, that our brains evolve to simulate reality and to control what's happening around us.

I can be fascinated with very little things. The clouds stimulate my imagination, and sometimes I just sit somewhere and go on dreaming for a long time. Your head is also a computer. When you're dreaming, you are simulating a world in which you are living.

Most people imagine music playing in their heads, but some hallucinate music; some cannot sleep because of the soundtrack in their mind.

When I look at someone's face, there's something in my brain that just clicks - that breaks down their face into the elements that go into a caricature. It might be like the way a chef tastes a dish and can break down into elements what went into it.

The way the mind decodes music is an individual mystery. But the physical circumstances can change the way you listen.

The brain is such an incredible computer.

I just always hear music in my head. I thought that was normal. My wife said, 'Ramin, that's not normal.'

Sometimes, I believe I actually see the wheels in my brain turning.

Through studies of music and the brain, we've learned to map out specific areas involved in emotion, timing, and perception - and production of sequences. They've told us how the brain deals with patterns and how it completes them when there's misinformation.

When someone is on the phone telling me a story, I'm hearing the soundtrack that goes with it.

I'm sure our brains are working unconsciously. When you have a creative thought, it's parts of the brain talking to each other without your awareness.

Everything I think is in pictures.

When I was younger, I didn't even realize the way I think visually is different.

Feeling and thinking are actually the blind man who carries the lame.

We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination.

There's just an incredibly rich and interesting relationship between our listening to music and the way our minds engage.

The human brain is the most public organ on the face of the earth, open to everything, sending out messages to everything. To be sure, it is hidden away in bone and conducts internal affairs in secrecy, but virtually all the business is the direct result of thinking that has already occurred in other minds.

This is going to sound crazy, but I can hear music in my head. I can imagine a piano or a guitar playing, and I can sort of think out.

All thinking is done with the glands. Logic is added later to tidy things up.

To see is to think, and to think is to see.