Chapter 15
In the Moment
Music and Amnesia
Clive had a devastating retrograde amnesia and a deletion of virtually his entire past.
Johnathan Miller’s extraordinary BB documentary, Prisoner of Consciousness, Clive showed a desperate aloneness, fear, and bewilderment.
Mr. Thompson profoundly amnesic patient I knew dealt with abysses of amnesia by fluent confabulations. He was immersed in his quick-fire inventions and had no insight
into what was happening.
Chapter 23
Awake and Asleep:
Musical Dreams
Irving J. Massey mentioned that ‘music is the only faculty that is not altered by the dream environment, whereas action character, visual elements and language
may all be modified or distorted in dreams.’
Isabelle Peretz thinks that there must be “a particular functional architecture which could be spared even if amusia was present. Functional architecture are being slowly
worked out, partly through the study of patients.