Grandmother Wakes Up with Unexpected French Accent After Migraine
A 49-year-old grandmother, Kay Russell, experienced a surprising development after a migraine episode. She went to bed suffering from a migraine but woke up speaking with a French accent, which is unrecognizable to her family and friends.
Foreign Accent Syndrome
Doctors have diagnosed Kay with Foreign Accent Syndrome, a rare condition that damages the part of the brain responsible for speech and word formation. This condition causes changes in a person’s speech patterns, making them sound as if they have acquired a foreign accent.
Migraine History and Symptoms
Kay has suffered from migraines for 20 years, and their effects are typically limited to temporarily paralyzing her limbs and causing slurred speech. However, since January 4th, she has not spoken with her natural accent.
After a particularly bad migraine episode, Kay experienced slurred speech for two weeks, leading her to seek medical attention. It was during this time that she woke up with a French accent, which has persisted.
Describing the Changes
According to Kay, the condition has affected her facial muscle movements, inclination, and pronunciation. She also notes that it impacts her handwriting, causing her to write words like “peoples” instead of “people.”
Kay emphasizes that as a sufferer of this syndrome, she is not intentionally trying to speak with a foreign accent. It is a speech impediment that has developed due to the underlying neurological changes.
Is it real? It appears to be.
Although it’s extremely rare, it’s a real condition. Only about 100 people have been diagnosed with this condition since the first known case came to light in 1907. Some examples of FAS include an Australian woman who developed a French-sounding accent after a car accident. In 2018, an American woman in Arizona woke up one day with a mixture of Australian, British, and Irish accents after falling asleep the night before with a headache. It doesn’t just affect English speakers. FAS can happen to anyone and has been documented in cases and languages all over the world. … (HealthLine)
What might trigger it?
… cases have been reported in the popular media as resulting from various causes including stroke, allergic reaction, physical injury, and migraine. (Wikipedia)
Can it be reversed?
It depends. Since it is usually caused by an injury to the part of the brain that controls speech, it can sometimes be reversed, like any other brain damage. There was one case I found where it reversed, a case of tumors of the nasopharynx involving all or most unilateral cranial nerves without involving the brain.
An English speaking women developed a French accent, without any aphasic syndromes, in conjunction with multiple left sided cranial nerve deficits, temporally related to cranial trauma. Extensive testing with multimodality magnetic resonance imaging, cerebrospinal fluid and laboratory analysis was unremarkable. She was followed over a 3 year period during which her French accent resolved as did the majority of her multiple unilateral cranial neuropathies. The neurological diagnoses included a foreign accent syndrome attributed to a reversible Garcin syndrome. (Paperity)
Brain Damage Reversed
There is a known case where brain damage in a toddler who drowned was reversed with oxygen therapy:
Fifty five days after the drowning accident, doctors started giving Eden normobaric oxygen for 45 minutes twice per day. … After 78 days, Eden began HBOT therapy, with 45 minute sessions five days per week for four weeks. After 10 sessions, her mother said she was almost back to normal other than motor function. After 39 sessions—coupled with physical therapy—Eden was able to walk and her speech had returned to normal. Her cognitive abilities had improved and motor function was almost restored to pre-drowning levels. An MRI scan a month after the 40th HBOT session showed almost complete reversal of the brain damage initially recorded. Researchers believe the oxygen therapy, coupled with Eden having the developing brain of a child, had activated genes that promote cell survival and reduce inflammation—allowing the brain to recover. The case report is published in the journal Medical Gas Research. (Newsweek)
Very interesting. It can be fun to talk with a foreign accent at times, but no one would want to be stuck doing so without the option to stop. Hopefully brain rehabilitation will help people with FAS to recover and to return to their previous normal speech patterns.
26 comments
I think my wife has this. She speaks with a completely incomprehensible double dutch accent.
I read that Foreign Accent Syndrome is a bit erroneous because what’s really going on is witnesses interpreting a brain-damaged person’s voice as a foreign accent. Slurring? Mumbling her vowels? She’s Norwegian!
Or drunk.
‘You lose your identity and an awful lot about yourself. I feel like I come across as a different person.’
I think she said it right here. She hit [the situation] on the head.
In my view, what they call “foreign accent syndrome” isn’t an illness in a medical sense. It is simply a different person taking charge of the body. In Kay Russell’s case, that different person’s recent past has been to live in a french-speaking culture.
Or is it too foreign a concept to say that we are composites, spiritual beings actually inhabiting a human body, and that – in exceptional circumstances – we may ‘lose’ that body to someone else?
You’re suggesting, perhaps, that Kay could have her french accented (not French speaking though) spirit exorcised? Her normally dominant spirit has, in some way, lost the struggle to retain control of the human shell which they all co-habit.
Yep Sepp, that’s way too foreign for me.
The only spiritual thing about humans is there ability to come up with bizarre notions to explain things they don’t understand.
I don’t think I suggested exorcism.
The concept of spirit inhabiting a body might be foreign, but we better deal with it.
That particular reality is not going to go away just because we close our eyes to any such possibility.
In any case… the lady seems not to be too unhappy with her new situation.
Reality? What reality are you speaking of?What hard, unequivocal evidence do you have of spiritual infestation of the human body?
I’m with the Dara O’Briain school of teaching. All clairvoyents, spiritualists, priests, fortune tellers, astrologers et al of this ilk, should be put in a large sack and beaten with big sticks till they see sense and stop perpetuating this bollocks.
Dara O’Brian might be funny as a stand-up comedian, and he certainly has an agenda! Good luck to you …
But you still have nothing to help persuade me otherwise?
No, I won’t try. You’ve got your mind well made up already.
Like I said. You have nothing!
I’m really starting to like you, Cheng.
Now, now, Cheng, aren’t we being a bit extreme? Sounds almost (James) Randistic to me. So, what’s your take on the field of parapsychology, which includes the likes of Susan Blackmore as well as Dean Radin?
(Oh, sorry to read about your wife. It’s curious you describe her speech as “double Dutch,” a phrase that arose during an era when the Brits and the Dutch were less than fond of each other. Got something against the Dutch, too?)
Well done Ann. Parapsychologists – get in the fecking sack. Susan Blackmore, I note, is no longer in the field. Presumably, she has done her time in the sack. This sort of thing is a hedge better for governments without conviction. They give a few million of tax payers money, just in case there’s something in it. Scientists run with it because it is undoudtedly interesting, but of course, never come back with anything concrete. They only turn up for the next round of grants and to give long winded talks on how close they are to achieving.
It’s this and all the other aforementioned asides that keeps human progress in the slow lane, preying on peoples fears, prejudices and superstitions.
I have nothing against the Dutch. A truly wonderful and enlightened nation. Indeed, my employer is Dutch. I have no idea of the origin of the term “Double Dutch”, but you are probably right. The Brits and Dutch didn’t always see eye to eye, even when we had Dutch Kings and Queens on the throne. It’s a term that has fallen into British colloquial history and is used to describe anything that is not immediately clear, or just total nonsense.
Yeah, it’s British humor/insult as only the British can do: “Dutch concert” refers to a state of chaos or pandemonium; the well-loved expression in the States “going Dutch,” or “Dutch treat,” meaning sharing the expenses or each pays his/her own fare.
But, I think parapsychology has made some progress in the last 100 years, although it seems many people have taken up the extreme skeptical side of the discussion, which has had far more media attention. It’s like the global warming issue, scientists are not the best at PR, and suffer as a consequence.
On behalf of the British people, I would like to apologise for our sense of humour. From Benny Hill to Little Britain, I am so sorry.
Ann, I do honestly try to keep an open mind about most things. But all my life I’ve been told things are fact that simply don’t stand up to scrutiny. Religion, the paranormal, santa claus, UFO’s, you name it. Not a single shred of hard evidence has been offered, to me anyway, to back it up.
Now’s your chance. What progress has been made in parapsychology in the last century, that isn’t heresay or can be explained in quite normal terms.
Well, Cheng, I really don’t want to convince you one way or the other. I was merely curious about the extent of your skepticism. If you want to read up on parapsych, there’s nothing stopping you. I suggest Dean Radin. He is quite prolific on the subject. But, I doubt you will. That’s the problem, you see, that occurs when we “decide” so-and-so is what it is. That’s not being “open minded”
I once had a friend, a PhD-prof. (no, not in parapsych. or psych.) in the U.S., who was quite active in her field and who was born and raised in Venezuela. After relating the uncanny experiences with relatives and friends during a recent visit to her homeland, she asked me, “why aren’t there any spirits in the United States?” Privately, I was taken back. I wanted to laugh, but, of course, I didn’t. She was serious. I replied I didn’t know. But, her question is food for thought.
Personally I’ve had a few experiences, although not with “spirits,” which I could, I guess, dismiss, ignore or slip into the background with everything else and forget. Or, I could just rationalize it off into the world of the commonplace and talk about coincidences. But, they weren’t coincidences. What I’ve experienced were like a spontaneous hallucinations, visions, if you will, only a few milliseconds in length that depicted a scene or an event that actually occurred about 10 or 20 minutes later. But, then, we can always talk about my mental stability.
So, it’s the experiences of those even closer to me than my prof-friend that I find quite convincing, because I’ve gone over these events, if only to myself, again and again, looking for “rational” explanations, but cannot explain them except as some sort of psi experience.
Yes, I understand what you mean when you wrote, “all my life I‚Äôve been told things are fact …”. I have parents who were raised in two entirely different cultures and languages and I was in the middle of both. (No, one wasn’t Venezuelan.) They had different views of the world and they taught me, raised me, in two different ways, whether they liked to believe that or not. And, I’ve also traveled to a few places outside Europe and the Americans and lived for some time, not as a tourist, but in the midst of people who thought quite differently about the world. And, I’ve come to conclusion, much as anthropologists have, that we (“we” as a culture) construct our world. And, that the world is far more complicated than we would like to believe.
I can’t help but feel North Americans, in particular, sometimes strain to put the strangest events into the box that’s labeled … whatever … “rational,” … (I could say something about 9-11, but …) But, you know, it’s only North Americans and Western Europeans (well, I don’t know about the French) in the last few decades that have come to this “extreme,” as I see it. Oh, sure there have always been isolated thinkers, philosophers who say otherwise. But, every culture that has ever existed had some sort of feelings about the paranormal, the uncanny and the like. As matter of fact, the Brits had this thing about “fairies” around the turn of the 20th century or thereabouts.
Who was the parapsychologist who did psi experiments/tests with those who claim to believe in ESP and those who do not? The tests were objective, quite simple and done with Zenner cards (playing cards with symbols on side). And, she found that the “believers” nearly always scored higher than chance when it comes to trying to “guess” what on the card before they looked at it.
So, when we’re taught something, or raised in a certain way, it might be difficult to break out of that way of thinking, to see, perhaps, another “reality,” which, is what cultural anthropologists tell us there is.
But, I don’t think you don’t have to travel to other countries, if you believe accounts, not only from anthropologists, but also from people, such as legitimate (non-pedophilic) Catholic priests in colonial Africa and the like. There’s a lot accounts, at least before globalization, if you want to read about them. They can’t be all lying, naive etc. But, like I said, I’m not trying to convince you one way or the other.
For whatever it’s worth.
Cheers!
Charlie Tart taught that non believers in one experiment missed more than they should, statistically.
Spirits: I’ve seen a few and still don’t believe they are the immortal immaterial essences of deceased people. Misinterpretations by my brain of shadows, insects, and daydreams… Or perhaps people playing games in military stealth suits.
Ann, thank you for your considered reply. I don’t think I have decided anything. I try not to take anything at face value, so I suppose I do need convincing. I guess I am predisposed to lean towards the logical explanation side of things rather than make huge leaps of faith, but that is how it should be, surely.
The brain, I think it’s agreed, is the most complex organic structure we know. It grows organically from an imperfect blue print. It is so complex, that every one is probably unique. Like the most complex machines, I doubt that it runs at 100% efficiency ever, and is made worse by stress, tiredness, drugs, alcohol, pollution etc. Sometimes this is obvious in the most spectacular ways, but usually this is almost undetectable. A twitch of a muscle, a whine in the ear or a flash in the eye. I’ve experienced all of these and Deja Vu and feelings of foreboding etc. etc. Don’t you think the more likely cause is a brain hiccup? As I’ve said before in other posts, I would love for these things to be true. To be able to talk to my dead relatives, to foresee the future, to have a book turn it’s own pages as I read, and on and on, but there seems to be no consistent proof of any of it.
I don’t won’t to tie you down, but you said you had an episode of a few milliseconds in which you saw something that must have been quite graphic and distinct, but I would suggest the brain needs at least a few 10’s of milliseconds to even be conscious that something occured. If the period of time was longer, I imagine anybody with you would immediately notice your reaction to it.
I haven’t read Radin’s work, but I will now as a special concsession to you. Unfortunately, the waters are muddied by some scientists offering fraudulently obtained data, and there have been some fairly high profile cases of this. The science of it is further sullied by the charlatans, profiteers and showmen that haunt the subject. So the “genuine” parapsychologists are definitely working uphill and I sympathise with them. But I can’t help feeling that they so want it to be true and that they aren’t wasting their time, that they jump on any tiny positive result and laud it a complete success and undeniable fact. Shouldn’t eperimental evidence be reproducable by anybody under the same conditions, anywhere with the same result? That doesn’t seem to be the case with parapsychology. Why can’t psychics, under the same conditions, produce consistant results? So it starts to move away from science and into the black arts.
I will read and try to stay objective, but the balance has been swinging the wrong way for a century now.
I found this obit by Charles T. Tart where he talks about the original creator of the believer/non-believer experiment, which has been replicated numerous times (even by Susan Blackmore, I’ve read elsewhere):
Pioneering Parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler Has Died
Dr. Charles T. Tart on May 5th, 2009
…. Gertrude Schmeidler, died last month (1912-2009). ….
Gertrude made one of the most important discoveries ever in parapsychology, one with strong spiritual implications and one which I think none of the spiritual traditions knows about, for while it’s something that can happen in everyday life, it’s pretty much unobservable except under laboratory conditions. She gave many classes of students ESP tests, guessing at concealed cards, but, before giving or scoring the tests, she had students fill out questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether they believed in ESP.
When she analyzed the results separately for the believers ‚Äì the “sheep” ‚Äì and the non-believers ‚Äì the “goats” ‚Äì she found a small, but significant difference. The sheep got more right than you would expect by chance guessing, they were occasionally using ESP. The goats, on the other hand, got significantly fewer right than you would expect by chance.
Think of it this way. If you were asked to guess red or black with ordinary playing cards, no feedback until you’d done the whole deck, you would average about 50% correct by chance. If you got 100% correct, you don’t need statistics to know that would be astounding. But if you got 0%? Just as astounding!
The sheep thought they could do it, they got “good” scores, they were happy. The goats knew there was no ESP, nothing to get, they got poor scores, they were happy, that “proved” their belief. These were not people who were sophisticated enough about statistics to know that scoring below chance could be significant‚Ķ.
Many other experimenters replicated this effect over the years.
The only way I’ve ever been able to understand it is to think that the goats occasionally used ESP, but on an unconscious level, to know what the next card was and then their unconscious, acting in the service of their conscious belief system, influenced them to call anything but the correct one. The goats used a “miracle” to support their belief that there were no such things as miracles‚Ķ.
Talk about living in samsara, in a state of illusion!
http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/archives/103
Thanks for this. So, what have the skeptics said about this psi-missing effect?
Xeno, I don’t know. I’ll have to look into it.
A thoughtful comment, Cheng. Thanks. You’re probably right about my rare flashes of foresight, if that’s what they are, are longer than a few milliseconds. But, they’re as fast and as enduring though I were to ask you, during a normal state sobriety, to imagine or mentally visualize a satellite orbiting the moon, or some other specific scene. You could probably conjure up a mental picture nearly instantaneously without much loss of the awareness of your immediate external environment, and it would occur beyond the notice of other people around you. Well, my “visions” are as fast and just about as fleeting. And, further, we all can, if we like, recall that mental image just as we can elaborate on it or change it. We seem to have all sorts of thoughts, mental images flying through our heads all the time (referring back to William James), most of which we probably pay little attention to, i.e. “unconscious” thoughts, until we give them attention. But, the question arises why would I unconsciously (as far as I know) be more attentive to an image that seemingly foretells an event? This latter quality is undeniable in my experiences.
Perhaps it works in this way: if unconsciously we are aware of many things in our environment, we may also be aware of events that precede and lead to a following event. A rather crude example may occur, if we’re walking through a field toward some bushes several dozen meters ahead and a few birds suddenly take flight from those bushes, we may imagine or predict something in the bushes startled them. What if we could also perceive a slight tremble in the leaves and limbs of the bushes up ahead? It might elaborate a developing mental image of what lies ahead. This is crude, but I think this is how my visions work. Slight environmental cues are picked up and mentally I conjure what’s coming up. But, it must happen very quickly and in ways in which I cannot even fathom consciously.
But, this theory might not work in all cases: I read about Emanuel Swedenborg when he had a “vision” of a fire in Stockholm, while he was at a social gathering several hundred miles away. The event was well documented because he related to those around him the contents of his vision as they occurred, which coincided with an actual fire that did take place as he had described it. I can’t say anything else about Swedenborg, and a lot else has been said about him, but this event is well-known and documented by his contemporary, the philosopher, Immanuel Kant (in his book, “Dreams of a Spirit Seer”).
About parapsychology: throughout its history it has had more than its share of debunkers and skeptics, from religious clerics to other scientists, to today’s magicians (wouldn’t you know it?). At the other extreme are the charlatans, from members of “Theo…-whatever” societies to “mediums” to today’s “ghost hunters” or “New Agers.” (Not that I’m necessarily taking sides, mind you) Like most scientific disciplines, generally parapsychologists have kept a rather low profile, but perhaps to the discipline’s detriment. Some like Radin, however, feel an obligation, it seems, to directly confront skeptics. But, I can’t help but feel it’s a losing battle, quite simply because the subject matter, ESP etc., goes against the very foundation of the physical sciences, but not because the discipline has not “progressed.” But, the point this, parapsychological events have been so widespread and have existed for so long, as far as anyone knows, one just can’t say so many people have been wrong, naive or just plain dumb. A major problem is that paranormal events are most often spontaneous events, and therefore quite difficult to reproduce. … Anyway, whatever …. Besides Radin, if you happen to come across the “Journal of Parapsychology” glance through it and read the book reviews. There I think you’ll find nice suggestions of what to read, if your interested.
Ann, you presume too much. That my normal state of sobriety is ‘sober’ and that I am quick witted enough to imagine near instantaneous images in my mind.
However, I’m not sure I fully agree with your reasoning. The brain (mind) isn’t that great at concentrating on more than one thing at a time (bearing in mind I’m talking from a male perspective and walking and chewing gum don’t come easy). I think you are right about us having a whirl wind of thoughts in our heads that mean little and don’t interfere with our interaction with the environment. But when we concentrate, say someone asks us to imagine a satellite orbiting a moon, the brain becomes focussed. We start to ignore those aimless thoughts and our perception of the passage of time is also affected. I don’t think I do get a near instantaneous picture. It probably takes a second or more to build that picture to be something clear, as I decipher your instructions. A second is a long time in human consciousness. If you were talking to someone and you stopped in mid flow for a second, they would immediately notice it. If I had a picture book and I told you I was going to open it for exactly 1/10 second and show you a picture, you would be on your guard and ready. You wouldn’t be thinking about much else. When I flashed the picture, I suggest there wouldn’t be sufficient time to get all the information. You would see the colours and the general shapes, but not much detail. But it took your attention and you’d remember it above all else that was happening around you at that moment.
Of course, I have no idea how you percieved your visions, but I imagine they would have to be of long enough duration to be remembered in some detail. They would really grab your attention and may possibly shock you. That, I’m guessing, would alert people around you, if there are any. When you had them, did you tell someone or note them down? I guess I’m having trouble understanding how you had a distinct, focussed vision that was still part of the whirl wind. Is it possible, and please don’t be offended, that they didn’t become distinct visions until after you witnessed the event?
I looked up the Swedenborg fire and it is a strange one indeed and very difficult to explain any other way. I am, of course, bound to say that it happened over 250 years ago and there must be a minute possibility that the records aren’t absolutely accurate. He also had some rather odd beliefs, which immediately harms any genuine accounts.
I started to read a bit of Radin’s work. He has rather taken it upon himself to defend psi against skeptics, rather than continue his work and prove it with out doubt and so shut them up forever. I note though, that some former eminent skeptics have (at least partially) been persuaded otherwise and are calling for more research.
I’ll read on…
Xeno, I found this article:
“Apparitions and Kindred Phenomena: their relevance to the psychology of paranormal belief and experience” by Tony R. Lawrence in: Hauntings and poltergeists: multidisciplinary perspectives by James Houran and Rense Lange, eds. (McFarland, 2001)
Besides believers, people who are creative apparently also score higher on chance ESP tests. Lawrence writes about a specific study by Charles Honorton, who created the Ganzfield experiments (or sensory deprivation experiments) while working on dreams at the at the Maimonides Medical Center during the 1970s.
Schlitz and Honorton (1992) “found a stunning 50% hit rate [i.e. positive scores in chance tests] for artists at the Julliard School for the Performing Arts in NY, when they tested them in their Ganzfield laboratory at Psychological Research Laboratories (and this research was replicated by Radin et al., 1994). This study has spawned a number of other ESP Ganzfield studies that report results in a similar vein. Creativity actually seems to be associated with laboratory ESP results.”
Another variable that appears to be associated with successful scores in chance tests is fantasy proneness, people who tend to fantasy-type of explanations. For these people, “the world is thought to be chaotic or capricious, this can easily overwhelm one’s will to cope with life’s events …”
“Blackmore and Troscianko (1985) argued that paranormal beliefs would provide an illusion of control over events which were otherwise controlled by chance alone.” And, from their work, “They found that believers felt they had more control over the [experimental] computer task than skeptics felt they did, whether they actually did or did not, and irrespective of their actual success in the task.”
I haven’t followed up on these dated studies, nonetheless:
What skeptics seem to do is take this information to explain what they themselves see in the world: a lot of people expressing beliefs in paranormal phenomena. They do not argue with the experiments themselves, because they cannot. Most, especially those in the media or whose sources are readily available on the net, are not scientists and it seems most do not delve very deeply into the scientific literature. But, they’re quick to apply the notions of believing, creativity and fantasy into their critiques.
The following is from this source:
The Skeptic’s Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll (John Wiley and Sons, 2003)
and also here:
http://www.skepdic.com/aliens.html
“Some of those who claim to have been abducted by aliens are probably frauds, some are very stressed, and some are probably suffering from a severe psychiatric disorder, but most seem to be fairly normal people who are especially fantasy prone.”
“Hypnosis is not only an unreliable method of gaining access to accurate memories, it is a method that can be very easily used to implant memories. Furthermore, it is known that people who believe they have been abducted by aliens are very fantasy prone. Being fantasy-prone is not an abnormality, if abnormality is defined in terms of minority belief or behavior. [Ok, but:] The vast majority [sic] of humans are fantasy prone, otherwise they would not believe in God, angels, spirits, immortality, devils, ESP, Bigfoot, etc. A person can function ‘normally’ in a million and one ways and hold the most irrational beliefs imaginable, as long as the irrational beliefs are culturally accepted delusions. Little effort is put forth to try to find out why people believe the religious stories they believe, for example, but when someone holds a view outside of the culture’s accepted range of delusional phenomena, there seems to be a need to ‘explain’ their beliefs.”
(Without questioning statements like: “Little effort is put forth to try to find out why people believe the religious stories they believe” or “irrational beliefs are culturally accepted delusions” or “culture’s accepted range of delusional phenomena.” Or asking what, to “function ‘normally'” really means or includes) the reader who blindly agrees with the writer is now in a select elite group, because most everyone else’s beliefs are unacceptable and mere “fantasy.” Welcome yourself to your new religion.
Cheng,
I don’t know if this relates to your comment, nevertheless: An often quoted phrase from William James is:
“The [human] baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion …”
It’s found in his Principles of Psychology (1890s) (in a chapter on how the human mind associates and dissociates, synthesizes and analyzes – I think).
We, as adults, are also so “assailed” by external stimuli bombarding our senses, but we, well most of us, have learned to focus on a thought. Yet, there is, at the same time, a kind of “stream of consciousness” going on as well.
And, those thoughts that we think? During the 19th century most people (who thought about thoughts) thought they were images, something like mental pictures. We have images running through our heads and sometimes, depending on the individual, I guess, we fix on one image. But, I doubt even then that one image is really “fixed,” because it changes. I guess this is what I was referring to when I spoke of “visions.”
I can’t get wrapped up all this, but I think this description fits with the way I think. All this borders on philosophy and unless I really have the time to get into it the discussions will never end. But, allow me to tell you how obnoxious it can get. After thinking thoughts were images, suddenly around 1900, psychologists decided that normal people don’t form mental images. It began with John B. Watson and his “manifesto” on Behaviorism. And, for 40 years afterward, if you asked a psychologist if he formed a mental images when he thought, he would likely reply, no. But, all that changed again in the 1950s, when thoughts reverted to images. Currently, we think in images and words, so psychologists have declared.
If you want to read about this, the philosopher, Nigel J.T. Thomas has several articles on line:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/american-response.html
He also has a website with more, a lot more information.
I was just thinking that if humans have images running through their heads because their sense of sight is so important. What would be the thoughts of dogs? A stream of smells? And, that of dolphins? A stream of sonar sounds? That is, if these animals “think”?
I mentioned Immanuel Kant, because of his stature as a philosopher. He is considered by all (truly) philosophers, even his critics, as one of the world’s greatest philosophers. So, when he writes something, it’s not like me jotting down comments on Xeno’s website. And, Swedenborg was his contemporary.
Also, Cheng, if you’re interested and have not seen it, Dean Radin website is below. I think it’s quite remarkable that he openly discusses topics with his commentators. Something others authors, I’m sure, wouldn’t dare do. One of his recent posts he talks about the Ganzfeld experiments:
September 13, 2010
Ganzfeld telepathy example
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2010/09/ganzfeld-telepathy-example.html
Cheng, while you’re visiting Dean’s site, if you do, check out “Compassion for skeptics,” July 31,2010. A post where Radin, a parapsychologist, relates an apparently inadvertent confrontation with a magician, James Randi, the father of the million-dollar-give-away-if-you-can-prove-it prize, via a commentator, who remained anonymous.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html