A provocative investigation into hallucinations—their many guises, their physiological sources, and their personal and cultural resonances.

In his latest book, neurologist and bestselling author, Oliver Sacks  (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, The Mind’s Eye) presents a provocative investigation into hallucinations—their many guises, their physiological sources, and their personal and cultural resonances.  Join us at Live Talks Los Angeles as he discusses what hallucinations say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in all of us.

Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication—even, for many people, by falling asleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms.

In his new book, Hallucinations, physician and best-selling author Oliver Sacks draws on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions as he investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations.

David Milch is an Emmy-Award-winning writer and producer responsible for some of the most celebrated television dramas of the last three decades. Milch, who won the Tinker Prize for highest achievement in English at Yale University and earned an M.F.A.from the Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa, left a teaching career at Yale to write for Hill Street Blues. He subsequently served as Executive Story Editor and then Executive Producer for Hill Street Blues. In 1992, Milch co-created the history-making police drama NYPD Blue. Milch took home Emmys for Best Writing in a Drama for the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons. Milch created another police drama, Brooklyn South, and co-authored, along with NYPD Blue producer Bill Clark, True Blue: The Real Stories Behind NYPD Blue, and served as creative consultant for Steven Bochco’s Murder One and Total Security. Milch also created and was the Executive Producers of  Deadwood and Luck for HBO. He is currently developing a legal drama for NBC with Steven Bochco, and the feature film Heavy Rain for Warner Bros.