Brilliantly and entertainingly written, as was usual for Oliver Saks. But it's very disappointing to see how aimless and uninformed most of his drug use was, and how shallow his analysis of it was as well.
There is a very rich and ancient history of drug use for sacred, ritual, and what could be anachronistically termed therapeutic drug use, and Saks seems to have been either uninformed or not interested in any of that. He seemed to have just used drugs for kicks mostly (or to fall asleep). I find that rather sad.
The closest Saks gets to constructive use of drugs is towards the end of the article, when he says "in the hope of whipping up these intellectual and emotional excitements even further, I turned to amphetamines."
It is interesting that Saks was rewarded in this last experiment with the inspiration for the start of his remarkable writing career.
There is a very rich and ancient history of drug use for sacred, ritual, and what could be anachronistically termed therapeutic drug use, and Saks seems to have been either uninformed or not interested in any of that. He seemed to have just used drugs for kicks mostly (or to fall asleep). I find that rather sad.
The closest Saks gets to constructive use of drugs is towards the end of the article, when he says "in the hope of whipping up these intellectual and emotional excitements even further, I turned to amphetamines."
It is interesting that Saks was rewarded in this last experiment with the inspiration for the start of his remarkable writing career.