“My firstborn, written in a burst (nine days!) in 1967, stimulated in part by working in a migraine clinic and in part by a wonderful book (Liveing’s On Megrim) written a century earlier.” —Oliver Sacks

For centuries, physicians and migraineurs have been fascinated by the many manifestations of migraine, and especially by the visual hallucinations or auras- similar in some ways to those induced by hallucinogenic drugs or deliria–which often precede a migraine. In this revised edition of his first book, Dr. Sacks describes these hallucinatory constants and what they reveal about the working of the brain, drawing on recent advances in chaos theory and neural simulation. Migraine, he writes, can give us a most direct and privileged view not only of the secrets of neuronal organization, but also of the self-organizing systems of nature–recently described by chaos theorists–which often remain hidden in our daily lives.

Beyond this, Dr. Sacks finds a fascination in the multiple forms of migraine and the many triggers which may set them off–and of the crucial importance of considering the role played by migraine in each individual’s life.