Oliver Sacks Musicophilia

Musicophilia: difference or disorder?
In his book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2008), Oliver Sacks presents “musicophilia” as a mental disorder that has verifiable effects in the physical and emotional health of the “victim.” Sacks uses many research summaries and case histories to discuss this brain and behavioral condition that he sees as a problem to be fixed. I suggest that musicophilia, though typically considered a phenomenal disability, offers extraordinary abilities to some individuals and, through those “victims,” to society.
A surprisingly large number of people have experienced a variant of this unusual propensity for, or fear of, music. Sacks describes a number of patients who found that the symptoms of their musicophilia

Beautiful music plays in their head and inspires them. The first patient introduced in the book, Tony Cicoria, described his case of musicophilia as a life-changing event. He had never found music a significant part of his life, but after he was suddenly struck by lightning, he experienced a strong desire to listen to classical music. Soon, he found a way to teach himself to play the piano at the age of forty-two, and a new stage of his life began. He began to compose and perform his pieces, stating that “whenever he sat down at the piano to work on his Chopin, his own music ‘would come and take him over’”. From this traumatic experience spontaneously came an astounding

Such a world exists in The Giver by Lois Lowry. The people in this world have different careers, as everyone’s abilities are different, but all abilities are equal - almost no one is considered more gifted than another. There is no culture. Just survival and organization. In the movie adaptation, the first half of the movie is shown in black and white for the most part, until the main character escapes the community, and goes out into the unknown, where none of these cold, black and white ways exist. This part of the movie is shown in color, to show the beauty of what is past the walls of their closed-in community. For many patients, musicophilia is developed at an older age, and for some of them, the time before they noticed it was black and white. After, it was all in color. I argue with the idea that musicophilia is a disorder. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has wrestled with the definition of a disorder. Not all of the cases described by Sacks fit into these categories. Additionally, some of his “patients” were contributing as outstandingly creative and talented musicians and performers. (Musicophilia is a mental illness only when it negatively affects one’s cognitive function, and is unbearably intrusive into one’s life. When it gives one