Summary Of Chapter 1 Of Stoorr's '

In this chapter, Storr wrote more comprehensively about an idea which he addressed in the previous chapter: memory. He began by telling the story of Carole Felstead, a nurse who mysteriously died after cutting ties with her family for no apparent reason. After her death, however, Carole’s family discovered that she did so because she had a mental illness that they did not know about. This mental illness was apparently treated initially by Dr. Fleur Fischer, a woman who, upon Carole’s death, claimed to be Carole’s ‘next of kin.’ This raised the suspicion of both Carole’s family and Storr. Because of this, Storr contacted her. However, she vanished after one short phone call. This caused Storr to seek out another doctor of Carole’s, Dr. Valerie Sinason. She told Storr that she believed strongly in listening to people because, given time, they may find the words to explain something they did not have the ability to explain before – specifically, satanic abuse. After this, Storr was able to contact Dr. Fischer, who adamantly rejected the title ‘psychotherapist.’ By the end of the conversation, Dr. Fischer was crying. This prompted Storr to contact Dr. Sinason,

While everyone might not have a Jesus graham cracker dream, most everyone understands the feeling of déjà vu – when an otherwise familiar situation feels all-too-familiar (Teale). This is connected to the ideas Storr presented in chapter 6: in our brain’s attempt to construct a reality which makes sense, it is not always right. In the case of déjà vu, the brain attempts to match an unfamiliar area with memories stored away in the brain, ultimately falsifying our perception of the past, present, and even future. However, in both the case of dreaming and déjà vu, we are aware that our falsified memories are wrong. What happens when we do not realize our brain has tricked