now
March 8, 2012 10:37 PM   Subscribe

please fill in the fuzzy bits : a notable person [artist? | film director? | writer? ] survives a [brain injury? | virus?] and subsequently perceives all experiences and imagined futures as occurring in the present, he becomes a public speaker sharing how his unique perspective can free us from fear. I think the hive will post a youtube or ted link in under 45 seconds.
posted by compound eye to Religion & Philosophy (12 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
Clive Wearing
posted by b33j at 10:52 PM on March 8, 2012


Now with YouTube link.
posted by b33j at 10:53 PM on March 8, 2012


You aren't thinking of Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five, are you?
posted by beepbeepboopboop at 11:05 PM on March 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: b33j, good link, but not actually the person I'm looking for.
The person I am looking for can create new memories, but perceives those memories, all of them as happening now, he has no sense of past and future.
posted by compound eye at 11:06 PM on March 8, 2012


Response by poster: not billy pilgrim, no a real person, all his memories seem to be happening right now to him in a kind of sonic boom of everything ever all at once.

he's recently had some internet prominence, probably turn out to be right here on mefi.
posted by compound eye at 11:08 PM on March 8, 2012


Jon Sarkin? "Jon is unable to see the world as a whole, and unable to ignore it in its infinite detail. There are no filters, no chance for his brain to slow everything down and order the world into meaningful images and scenes."

Here's a Fresh Air story.
posted by brina at 11:40 PM on March 8, 2012


It's not really the same as your description, but are you perhaps thinking of patient KC? He suffers from severe impairment of his autonoetic consciousness, and as such lacks the ability to mentally place himself in the past, in the future, or in counterfactual situations.
posted by RichardP at 12:22 AM on March 9, 2012


Response by poster: No the person I trying to find has memory, and can imagine the future, but it doesn't feel like the future or the past. But he feels no sense of distance from the past, it feels immediately present
posted by compound eye at 2:14 AM on March 9, 2012


Sounds like a combination of Ace Ventura director Tom Shadyac, who's post-concussion syndrome led to a documentary about, like, deep stuff, and New Age guru Eckhart Tolle, who claims to have had a life changing transformation and wrote the best-sellers The Power of Now and A New Earth.
posted by teekat at 8:47 AM on March 9, 2012


Response by poster: Tom Shadyac might be it, but his wikipedia entry is a lot more woo-woo and less oliver sacks than I was expecting. Thank you teekat
posted by compound eye at 1:31 AM on March 10, 2012


Response by poster: no don't think tom shadyac is it either but its so close that I am doubting my own memory
posted by compound eye at 3:49 AM on March 10, 2012


Neither a "he" nor an artist, but how about neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor? (See three previous posts.)
posted by tangerine at 11:04 AM on March 11, 2012


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