The Secret History Of Thoughts
January 11, 2015 5:55 PM   Subscribe

Locked-In Man - "Martin Pistorius spent more than a decade unable to move or communicate, fearing he would be alone, trapped, forever. NPR's new show Invisibilia tells how his mind helped him create a new life."
posted by kliuless (21 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow. What an amazing guy.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:13 PM on January 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


"I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," Martin says.

Since all the world thought Martin was a vegetable, at the special care center where he spent his days he was often in front of the TV watching reruns of the children's cartoon hour after hour, day after day.


I now have fresh, terrifying nightmare fuel.
posted by sfkiddo at 6:15 PM on January 11, 2015 [23 favorites]


I don't know if I could read this. I already freak myself out with all sorts of sudden, negative outcomes. I think this is normal as I am in my 40s.
posted by Glinn at 6:18 PM on January 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


I now have fresh, terrifying nightmare fuel.

Our expedition is concluded. We have actually located Hell.
posted by localroger at 6:19 PM on January 11, 2015 [5 favorites]


I already read Johnny Got His Gun, I don't think I even want to think about this one.
posted by elizilla at 6:32 PM on January 11, 2015


I actually found this heartwarming. Man goes through purgatory, and emerges out on the other side via the force of his will.
posted by wuwei at 6:39 PM on January 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


Haven't listened yet, but I caught an Invisibilia segment on the radio this afternoon that was about how the blind can use echo-location to see, and it was really great.
posted by codacorolla at 7:05 PM on January 11, 2015


emerges out on the other side via the force of his will.

Forged by his hatred of Barney. All that is left is for him to drink beer out of Barney's skull.
posted by localroger at 7:11 PM on January 11, 2015 [9 favorites]


Put me next in line to drink beer out of Barney's skull.
posted by 724A at 7:20 PM on January 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wonder what the scientific explanation is for his recovery?
posted by Nevin at 8:05 PM on January 11, 2015


It would be nice to know, with respect to the absolute terror of locked-in syndrome, that somebody can survive and make some kind of a life out of even something as horrific as that. Somebody else listen to it and tell us whether we're going to come out of it with our hearts warmed or our nights haunted.
posted by edheil at 8:17 PM on January 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


It sounds like neither the disorder that caused the problem nor the recovery are well understood. Probably some kind of brain damage that was eventually corrected by cortical remapping (at least that's my guess).
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:20 PM on January 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Read OUT OF MY MIND by Sharon Draper. You'll thank me later, in your mind.
posted by beckybakeroo at 10:00 PM on January 11, 2015


There is nothing in my wildest imagination that strikes cold, dead fear in my heart like the idea of being trapped inside my useless body with a functioning mind.

Nothing.
posted by aryma at 10:17 PM on January 11, 2015 [1 favorite]




My friend took a barney doll back when barney was the lord of kids programming, and hanged it in his car window with a noose. One day, we were at taco bell, and he found a note shaming him for calling himself a christian (back when we considered ourselves as such) and demanded he take it down from his window. We just laughed and wondered who put the note there.

I read a dailyfail article someone linked on FB, which was written by him and had more about like his love of his life and I admit, I totally teared up.

Wasn't there something a while back about people who help "locked-in" people to read and there was a claim it's all a scam (by people like the Amazin Randi, if it wasn't him directly, certainly a skeptic/debunker type person) ... I wonder what they have to say about this story...
posted by symbioid at 10:49 PM on January 11, 2015


Wasn't there something a while back about people who help "locked-in" people to read and there was a claim it's all a scam (by people like the Amazin Randi, if it wasn't him directly, certainly a skeptic/debunker type person) ... I wonder what they have to say about this story...

You mean the controversy over "facilitated communication?" I don't know enough to comfortably claim that it has never been legit (scam might not be the word if practitioners believe in its validity) but I don't think this case has much bearing on that because the essence of the skeptical claim is that it's not a reliable method to communicate with a communicatively-impaired person, not that such persons are necessarily without inner consciousness.
posted by atoxyl at 11:56 PM on January 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


Facilitated communication skepticism is not based on the idea that the individual being "facilitated" is mindless but rather on the idea that using a person's hand as a planchette is not a means of making Ouija boards legitimate.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:41 AM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


Mefi's own jscalzi's most recent novel, Lock In, has gotten quite high reviews. I generally enjoy his fiction. Having said that, you can insert the badger NOPE gif here, because NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE AHH FUCKIT WHAAA not reading it.
posted by eriko at 5:27 AM on January 12, 2015


eriko, I thought the same thing, that I wasn't going to read that book for that reason. But honestly, it's not remotely as bad as that sounds. The main character has robot bodies to use and a cool inner Internet and they aren't really "locked in" at all compared to how our crappy real world works. It's actually very cool and they're not really "locked in" at all except for technically being tied to a body they don't really "live in" mentally.

After that: yeah, seconding the Barney. I also liked his comment about hearing "you can't take away my dignity" while he's having his drool wiped up.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:48 PM on January 12, 2015


Wasn't there something a while back about people who help "locked-in" people to read and there was a claim it's all a scam

There was case where claims of complete awareness were being made for a vegetative man named Rom Houben, and a lot of stories carried ver dramatic "quotes" directly from him that were later retracted and considered to be wholly fabricated by his caregivers.

That and other cases have made me wary of these dramatic brain recovery stories. Not because they're impossible but because they wouldn't be that hard to fabricate, and they sell easy. Are we certain this guy was really in a coma for 12 years? How would we know?
posted by anazgnos at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2015


« Older Empire Zinc strike and Salt of the Earth: by Labor...   |   "discard anything that doesn’t spark joy" Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments