The genius is on the left, the lunatic is on the right

Chapter 12
Stephen woke up from his nap with a bloody broken leg in front of him, like a scene in "Saw", the limb was cut, and the broken leg was thrown on his bed, which happened to be on his left leg .

Stephen was nauseated for a while, followed by sweating profusely. This was a horror scene he had never experienced before, only in movies and horror novels.

Stephen pretended to be calm. He thought it was a prank by his colleagues, "It must be those wicked people who are messing with me. I can't spare them."

"The New Year is coming, everyone must have some fun to pass the boring time, I didn't expect it to be my turn this time." Thinking of this, Stephen smiled strangely, then picked up the artificial leg, and vigorously pointed out the window Throw away.However, as Steve threw the prosthetic leg with all his strength, his body tilted and he fell under the bed.

At this time, Stephen fully woke up from the situation, and he fell into panic again, because he found that it was not an artificial leg, but his own left leg. Although it had not been sawed off, all this made Stephen panic again, Then he yelled...

Hearing Stephen's yell, Nurse Jenny ran over quickly, trying to help Stephen up, but he refused to go to bed without saying anything, and stared straight at his left leg.

"Thank God, my leg was not amputated. Where is this? This is not an office. Why am I in the hospital!" Obviously, Stephen hadn't come out of the nightmare just now.Nurse Jenny comforted Stephen while asking for the doctor to be called.

After a while, Dr. Cole came, but he couldn't persuade Stephen to go to bed, so he could only squat down and talk to him. "Stephen, take it easy, you're just having a terrible dream."

"Oh, yes, doctor, I'm much better now." Stephen walked out of the dream, and he remembered why he appeared in the hospital ward.It turned out that there was something wrong with his left leg, and he didn't listen to his commands. The neurologist advised him to stay in the hospital for observation.At first, Stephen didn't think so, he thought the doctor was making a fuss, saying it was a "lazy" left leg, but Stephen felt fine all day and slept well at night, until after dinner and nap time, he suddenly did After having a nightmare, he realized that there might really be something wrong with his left leg.

Stephen began to tell the doctor about the dream just now: "Doctor, I had hallucinations just now, and a scene like "Chain Saw" actually appeared on me. I don't know who cut off a bloody left leg and threw it on my bed. I was about to throw it out the window and realized it was my own left leg so I fell and it was horrific."

"How are you feeling now?" Dr. Cole asked.

"What does it feel like? What else can I feel? Of course I was terrified at first, but now I'm very irritable and feel that this leg is not mine. Please help me get my left leg back."

Stephen was agitated, yelling, he felt the limbs were alive, and the bloody left leg was always lingering on him.

Nurse Jenny came over and said to Dr. Cole: "It's not the first time for Mr. Stephen to fall out of bed. This happens to him all the time these days. He fell down for no reason and tried his best to get him into bed. , and after a while he fell down again."

"Mr. Stephen, why do you always run under the bed?" Dr. Cole asked.

"I often feel that my left leg is not mine, it feels like it's a prosthetic leg, I don't know where it came from, so I want to throw it out, but every time I try hard, I fall under the bed. Looking at it now, this The left leg seems to be really mine."

Stephen was emotional, and he beat his left leg vigorously while talking, and even smashed it with a hard object. The level of effort was no less than that of a construction worker who demolished a house. However, the doctor only saw resentment on his face, but no pain. The expression, which proves that all that Stephen has done to his left leg, there is no pain!
A wave of disgust struck, and Stephen trembled again, "It's not my leg, absolutely not, it's fake, it doesn't look like a part of me, how can I not recognize my left leg? "

Seeing Stephen's anxious look, Dr. Cole asked, "If this is not your left leg, then where did your leg go?"

Hearing this sentence, Stephen seemed to remember something, his expression froze for a few seconds, and then he fell into panic again, "My leg, it... I don't know, where did my leg go?"

Stephen's face was pale, as if he was about to faint.

Where did Stephen's left leg go?Of course it was still on his body. That leg was either an imaginary artificial leg, or Stephen's own left leg, and why did he have this illusion?
When a well-known neurologist learned of this, he wrote a letter to Dr. Cole, to the effect:

I once saw a patient of unknown etiology who had atrial fibrillation and had been resected for a heart embolism leading to left hemiplegia.Strange things happened to this patient. Every evening he would fall out of bed, and after the nurse helped him to bed, he would fall down again soon after.At that time, the cardiologist couldn't find the cause, so he brought me in.

I asked the patient what happened at night, and what he told me was very similar to your case. This was the first time I heard that the patient told me that he often woke up at night and saw a cold, cut He was so frightened that he threw the leg far away with all his strength, but every time he fell out of bed like this.

According to the neurologist, this patient is a typical case of total loss of consciousness in half-body limbs.

Judging from the doctor's description, the patients he met were indeed similar to Stephen. Their limbs had not suffered any damage, but their brains "did not recognize" the existence of this part of the limb.What's even weirder is that when the doctor followed them and said, "Yes, this is a horrible leg, it should be thrown away, but where did your own leg go?", they all felt confused, as if they fell suddenly When I go to another world, everything I see is extremely strange.

The brain-burning logic of a genius or a madman
The symptoms of being unable to recognize one's own limbs or organs are collectively referred to as "agnosia" in neurology, which is an acquired cognitive impairment caused by partial damage to the brain.

In a book called "Restoring Hand Functions", the author once talked about such a thing: soldiers who participated in the war were seriously injured and returned home for treatment.In the process of gradually recovering, many soldiers actually suffered from "hand agnosia". They were unfamiliar with these two things with five thin wooden sticks, although they were very aware of the "hand" in their consciousness. concept, but facing their own hands, they think that these hands are already "dead" and "disabled".

However, after examination, their nerves and sensory organs were normal and there was no damage.So the author speculates that these soldiers may have separated the "perceptual system" and perception of their hands after the operation. Some people's separation is short-lived, and they recover slowly after a few weeks, but some people's separation It went on for several years.

Strange "agnosia" can also be seen in some diabetic patients. They will feel that their hands and feet are covered with socks, and everything they touch has no sense of reality.In fact, this is a problem with their sense of touch, or in other words, a problem with the nerves that sense touch.If the nerve function is severely weakened, they can't even feel the pain in their hands and feet, and their sense of reality is completely lost.

This was the case with a gentleman who, although he seemed to have sound limbs, felt that he had become a box without limbs.Where the arms and legs were supposed to be, now they seem to be covered in mud.

Most of the above-mentioned agnosias are acquired. If they are not caused by irreparable damage to the brain, there is a possibility of cure.To awaken the ability of the limbs, the word "use" is inseparable.

For example, Mr. Stephen, who was always throwing his left leg out, although he couldn't tell whether the leg in front of him was his own or a bloody "no owner" leg, but the fact proved that walking on two legs In this matter, he has no problem.That is to say, his legs are still fully functional. If he has been trying to guide him to pay attention to the mobility of his left leg instead of "the leg that appeared at the bedside for no reason", I believe there will be a certain effect.

(End of this chapter)