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> Raynal’s lifestyle was becoming so unbalanced that his family was beginning to worry about him. One day, he ran out of his room in a panic, telling them that
by ggambetta 7y ago
> Raynal’s lifestyle was becoming so unbalanced that his family was beginning to worry about him. One day, he ran out of his room in a panic, telling them that all of the color had bled out of his vision. His mother bustled him off to an ophthalmologist, who told him he appeared to have disrupted the photoreceptors in his eyes by staring so long at a monitor screen. Thankfully, the condition persisted only a few hours. But then there came a day when he suddenly couldn’t understand anything that was said to him; he had apparently become so attuned to the language of computer code that he could no longer communicate with humans. That worrisome condition lasted several weeks.
This sounds hard to believe. A lot more people use computers nowadays, for equally long periods of time if not more, and neither of these symptoms seem to be a thing. So... what's going on here? Embellishments to the legend?
- hrktb 7y agoBurnout perhaps ? I think depression can cause color perception loss (not complete, but colors fade out). Also when getting used to a second or third language (i.e. french _ english) one can temporarily get overwhelmed and have difficulty to switch to either of them. I never came accross literature on this, but personaly experienced periods of a day or more where I felt I just couldn’t speak anything. Asking friends moving to foreign countries some of they hit the same issue. At that time at least in France “specialist” would tell the most random diagnostics with a straight face and it was pretty normal to go get a second opinion for anything more than a cold. Nowadays they know patients have at least googled symptoms and try to ecplain more of their thinking behind diagnostics IMO.
- ggambetta 7y ago> At that time at least in France “specialist” would tell the most random diagnostics with a straight face Right, this does make the story (if not the underlying causes) sound more realistic.
- sizeofchar 7y agoThe random diagnostics is still a thing in Brazil.
- renaudg 7y ago> At that time at least in France “specialist” would tell the most random diagnostics with a straight face and it was pretty normal to go get a second opinion for anything more than a cold. Huh, what part of France are you from ? There was and there still is nothing wrong with the quality of care or doctors training in the country, compared to other places (quite the contrary, in fact)
- anonnyj 7y agoSounds like embellishment, but Scott Adams in a semi-popular known case lost the ability to speak... but could still sing. It seems like the brain somewhat partitions off language abilities and in cases of loss, one or the other can still be used. IIRC people have lost ability to speak one of the 2+ languages they're fluent in.
- chillwaves 7y agoScott Adams of Dilbert? He is not credible in any way.
- macleginn 7y agoOne veteran of the Russian TV industry reported a similar experience of temporal colour blindness after a long shift in the editing room.