My Mind’s Eye
the strange case of
Ian Waterman
by
Rob Hutchinson
website
www.ispectrummagazine.com
I
n 1971 Ian Waterman was
nineteen years old and looking forward to the future and all life
had to offer. However, he was to be
cruelly robbed of any sort of future
he could have imagined. Suddenly
he lost all sense of touch and spatial
positioning of his body from the neck
down, despite his motor systems
being unimpaired. Proprioception is
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the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising
from stimuli within the body itself,
and without this ability Waterman
found himself unable to walk, use
objects or go to the bathroom by
himself. Despite going from being
a healthy teen to bedridden in a
matter of days however, he was
determined to fight back and try