“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Schmeidler
explained of Capgras syndrome. “It was both
incredibly strange and sad and also vaguely
familiar. Who hasn’t looked over at her lover in
bed next to her and thought at one point, ‘Who
are you and what have you done with [name
of lover]’?” This resulted in “The Switch,” a
devastating poem about how one patient and
her husband experience Capgras.
Schmeidler writes,
injury. But after drafting the piece, it was clear
I had no idea what I was talking about—I knew
nothing about the brain or brain injury.” She
educated herself in the topics she found most
interesting—cognition, brain development,
neurology—and grew fascinated by what she
deemed the “accidental poetry in science.”
Crist cofounded NeuWrite, a network of
scientists, writers, and artists from various
disciplines. In a typical NeuWrite meeting,
filmmakers, neuroscientists, psychologists,
and writers mingle and exchange ideas across
“A wife convinced
disciplines. Columbia University Medical Center’s
her husband is a stranger.
Office of Graduate Affairs supports the group.
Unlike Schmeidler, Crist uses straight prose
He puts his naked feet on the
rather than verse to focus on neuroscience. In
ottoman,/strokes his mustache, “Postcards from the Edge of Consciousness,” a
Nautilus article published in August of this year,
sniffs his fingers.
Crist describes her experience with Restricted
In every technicality he’s right, Environment Stimulation Therapy (REST), a
imposters study well their prey, form of medical treatment that inhibits sensory
experience. Crist highlights the many benefits
but there are goose bumps
associated with REST: reduced blood pressure,
alleviation of tension headaches, an increase in
where her arms should be.”
endorphins and decrease in adrenaline, and the
end of lifelong phobias.
The poignant irony of the wife’s confusion
and husband’s constant waiting for a distant
In order to write her own piece, Crist enters
past is aching. When Schmeidler focuses on
a floating chamber, a medium-sized tub with
the husband’s movements—signatures of
salt water and padded, soundproof walls, to
the husband’s good intentions and the wife’s
experience REST. Crist determines, “But the
skepticism—readers are reminded of just how
sensory experience of floating is like nothing
vulnerable perception really is. I think of the
else. The only sounds come from inside the
people in my own life and reconfigure them as
body: the whooshing rush of each breath filling
imposters: what is occurring in the brain that so then escaping the lungs, the echoing thump of
easily disrupts the mind’s ‘eye’, so to speak?
the heart in the chest.”
Perception, of course, is the meeting place for
As the article progresses, she describes a
several disciplines. Senses shape an individual’s
disconnection with her body and a sudden
immediate perception, but biochemical,
mental relief: she cries “softly” and her tears
psychological, and societal factors also control
“[create] tiny wavelets of water” in the salty
the way one person engages the external world. water at the bottom of the floating chamber.
Realizing the tenuous nature of perception,
Crist, moreover, zeroes in on the nuances of
moreover, is a key component of Schmeidler’s
the experience, like hearing the processes of
poetry.
breathing and cardiac circulation. She invites
her readers to understand REST through
Meehan J. Crist, a writer-in-residence in
appeals to the senses. She also explores the
biological sciences at Columbia University
emotional complexities of a mind without its
and the editor-at-large of science magazine
Nautilus, focuses on this in her own writings and body to anchor it—something like the subject
of Schmeidler’s “Je Pense Donc Je Suis.”
thoughts.
Drawing on René Descartes’ famous
“I was a writer before I turned to science,”
argument
that a person’s ability to think is
Crist stated during an interview. “I was getting
proof
of
his
or her existence, Schmeidler writes
an MFA, and I wanted to write a piece about
of
proprioception
deficit disorder in “Je Pense
a family member who had a traumatic brain
8
SciArt in America October 2014