SOURCE: Weinraub, Judith. “Oliver Sacks: Hero of the Hopeless.” Washington Post 114 (13 January 1991): F1, F6.

In the following essay, Weinraub investigates the origins of and the controversy surrounding Awakenings and discusses the impact of the cinematic adaptation on Sacks's life.

“I had a dream about manganese the other night,” says Oliver Sacks, chortling over the idea. “I can't think of all the details, but I felt so good when I woke up.

“It was a dream about a stable mental object,” he continues with delight. “You know, people may come and go, but manganese is forever. Its electrons behave themselves. They've got Pauli's exclusion principle. They can't leave orbits. You know where you are with manganese.”

As a source of inspiration for dreams, the periodic table of elements isn't exactly standard. But for writer-neurologist Sacks, it's a natural.

A shy, burly Santa Claus of a man, Sacks, 57, is a...