Part One: Chapter Three, The Disembodied Lady Summary and Analysis

Sacks begins the chapter with a brief discussion of proprioception or the sixth sense humans posses that monitors physical movement. His story is then about Christina, a young woman in her late twenties with a good job and two young children. Christina is admitted to the hospital to have gallbladder surgery only to have a dream that she can no longer stand or feel objects in her hands. Doctors try to reassure Christina that this is a normal pre-operative anxiety and that everything is fine. However, Christina begins to suffer from the exact ailments in her dream.

She feels her body is "giving way" and that she is disembodied. Testing shows that Christina has lost her proprioception from head to toe. The cause of this loss is a polyneuritis...