Survival Kit

Dr. Oliver Sacks

Sunday, June 02, 2002

Dr. Oliver Sacks has travelled to remote islands to study the unusual neurological conditions that can be found in isolated populations, and he has said that the patients he sees in his practice seem like travellers to unimaginable lands. In books like Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars, he has provided us with glimpses into the outer boundaries of human experience. Now I’ve asked him to imagine a trip to an uninhabited island, or a remote cabin in the woods, and the 8 items he would not want to be without.