scholarly journals “You Are Older, although You Do Not Know That”: Time, Consciousness, and Memory in “A Kind of Alaska” by Harold Pinter (1930–2008)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Francesco Brigo ◽  
Mariano Martini ◽  
Lorenzo Lorusso ◽  

<i>“A Kind of Alaska”</i> is a one-act play by the British playwright and Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter (1930–2008), based on the book <i>Awakenings</i> by the neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933–2015). This play, first performed in 1982, is centered around the character of Deborah, a middle-aged woman, struck by <i>encephalitis lethargica</i> (“sleeping sickness”) at the age of 16, who wakes up after 29 years of apparent sleep following the injection of an unnamed drug. This article analyzes how Pinter’s drama investigated the mysterious and fascinating relationship between time, memory, and consciousness. The term “awakenings,” chosen by Sacks himself, clearly refers to the restoration of voluntary motor function in patients with postencephalitic parkinsonism who responded to levodopa. However, it also suggests that these patients had an impairment of awareness. Actually, beyond the acute phase, subjects with postencephalitic parkinsonism were not sleeping but severely akinetic and therefore probably aware of the passage of time. Oliver Sacks probably did not entirely recognize the intrinsic contradiction between prolonged sleep (with consequent impairment of awareness and subjective “time gap”) of the acute lethargic phase and the severe akinesia with preserved awareness of the time-passing characteristic of postencephalitic parkinsonism. This confusion was further compounded by Harold Pinter in his play.

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Mangual ◽  
Jose Hernan-Martinez ◽  
Monica Santiago ◽  
Carlos Figueroa ◽  
Rafael Trinidad ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
G.S. Prygin

We study the problems of time consciousness from the standpoint of philosophy, physics and psychology; it is argued that such a sequence in the analysis of the problem allows us to reveal the actual psychological aspect of the problem of the objectivity of the consciousness of time, which is the goal of the study. Both the philosophical concepts of the time consciousness of I. Kant, E. Husserl and F. Brentano, and the physical theories of the study of time (quantum physics, cosmology, the physics of non-equilibrium processes) are analyzed. It has been established that in philosophical theories, the concepts: consciousness, memory, perception, representation, and others do not have clear definitions and can change their meaning depending on the context. It is emphasized that in physical and human sciences time is investigated, as a rule, in connection with the concept of “space”. It is shown that when analyzing the problem of the consciousness of time, one should first decide on the concept of “reality”, which allows us to remove contradictions in the understanding of time in various physical theories. It is concluded that the existence of both objective and subjective time can only be spoken when we operate with concepts; outside of this the concept of “time” has meaning only when a person is considered as part of society. It is shown that in relation to the collective and personal unconscious, the temporal modes of the "past", "present" and "future" do not make sense, since "the whole diversity of everything" is represented in the unconscious field simultaneously and extra-spatially.


Author(s):  
F Chaudhary ◽  
A Hirsch ◽  
W MacPherson ◽  
J Nayati

Background: Lisdexamfetamine has not heretofore been reported to cause pathological gambling. Such a case is presented. Methods: A middle-aged woman, without past interest in gambling, gaming, or risk taking behavior, with childhood history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder presented with difficulty focusing and concentrating. Lisdexamfetamine was started at 20 mg daily and gradually escalated due to lack of efficacy. At 70 mg daily, she began binging on sweets and gambling all day, every day at nearby riverboats, which she had never frequented previously. Upon reduction to 60 mg daily, the gambling resolved. Ritalin 20 mg every morning and 50 mg every afternoon was used without gambling reoccurrence. Results: Mental Status Examination: Alert, cooperative and oriented x 3 with good eye contact. Euthymic, without mania, thoughts logical and goal directed. Conclusions: Enhanced dopamine in the nucleus accumbens may induce hedonic activities including gambling, binging on sweets, or sexual activity (Moore et al. 2014). Lisdexamfetamine has been described to induce mania, and pathological gambling may have been an isolated manifestation of early mania. In those who have recently begun lisdexamfetamine, query should be made regarding change in gambling behavior and in those who are pathologically gambling, investigation should be entertained as to whether they are taking lisdexamfetamine.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 154-162
Author(s):  
Amaresh Vanga ◽  
Sandeep Magoon ◽  
Jolanta Kowalewska ◽  
Saad Mussarat

Fibrillary and immunotactoid glomerulonephritis are infrequent causes of primary nephrotic range proteinuria and are poorly understood. Recent significant developments include the discovery of DNA JB9 antigen in fibrillary glomerulonephritis. Here, we present a case of a middle-aged woman who presented with nephrotic range proteinuria, hematuria, and normal renal function. Renal biopsy revealed fibrils that were randomly arranged on electron microscopy. They were of small size and congo red negative similar to the ones found in fibrillary glomerulonephritis, but were also DNA JB 9 negative, and had a hollow core like in immunotactoid glomerulopathy. Though we try to classify these conditions into either immunotactoid glomerulonephropathy (ITGN) or fibrillary glomerulonephritis (FGN), there are scenarios such as this case where it does not fit into either and is probably an overlap or intermediate variant of these two conditions. Pathological features of these glomerulonephrites are discussed together with their clinical implications, treatment choices, and diagnostic importance.


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