What or who is that I? The question permeates this book.

Whoever or whatever the I, it manifests

itself as a subject of experiences (21). Have you ever thought about where in the brain or body the
self actually is? Is it everywhere? Is it nowhere? The Man Who Wasnt There by Anil Ananthaswamy
is about the science of the self; a look into the newest neuroscience of schizophrenia, autism, and
other conditions. This nonfiction reveals the stories of many individuals who lost a part of
themselves; one man cutting off his own leg, another becoming one with the universe, and another
convinced his brain his dead, but his mind is still alive.
Cotard's syndrome is mainly known for its most seen symptom the belief that one is dead.
Graham would say, No, no, my brains dead. My mind is alive but my brain is dead.
Worse yet, Graham was distraught at his unsuccessful attempt at suicide. He
was one of the undead or half-dead, Zemen told me. He in fact went and spent quite a bit of his
time, for a while, in graveyards, because he felt he was with his own when he was there.
This syndrome can also have the symptoms of; believing that body parts or organs are missing,
feeling guilty, being damned, or condemned, and even feeling immortal. But what gets a person to
this point? In one case, such as the one above, Grahams wife passed away, pushing him to the
extreme limits of filling the bath, getting in, and pulling an electric heater in to accompany him
deliberately wanting to electrocute himself. Unfortunately for him, the fuse blew, leaving him with the
belief that his brain had died.
Cotards syndrome is just one of many that Ananthaswamy focused on in his research on the self.
Reading the first half of this book, I have learned so much. This is not a book you can, or want, to
just get through and write a blog response about for a grade. This is a book you want to take notes
over, you want to reread certain parts, and you may even need to take a couple breaks throughout.
He has divided his writing into chapters; each chapter about different forms of the self.
One would have to be admirably interested in this topic to want to learn and research so much about
it. After doing some research about the author I found on Youtube on Book Talk with Doug Miles, he
had just been interested in the nature of the self and questioned who he was since his twenties. It is
a good question to ponder. What does make up the self? With Ananthaswamys research, he
describes numerous syndromes that affect one's self; whether that be due to cotards syndrome,
schizophrenia, alzheimer's, or something else entirely. Throughout the book, Ananthaswamy will go
in depth about one syndrome, then break into another topic throughout one chapter. He does an
excellent job at explaining different topics. I learned about how Alzheimer's was found and became
an actual disorder.

In Psychology earlier this semester, we learned a little bit about the background of Alzheimers
disease (AD), also known as the most common cause of dementia. Having known some background
information, I found this part of the book an easier read. In both Psychology and reading The Man
Who Wasnt There, it states that the early stages of AD, the symptoms are more mild forgetting
names of; familiar people, locations, and daily activities/ tasks. Over time, the symptoms may
include; more and more memory loss and confusion, which results in frustration, depression, and
agitation. Ananthawsamy explains that Alzheimer's is kind of like a complete loss of the self,
Consider the phrases used to describe Alzheimers impact: a steady erosion of
selfhood, unbecoming a self, drifting towards the threshold of unbeing, and even the complete
loss of self.
Still, there are scientists, particularly social scientists, who are challenging such notions. If
Alzheimers erodes the self, does the erosion go all the way until, truly, nothings left? We know that
Alzheimers disease destroys cognitive abilities, to the point where the person is unable to take care
of himself or herself, where putting on ones pants or brushing ones teeth become impossible, to say
nothing of the ability to recall the date and time, or recognize family members. But given that the
persons sensory and motor functions are spared, does anything remain of ones self when cognition
and its attendant abilities are wiped out? (35-36).
Alzheimers is sad. It is sad to watch someone go through this disease, knowing each day they will
only get worse. Knowing there is no cure for such a horrendous disease. But what do the people
think who have such a disease? In one case, a man seems all too much aware of what is
happening. One day, he met with Allan Michaele, a man diagnosed with AD. He asks him,
Is there anything about Alzheimers that worries you going forward?.
No, I think I have given up forward, he said. Im seventy, seventy-one. (He was eighty-one when
we spoke, seventy when he was diagnosed.) Its been a good life. Things could be much worse.
(49).
It amazes me how someone can seem so component about there life and yet, have everything they
know, be completely wrong. It is almost as if they are living a lie, or they are in some kind of fairy
tale of a life. These people literally cant remember their life.
So what is schizophrenia? Is this another form of a disturbance of one self and the outside world?
(104). Ananthaswamy explains what a couple psychiatrists think, Sass and Parnas think that
schizophrenia is the result of an even more basic disturbance of the self. The duos thinking owes
much to a long tradition of mostly European phenomenologists (104). He further explains that the

disorder involves an amount of attention to aspects of the self, which otherwise just happen without
any attention being drawn to it (105).
With schizophrenia, a person feels as though they have no barrier between their external and
internal worlds. Anil Ananthaswamy further tells his readers that schizophrenia is kind of like feeling
that everything you have been through, everything you hold inside and no one else should
necessarily know about you, everyone knows. Walking down the street, you think people are talking
and whispering about you. Everyone around you knows what you have done (even though they
clearly do not).
In some cases, people with schizophrenia hear voices. In one case, a man started hearing negative
voices. They would tell him bad things and sometimes even tell him to do bad things. After getting
medication for this, he began to hear voices again, only this time it was God talking to him. The
voices went from negative to positive. In his book, he talks about what he read in another book while
doing his research, Tell Me Im Here by Anne Deveson. In this, she talks about her son, Jonathan,
who had devastating schizophrenia. He would randomly leave his home for days and then suddenly
show up. He would scream for no reasons, talk to people who werent there, and was very violent at
times, towards himself and others around him.
Jonathan had a probation officer, Brenda, due to his disappearing and violent acts. One day, Brenda
came over to check on him.
When Brenda arrived Jonathan was lying on the big couch that faced the sea. He was nodding to
himself as if he were listening to voices, but he did not speak aloud. We asked if he were hearing
voices. Jonathan looked suspiciously at both of us, then said, no voices. He said something else
but his voice trailed away. Brenda leaned forward and said she could not hear him. I said only
Annes voice, he shouted. Wheres Annes voice? Plotting against me. Inside my head.
Jonathan, Im not plotting against you. And Im not inside your head. Im here. He looked at me, his
eyes darting everywhere, and still that racing energy which seemed to fill the whole room, bouncing
off the ceiling and the walls, jangling my own energy, so that I felt I was receiving an electric shock.
God has said that I should kill you Anne, and Brenda too if she doesnt shut up. He didnt return.
(119).
So how does one get to this point? How does a person legitimately believe God is talking to them?
One man, Ford, did some work with trying to develop why people may feel this way. Ford did work
with EEG signals that showed the efference copy/ corollary discharge mechanism is disrupted in
people with schizophrenia. And in patients who hear voices, the Brocas area and auditory cortex are
not as well connected maybe corroding the pathway for the efference copy to reach the auditory
cortex. So the voices that healthy people deem to be their own, are foreign for those with
schizophrenia.

What makes this read so great to me is that Anil Ananthaswamy relates to his readers. He explains
real people and real situations that have happened and then further explains how and why they were
diagnosed. He could have easily just Googled to find the information he was looking for. Instead, he
went further in depth with it and now explains what he has found (much better than anything you
could just Google).