One morning, mystery writer Howard Engel woke up, got out of bed, and sat down to read the paper when he discovered that he could no longer read. Weirdly, he could read the night before. Also, in spite of his inability to read, he could also write and think as normal. Words weren’t the problem, but the reading and processing of them visually was. So Howard learned how to read with his tongue. His story was put into images by San Francisco-based artist Lev Vilmaz.
The process of tongue-reading, as Howard calls it, is basically that he traces the letters on the back of his teeth with his tongue (rather than writing them down like he had before learning how to tongue read). This Sam Kinison method of reading seems to work because the motor functions of his brain are intact. He can write the letters and understand them; however, it is believed that he had a stroke in the visual cortex of his brain, which would be why he can’t just eyeball the words and make sense of them.
The brain is the most amazing piece of equipment in the human body, isn’t it? There’s always a way to recover, if the brain isn’t too damaged. If a woman can survive and even thrive with half a brain, anything is possible.
Tags: unusual medical news, weird science, stroke victim reads with tongue, Howard Engel, neuroscience, strokes, visual cortex, the human brain, Lev Yilmaz
