What instantly struck me about “The Landscape of His Dreams,” is how Sacks calls Franco the “commander (or slave) of a prodigious native power of imagery and power,” (154). I never pictured having an eidetic memory to carry a negative connotation. However, it makes sense since he not only carries images from good, or nostalgic memories, but incredibly damaging memories as well. Although, in Franco’s case, he just simply cannot stop from recalling his memory. I found it incredibly poetic the way Sacks’ describes Franco reminiscing: “As we walked through the house, each painting arrested his attention, aroused a flood of reminiscence,” (154). Describing the reminiscing through the metaphor of a “flood” or “arresting his attention” creates a destructive image of Franco’s eidetic memory, which helped me understand that Franco’s eidetic memory is actually a harmful phenomenon.

Sacks’ attempts to capture Franco’s stream of consciousness (or reminiscence) as “upsurging memories” that “dominate him,” (155). His use of anaphora, “he would gesture – he would mime; he would breathe heavily; he would glare… Then, with a start, he would come back, smile a little embarrassedly, and say, “‘That’s how it was,” (155). This creates a noisy and (at least for me) disturbing image of Franco being completely unavailable at the time of reminiscing. Repeating “he would” makes it feel as though this is something that happens for an extended period of time. His embarrassment makes it even come off as him knowing that he is completely unavailable and has no control over it. Similarly to the passage (I forgot which text it was located in) “he appeared scarcely alive,” Franco needs some kind of external force to push him towards having the “nonstop verbosity,” (155). When Franco is alone, the “clatter of memories would die down,” (155).

As obvious of a statement it may be, but this external stimulation is vital to all brain activity and correlates with almost all of our work/discussion in this class.