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A Famous Hallucination: Ahab's Phantom Leg The human brain can, indeed, make up things that aren't there — sights, sounds, feelings. Michele Norris has a literary reminder of a famous hallucination: Captain Ahab, from Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. Ahab lost his leg but can feel it still.

Science

A Famous Hallucination: Ahab's Phantom Leg

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A Famous Hallucination: Ahab's Phantom Leg

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The human brain can, indeed, make up things that aren't there — sights, sounds, feelings. Michele Norris has a literary reminder of a famous hallucination: Captain Ahab, from Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. Ahab lost his leg but can feel it still.