"The Dog Beneath the Skin" - Oliver Sacks
University Editorial Project
As part of my university projects, I had to illustrate a set of four editorial style images for Oliver Sacks’ book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”. For this brief, I chose to illustrate a story called “The Dog Beneath the Skin”, which is a very peculiar case that Sacks came across, namely that of a medical student who woke up one day to realise that his smell senses were incredibly enhanced, like those of a dog’s.
“Vivid dream one night, dreamt he was a dog, in a world unimaginably rich and significant in smells. Waking, he found himself in just such a world.” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
“Waking, he found himself in just such a world. ‘As if I had been totally color-blind before, and suddenly found myself in a world full of color.’ He did, in fact, have an enhancement of color vision (‘I could distinguish dozens of browns where I’d just seen brown before. My leather bound books, which looked similar before, now all had quite distinct and distinguishable hues’) and a dramatic enhancement of eidetic visual perception and memory (‘I could never draw before, I couldn’t “see” things in my mind, but now it was like having a camera lucida in my mind—I “saw” everything, as if projected on the paper, and just drew the outlines I “saw”. Suddenly I could do the most accurate anatomical drawings.’) But it was the exaltation of smell which really transformed his world: ‘I had dreamt I was a dog—it was an olfactory dream— and now I awoke to an infinitely redolent world—a world in which all other sensations, enhanced as they were, paled before smell.’” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
“He could smell their emotions—
fear, contentment, sexuality—like a dog. He could
recognize every street, every shop, by smell—he could
find his way around New York, infallibly, by smell.” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
fear, contentment, sexuality—like a dog. He could
recognize every street, every shop, by smell—he could
find his way around New York, infallibly, by smell.” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
“"Sixteen years have passed—and student days,
amphetamine days, are long over. There has never been
any recurrence of anything remotely similar. Dr D. is a
highly successful young internist, a friend and colleague
of mine in New York. He has no regrets— but he is
occasionally nostalgic: ‘That smell world, that world of
redolence,’ he exclaims. ‘So vivid, so real! It was like a
visit to another world, a world of pure perception, rich,
alive, self-sufficient, and full. If only I could go back
sometimes and be a dog again!’” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
amphetamine days, are long over. There has never been
any recurrence of anything remotely similar. Dr D. is a
highly successful young internist, a friend and colleague
of mine in New York. He has no regrets— but he is
occasionally nostalgic: ‘That smell world, that world of
redolence,’ he exclaims. ‘So vivid, so real! It was like a
visit to another world, a world of pure perception, rich,
alive, self-sufficient, and full. If only I could go back
sometimes and be a dog again!’” - "The Dog Beneath the Skin" by Oliver Sacks
Magazine Layout Template:
Stephen D. in his student ages character design:
Thank you!
