RAPS Group Reports The RAPS Book Club will meet at 1:30pm on Tuesday, April 15, hosted by Eileen Brennan at 945 SW 152nd in Beaverton. Contact her at brennane@pdx.edu or 503-646-6297 to RSVP and for directions. We will discuss Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks which is described on the cover as follows: Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. People with migraines may see shimmering arcs of light or tiny, Lilliputian figures of animals and people. People with failing eyesight, paradoxically, may become immersed in a hallucinatory visual world. Hallucinations can be brought on by a simple fever or even the act of waking or falling asleep, when people have visions ranging from luminous blobs of color to beautifully detailed faces or terrifying ogres. Those who are bereaved may receive comforting "visits" from the departed. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one’s own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. As a young doctor in California in the 1960s, Oliver Sacks had both a personal and a professional interest in psychedelics. These, along with his early migraine experiences, launched a lifelong investigation into the varieties of hallucinatory experience. Here, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition. Looking ahead, we will be discussing The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline in May. --Mary Brannan The RAPS Bridge Group will meet (or has already met, depending on when your RAPS Sheet arrives) on Tuesday April 1 at 1:00pm. We meet regularly on the first Tuesday of each month. Given the timing of the RAPS Sheet mailing let me inform you of a couple of upcoming bridge sessions on May 6, and June 3, 2014. We gather in the conference room of Friendly House’s Anderson Building. (This building is on the north side of NW Savier Street, around the corner from the 26th and Thurman main entrance of Friendly House). Play begins at 1:00pm and continues to about 4:30pm. If you wish to join us, please contact me at 503-646-6297. My e-mail address is the.steve.brennan@gmail.com. --Steve Brennan The RAPS Hiking Group hike on April 11 will be one of the classics which we have done several times. We will be walking upstream on the canyon trail at Silver Falls State Park. We will leave a car at the North Falls lot and drive the other cars to the main parking lot near the beginning of the hike. At this time of the year, there should be lots of water going over the falls. This is a leisurely hike with some elevation gain, but not nearly the 1300 foot gain of the March hike. We will have lunch at the North Falls before heading home. Lunches can be left in the car and a cooler is OK. Since this is a drive south on I-5 we will meet at 9:00am on the top of Parking Structure #1 across Broadway from Neuberger Hall. Extra cars with PSU permits can be parked. Cars without permits will be carpool cars. An Oregon State Park day use permit costs $5 and may be purchased at the park and at the North Falls parking lot. Please confirm your participation by Thursday April 10 by calling Larry Sawyer at 503-771-1616, or e-mail him at larry_sawyer@comcast.net. (There is an underscore between larry and sawyer in that address.) --Larry Sawyer 4
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