Impression: Essentially Normal Summary and Analysis

A professional female New Yorker, in her mid-fifties, began to experience short sensations of the floor beneath her dropping. A side symptom appeared to be greater sensitivity of touch, particularly in her feet. Soon, an entire room would shift. Her family doctor sent her to specialists, each of whom concluded that she was "essentially normal." The episodes, however, became more frequent, more terrifying, and more severe. Focusing difficulties emerged as well, and spatial relationships among objects were almost impossible to judge correctly. At its height, the condition involved stairs dropping out from beneath her feet, entire buildings and sidewalks swaying and moving around her, and, eventually, the feeling of actually being thrown off the earth itself. Somehow, the woman managed to continue to work, to involve herself in as many outside activities as possible, and to generally...