Scott Adams Cures Himself With Poetry

Via Travis, here’s a fascinating story by (and about) Dilbert creator Scott Adams. For the last 18 months, he’s had a speech impediment called spasmodic dysphonia. The other day, he cured himself:

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

Spasmodic dysphonia is one peculiar disorder. I’ve just started reading Theatre of the Mind, and so have become fascinated by the weird ways our brains work (or don’t work, as it were).