The Healthy Programmer

Chapter 5Preventing Headaches and Eye Strain

The peculiar imagery in the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is often attributed to drug hallucinations, but it’s more likely that the author, Lewis Carroll, was trying to capture the unusual visual experience associated with severe migraine headaches.^[66] Carroll’s unique depiction, however, may have been driven by more than just a desire to capture these images—the headaches may have been responsible for his creativity.

Many people claim that certain types of headaches can stimulate the imagination and inspire a creative process that leads to unique and revolutionary art. That’s why Dr. Klaus Podoll, a physician at the Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen University in Germany, ...