up to 100 by and decrease it to a steady 64–66. When asked how he could do this, he replied that he would either "see" himself running after a train that has just begun to pull out or by "seeing" himself lying in bed perfectly still while trying to fall asleep. Shereshevsky was also able to simultaneously raise the temperature of his right hand by 2 degrees while lowering the temperature of his left hand by 1.5 degrees. Once again, he stated that to do this, he simply "saw" a situation in which his right hand was touching a hot stove while his left hand was grasping a cube of ice. Shereshevsky also claimed to have been able to avoid pain by imagining that someone else was experiencing it and watching the other man experience it. As he described, "It doesn't hurt me, you understand, but 'him.' I just don't feel any pain." This, however, was never tested by Luria. Additionally, Shereshevsky claimed to be able to cure himself and others of sickness by imagining that the problem went away. This was dismissed by Luria as "naive magical thinking." Challenges Shereshevsky had an active imagination, which helped him generate useful mnemonics. He stated that his condition often produced unnecessary and distracting images or feelings. He had trouble memorizing information whose intended meaning differed from its literal one, as well as trouble recognizing faces, which he saw as "very changeable". He also occasionally had problems reading, because the written words evoked distracting sensations. Things were far worse when he, for example, ate while reading. An example of the difficulties he faced in daily life: One time I went to buy some ice cream ... I walked over to the vendor and asked her what kind of ice cream she had. 'Fruit ice cream,' she said. But she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to buy any ice cream after she had answered in that way ... Shereshevsky also had problems when the sound of a word didn't match its meaning. For example, he believed the word svinya ("pig") to sound very fine and elegant, which to him, didn't fit the description of a pig, whereas the Yiddish khazzer ("sow") had a much harsher sound to it that made him think of "a