15/07/2025
Locked-in syndrome (LIS) is a rare neurological condition where a person is conscious and aware but completely paralyzed, except for vertical eye movements and blinking. Essentially, they are "locked-in" their own body, unable to move or speak, but can still see, hear, and think.
The movie "the diving bell and the butterfly" is based on the memoir by a journalist Jean Dominique Bauby who suffered a massive stroke and ended up being in a "locked-in state". How he learnt to communicate through eye-blinking and dictate his own experience of the condition - of his body being trapped as in a diving bell but his spirit was like a butterfly - forms the crux of the story.