You take in what you read. you also are flooded with details surrounding the writings, such as what the person writing was wearing, the pen they used, there the pen was bought from, the person that sold the pen's name, the cushion the writer was sat on, where that was bought from, and so on and so on.
It is far too much to take on and you need to have a little stress sleep after every sentence.
I wish that I had never heard of Barry McGuigan