Hallucinations that are tied to eye disease

In recent days, both the Daily Mail and Wired.com looked at Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a disease characterized by bizarre and vivid visual hallucinations. Interestingly, people who suffer from CBS aren't mentally ill but have visual impairments such as macular degeneration. Even weirder is that the hallucinations often involve characters or things that are much smaller in size than reality. From the Daily Mail:

Following his wife's death six years ago, David Stannard has become accustomed to spending quiet evenings alone at his home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

So it came as a surprise to the 73-year-old when he looked up from his television one evening to discover he was sharing his living room with two RAF pilots and a schoolboy.

'The pilots were standing next to the TV, watching it as if they were in the wings of a theatre,' he says.

An estimated 100,000 people in Britain have Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS), which leads to hallucinations. These can include visions of miniature people

'The little boy was in a grey, Fifties-style school uniform. He just stood there in the hearth looking puzzled. He was 18 inches high at most.'

"Visions of 'little people'"

Meanwhile, Wired.com interviewed famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose eye disease resulted in his own hallucinations. From Wired.com:

Why do hallucinations occur in people who lose their sight?

Oliver Sacks: When a part of the brain that is used to a sensory input, whether it is visual or auditory, isn't getting it, then it tends to become hyperactive and to generate activity on its own. In the case of musical hallucinations, with [people who go deaf], the brain delves into its memories of music, and so people hallucinate pieces of music, sometimes just a few bars.

The visual ones [in people who go blind] are different. People never recognize the figures or places they see. They're not like bits of memory. They're sort of strange inventions in a way, which the visual brain comes up with.

Q&A: Neurologist Oliver Sacks

• [Mr_Voodoo]

  Ahhhh. Mulholland Drive makes a little more sense now.
  Maybe.
  Okay, not really.

• [guy_jin]

  I think I know where leprechauns come from now.

• [Cupcake Faerie]

  Seems like a harmless enough malady. I wonder if there is any relation to “aura” – which is something that happens occasionally to me, and is, as I understand it, related to migraine headaches. I only see vivid bright flashing and undulating lights/patterns, mostly pleasant unless I am driving…

• [Takuan]

  so if your mind is completely absent you hallucinate an entire world? I see.

• [Takuan]

  cool name though, Cupcake:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma

• [ornith]

  @10 In my experiene, absinthe isn’t really a hallucinogen, so much as an, um, pareidolia-en. Rather than see things that aren’t there, you just see more to the things that are, like a kid looking for pictures in the clouds, plus maybe a bit of extra free association. Enough of it and it will happen on senses other than sight, too, to a lesser extent. It’s not going to make you see little wee men like this disorder, but it’s pretty easy to talk yourself into believing you’re catching a glimpse of faerie hidden below the real world, especially if you’re a romatic-period writer or a half-mad artist.

  Van Gogh probably was having hallucinations straight out of his own brain – someone who can see to paint well is unlikely to have this disorder, he had a lot of problems with mental illness throughout his life, and eventually got paranoid and cut off his own ear. People seem to mostly think he suffered from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, or lead poisoning from eating paints, combined with way too much alcohol and absinthe and malnutrition.

  I agree, Takuan@7, I bet this gets misdiagnosed as schizophrenia all the time.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    In my experience, absinthe isn’t really a hallucinogen, so much as an, um, pareidolia-en.

    Not an endemongen?

• [cjp]

  Wait a minute…the hallucinations appear in Victorian or Edwardian costumes? Please, tell me someone is doing a thesis on this somewhere. Surely this is an important link into our collective psyche. Quick, conjure up a detailed image of someone dressed in Edwardian clothes. Betcha it takes a lot longer to imagine that than say, a hippie.

• [avraamov]

  ‘Seems like a harmless enough malady.’

  depends on your state of mind. a friend’s father has this, and being a staunch catholic, believes he is seeing visions of hell (writhing tortured bodies) – perhaps he even might end up there soon. all attempts to explain the medical reasons behind what he is experiencing are met with incredulity.

  not a happy bunny.

• [mdh]

  leprechauns… and hobbits.

• [Takuan]

  eudemongen?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    eudemongen?

    Endemongen, like entheogen only with horns and priapism.

• [Bobdotcom]

  @14 – thanks for that link, Takuan. That’s exactly what I get.

• [robulus]

  I think it’s rare that any of the recreational drugs classed as hallucinogens actually produce this sort of experience.

  A friend of mine tried Datura, and their story sounds like it could have included little people who weren’t there. (*NB don’t try Datura).

  This sort of thing sounds harmless because you aren’t experiencing it. If you do experience hallucinations, you are forced to question the very nature of reality, something you have probably always taken for granted. Some people can never reconcile the disconnect.

• [Takuan]

  how many misdiagnoses of schizophrenia?

• [edgore]

  @Takuan #3 – Yes, this is frequently seen in Republicans, particularly conservative economic theorists.

  @mdh – This is Boingboing, you should know that hobbits are *REAL*

• [Dalton Montgomery]

  Wow. And I thought I was the only who would hallucinate about animals that aren’t there. I’m 40, and I have two cats and two dogs. Usually, I’ll see my black cat Echo and I’ll look to where I ‘saw’ her and it’s not her. It may be my shoes on the floor, or my backpack that I take to work. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my primary care doctor and they scheduled me for a CT scan. The test came back negative, but it still bothers/fascinates me. I haven’t seen any people in my hallucinations, just animals. And now that I think about it–it’s just the black cat and not my tiger-stripe cat. Interesting.

• [Anonymous]

  This sort of thing sounds harmless because you aren’t experiencing it. If you do experience hallucinations, you are forced to question the very nature of reality, something you have probably always taken for granted. Some people can never reconcile the disconnect.

  I’m going blind and often see things that aren’t there.

  I never see people, certainly not with the level of detail that the people in this post have. I see shapes. Mostly boxes. (Not really cubes, but not too tall and thin, either). It only lasts a few seconds at a time and is usually in my periphery (or where my periphery used to be. I have glaucoma, and the edges are going first.)

  I was discussing this with my wife last night (I was seeing flashing lights on the ceiling that weren’t there) which is why/how I found this article.

  Going blind is scary. I have been putting on a good face for 12 years now. It’s getting more difficult, especially now that I can no longer drive. Hallucinations make keeping a brave face more difficult.

• [slgalt]

  My grandmother had macular degeneration. She often saw hallucinations of little dolls, especially if she looked toward venetian blinds.

• [Anonymous]

  I landed here because my mother is seeing things like bugs and butterflies and birds. I wondered if it was her eyes or neurological in nature.

• [azalea]

  I guess it’s easy to laugh and be silly when it isn’t happening to you. My mother has mild macular degeneration and sees people, animals, all kinds of things. She’s seen them for years, but they are becoming more and more frequent. Her hallucinations are very vivid, and she can describe the people in great detail. Even though she is quite elderly, she shows no signs of dementia of any kind. My mother’s sister told us that her mother-in-law, who suffered from mild glaucoma, would often seen flowers and other similar items. Her doctor told her it was her eyes that was causing the hallucinations. My mother’s condition is quite stressful. She believes that the visions are real, and I have to continually explain to her that they are not. Eventually, she will accept that what she saw wasn’t real, but you can imagine how disconcerting it can be when you think people are driving up in your yard, coming in your house, and tearing up your belongings. I have searched and searched for what might be wrong with her. None of her doctors seem to know anything about it. But now I know what it probably is. Her symptoms are just like all the other reports that I have read about Charles Bonnet syndrome. What little research there is seems to be in Europe, and I am hoping to find someone in the USA who can advise me. I read a study from Germany that said that certain SSRI’s have been know to help the condition. Some reports say that as many as 40 percent of people in the early stages of vision loss have this difficulty and just don’t talk about it. If that’s true, someone needs to find a remedy. Thank you for your site.

• [Cupcake Faerie]

  @Takuan
  I’ve been know to be a scintillatin’ conversationalist ,but I didn’t know I was also a scintillatin’ scotomatist! Now that’s something!

• [Anonymous]

  i see animals just in my outer vision for a split second, but its so vivid it shocks me. tonight i saw a fluffy dark gray cat with a white spot on its paw slowly stepping towards me. i have no cats, and never met one like that.. sometimes i see rabbits, but usually some kind of black cat.. i have a very strong perscription of glasses i wear, i have a stigmatism, and macular degeneration blinded my grandparents. I’m only turning 21 at the end of this month though..

• [Phikus]

  Tell me ’bout the rabbits…

• [Lord Xenu]

  Maybe this explains Van Gogh’s green fairy better than absinthe did. I can’t get any hallucinations from that stuff no matter how much of it I drink.

• [jimkirk]

  Last night I saw upon the stair
  A little man who wasn’t there.
  He wasn’t again today,
  Oh how I wish he’d go away.

• [jimkirk]

  THERE! He wasn’t THERE again today.

  Dang.

• [sylvanfae]

  The absinthe of today is NOT the same as they used to make it back then. It was much more potent back in the day. That’s how it got its dangerous rep.

• [mdh]

  you’re a poet, not a typist, jim.

• [Bobdotcom]

  @Cupcake Faerie #2 – I get those, too, but “mostly pleasant” is definitely not how I’d describe them. Because they almost completely block my field of vision, and because of the flashing/undulating, they cause me some discomfort, even when not driving. I’ve gotten nauseous from the sensation.

  But I have yet to see miniature people or other hallucinations. Which is a good thing, I’m thinking.

• [maijamerchant]

  My mom got early onset Alzheimer’s when she was in her 50s. For years before she died she saw people and things that weren’t there. She saw laughing old men, firemen, little old ladies, kids, snakes and bugs. Most of the time she was comforted or fascinated by these apparitions and I’d like to think that her slowly dying brain enabled her to see things and folks from another dimension.

• [Takuan]

  no cross-links from DMT elf research?

• [Mr_Voodoo]

  @JimKirk
  Perhaps you were seeing a “there” that wasn’t.

• [spazzm]

  I vaguely recall reading somewhere that absinthe got its reputation from the sobriety crusaders of that area – absinthe was the popular drink, so absinthe was demonised.

  Wormwood, in the quantities it was used in absinthe, does not cause hallucinations. Wormwood is not known to cause insanity.

  Absinthe was basically the cannabis of the late 19th century.

  That’s just what I’ve heard, of course. I might be wrong.

• [Cupcake Faerie]

  @BobDotCom
  I know I’m lucky because, so far that’s the only symptom I have. And it never completely obscures my stereoscopic vision – it’s always just one eye or the other. It seems stress related to be sure.