The amazing Charles Bonnet syndrome

Charles Bonnet syndrome . If you have heard about it or know someone from your social environment that looks like it, you will know how unique it can be for the people who experience it. Its reality, suddenly, is distorted with the succession of incredible images.

Distorted bodies, strange perspectives, contours where amazing shapes and disproportionate creatures suddenly appear. The reality, suddenly, is appreciated as if we were in a dimension designed in equal parts by Salvador Dalí and Tim Burton. Very complex visual hallucinations where people are very aware that what they see is not normal.

Charles Bonnet syndrome, when reality becomes surreal
They are not people with dementias. They do not present any type of psychiatric alteration, nevertheless the world that they have before their eyes begins to undulate in a merry-go-round of visual hallucinations, where the inanimate objects come alive. So, without more. The colors are more intense and change at every moment , the perspectives acquire impossible patterns where one can not distinguish what is near and what is at an impossible distance.

The Charles Bonet syndrome was coined in 1769 by the physiologist and biologist of the same name. The reason he did it was simple: nine years earlier, his grandfather, Charles Lullin, began to experience disconcerting phenomena.

The old man was 89 years old. His only ailment was annoying cataracts that made it very difficult for him to orient himself and see normally. For the rest, it was pretty good. No dementia, good faculties and a lot of desire to continue living. However, one day, he commented scared that something was happening to him. Suddenly his tranquility was assaulted by the presence of strange forms, disproportionate animals , silhouettes of colors that were pouncing on him.

Nobody else saw it. What was happening? Charles Bonnet thought that his grandfather was already losing his mind. He was very old and, without a doubt, something like that was expected. But there was something that did not fit. The old man Lullin continued to reason very well and understood that what he was seeing was not normal. He had logic and was as upset by his visions as any other person afraid of something he does not understand.

His grandson, as a good researcher, found similar cases, noting that there was a clear pattern: they were always elderly people with vision problems, such as cataracts. And, curiously, those visual hallucinations were almost always the same: disproportionate animals, big heads, hats and bottles that emerged from nothing, intense colors, flowers and giant trees ... forms that lasted a few seconds or at most an hour, after disappear abruptly.

Charles Bonnet coined this syndrome with his own name, describing it in 1769 as a series of visual hallucinations that appear basically in people who are losing their vision . Its origin will be in macular degeneration, where our light-sensitive cells begin to fail. Little by little they leave a blind spot where vision distorts and fails.

Also known glaucoma or cataracts can cause the Charles Bonnet syndrome and is almost always associated with older people who are limiting their social interaction. Loneliness, and the gradual loss of vision can cause these visual alterations that, as we say, are not accompanied by any kind of dementia. Some studies suggest that the reason why these hallucinations occur is due to a reaction of the brain itself to compensate for the lack of visual stimuli it receives, using the same routes as we did when dreaming or having nightmares, although it is not yet clear.

What we do know is that the person who suffers it knows at all times what is happening to him. Which can be very traumatic and shocking. Why. Suddenly, our reality acquires truly amazing nuances: floating faces, trains that suddenly appear on the lintel of the window, animals peeping through the fireplace ...

Another fact to keep in mind is that since most people know that what is happening to them is not normal, they decide precisely not to say it. Conceal what happens to them. Do not talk to your doctor because they simply believe that they will be labeled as psychotic or demented . And something like we can understand, can become very complex in the case of the elderly, unable to dare to ask for help or support.

If you ask about the treatment given to these people, it is usually enough to inform them that what they see is a simple hallucination due to a visual problem. Also indicate that these visions are not very recurrent, we can have them for a few months, but then, they can disappear forever.
Something really curious, a challenge to understand the wonders and strangeness of our brain.