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We're back from our holiday, and putting the final touches on some new articles. In the meantime, please enjoy this reconstituted brain chow. This article originally appeared on 06 March 2007.
In the year 1760, a Swiss naturalist named Charles Bonnet became concerned when his grandfather Charles Lullin began to experience a parade of "amusing and magical visions." The eighty-nine-year-old Lullin was being visited by visions of people, birds, carriages, and buildings, all of which were invisible to everyone but him. Apparently these mysterious objects materialized spontaneously among the few bits of the world he was still able to perceive through his cataracts.
Bonnet's grandfather did not demonstrate any other signs of marble loss, in fact he seemed quite sane aside from the vivid hallucinations. Moreover, the elderly man was keenly aware that the strange sights were all in his mind. Bonnet cataloged his grandfather's curious circumstances, and over time the condition he described came to be known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome, or CBS. Numerous similar cases have been recorded in the decades since, and though it has long been regarded as a rare disease, recent evidence suggests that it is much more widespread than previously believed.
For those stricken with Charles Bonnet Syndrome, the world is occasionally adorned with vivid yet unreal images. Some see surfaces covered in non-existent patterns such as brickwork or tiles, while others see phantom objects in astonishing detail, including people, animals, buildings, or whatever else their minds may conjure. These images linger for as little as several seconds or for as much as several hours, appearing and vanishing abruptly. They may consist of commonplace items such as bottles or hats, or brain-bending nonsense such as dancing children with giant flowers for heads.
Most of those afflicted with Charles Bonnet Syndrome are people in the early stages of sight loss, and the hallucinations usually begin while their vision is still present but slowly diminishing. The most common culprit is macular degeneration, a disease where certain light-sensing cells in the retina malfunction and cause a slowly worsening blind spot in the center of one's vision. Other eye diseases such as glaucoma and cataracts can cause the symptoms as well, and in a few rare cases it has been diagnosed in people without any detectable vision problems whatsoever. The likelihood of Bonnet visions also seems to increase in people who have limited social interaction, such as people who live alone.
Even people with damaged sight are often startled by the clarity of these hallucinations. The condition does not cause a series of vague, floating images; the visions are highly detailed, and quite often they will conform to their surroundings. A nonexistent man might sit down and relax in a real-life recliner, or a convoy of poached eggs may drape themselves on a legitimate mantelpiece. Sometimes a significant segment of reality is altered– such as staircase which becomes a steep mountain slope or a room which morphs in size and shape– making the world difficult to navigate. Real objects can even vanish for periods of time, leaving little or no evidence of their prior presence.
How a Bonnet vision might appear to someone with glaucomaA significant percentage of patients also describe floating, disembodied faces that squirm into their field of vision at random times. These often have wide, unblinking eyes; prominent teeth; and features reminiscent of a stone gargoyle.
Images of people are a common occurrence, though familiar faces are seldom seen. Most of the apparitions are strangers, although there are many reports of grieving people seeing their deceased loved ones during such hallucination episodes. These phantom people normally wear pleasant expressions on their faces as they loiter in eerie silence, and they make frequent eye contact with the viewer. Curiously, a great number of these imaginary characters are described as wearing hats, sometimes along with elaborate costumes.
Although these strikingly realistic images are usually non-threatening, they cannot be easily banished. Often variations of the same images appear repeatedly, but the items are seldom anything with any particular emotional meaning. In fact, they are frequently mundane items such as trucks or trees, though there are reports of dramatic scenes involving such things as funeral processions and dragons. The subjects of these visions are sometimes life-sized, but it is not uncommon for the hallucinations to appear in miniature, an effect called "lilliput hallucinations," named after the small Lilliputian people from Gulliver's Travels. Less frequently, visions will appear larger-than-life.
Although a Charles-Bonneter realizes at a rational level that the hallucinations are manufactured by the mind, it is nonetheless troubling to wake up to a room full of strangers, or to see vivid faces staring out of the shrubbery. It can also be disconcerting when visions of ordinary objects appear in ordinary places– such as a bottle on a table or a truck on the street– making fiction more difficult to separate from reality. In one case, a woman pointed out to her maid how cruel it was for her neighbor to leave the cows at pasture in the bitter winter cold, and she was embarrassed to learn that her maid could see no cows.
Some CBS visions are so outlandish that the viewers describe a moment of astonishment as they bid a premature farewell to their sanity. One woman was visited by several tiny chimney sweeps in stovepipe hats that paraded around her home, and another man spoke of a gaggle of monkeys in blue coats and red hats frolicking in his front yard day after day. Given the basic human tendency to trust one's senses, these hallucinations can stir up lively struggles between emotion and reason. In an ironic demonstration of their intact rationality, many people afflicted with CBS choose not to report these strange visions for fear of having their sanity cast in doubt. In contrast, people with psychosis tend to immerse themselves in elaborate fictions to explain their hallucinations, and seldom question their own mental health.
The construction of the human eyeThe exact cause of Charles Bonnet Syndrome is not presently known, but the popular theory suggests that the brain is merely attempting to compensate for a shortage of visual stimuli. Consider that each human eye normally receives data at a rate of about 8.75 megabits per second, a bandwidth which is significantly greater than most high-speed Internet connections. The visual cortex is the most massive system in the human brain, and it is packed with pathways which manipulate the rush of visual data before handing it over to the conscious mind. When disease begins to kink this firehose of information, a legion of neurons are left standing idle.
It is worth noting that the human brain already has significant talent in dealing with partial blindness. Every human eye has a blind spot where the optic nerve passes through the retina, and the visual cortex automatically fills in these blind spots by extrapolating what should be there based on the surrounding detail. Since a person's two blind spots do not overlap, the brain can also cross-reference the eye data when both eyes are active. In gradual-onset blindness, it is possible that these brain pathways attempt to fill in the new obscured areas. Since the eyes are sending reduced amounts of data with a greater frequency of errors, the visual cortex may produce more and more outlandish guesses.
You can indirectly perceive your own blind spot by using the image below. Simply sit close to your screen with your right eye covered, and focus on the word "Interesting." Maintain that focus while slowly moving away from the screen, and at a particular distance the logo will disappear although the blue lines and the word "Damn" will still be visible. If you change your gaze, the logo will no longer be in the blind spot, and it will reappear.
Some have suggested that Bonnet visions are the product of the same mechanisms that generate dreams. Clearly the mind is starved of visual input during sleeping periods, so it stands to reason that both dreams and CBS hallucinations may be the result of the same thing: the visual cortex becomes bored due to lack of stimulation, and gratifies itself using stored imagery. This notion is further supported by sensory deprivation experiments, where subjects experience hallucinations when placed in complete darkness for long periods of time. But the explanation fits the problem imperfectly, because dreams include sound and sensations, whereas Bonnet-visions are confined to sight.
In cases where patients see gargoyle-like floating faces, it is likely that the lateral occipital region of the brain is contributing. That chunk of the visual cortex participates in plucking human faces out the river of incoming visual data, and it is the same wad of neurons that is tickled by any pattern that vaguely resembles a face, such as the front of a car. When this region becomes starved for input, it is quite possible that its lowers its standards considerably, and reveals faces that do not exist.
Formal studies have found that Charles Bonnet Syndrome has a higher rate of occurrence in those with higher education and those with creative leanings, a finding which suggests that the concept-association skills inherent in creativity and intelligence may be playing a role. The whole condition is also reminiscent of phantom limb syndrome, where people with missing limbs experience sensations as though the body parts are still present.
Of course there are some who believe that these bizarre Charles Bonnet visions have nothing to do with attention-starved brain cells, but rather they are real images from some alternate reality that is parallel to our own. The theory suggests that people cannot normally perceive these parallel realities because they are drowning in a flood of visual data from our own world. It is implied– though not stated outright– that these parallel realities must be strange places where people sometimes have flowers instead of heads, and preposterous guesses instead of evidence.
Visualizing the visual cortexOne of the most thorough studies of the phenomenon was undertaken at the University Hospital in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where 505 visually handicapped patients were involved. Of those, it was found that sixty-three had experienced complex visual hallucinations in the four-week period before screening. Psychiatric examination of the patients revealed no other disorders which might cause such side effects. This and other studies suggest that as many as 15% of people with vision loss experience Charles Bonnet Syndrome hallucinations to some degree. It is even rumored that Charles Bonnet himself followed in his grandfather's footsteps, witnessing his own set of inexplicable visions when his eyes began to fail him later in life.
Given the high rate of Bonnet-visions among patients in these studies, it seems that it is not so rare as it was once thought. The small number of reported cases is probably due to the sufferers' universal reluctance to describe their experiences; most of those afflicted with CBS will not speak of the hallucinations at all unless they are asked directly. One of the most effective treatments is to simply inform the patient that these visions are not a reflection on their mental well-being. This may not prevent future hallucinations, but in many cases it will greatly reduce the related anxiety.
Some Charles-Bonneters are able to banish their phantoms by changing the environment in some way– such as turning the lights on or off– though most of the time a patient is subject to their visions' whims. Others have resorted to befriending the apparitions, making idle one-sided conversation as the imaginary guests stare quietly. Fortunately the condition is almost always temporary, and in most cases the visiting visions fade away forever after twelve to eighteen months.
Human perception is patently imperfect, so even a normal brain must fabricate a fair amount of data to provide a complete sense of our surroundings. We humans are lucky that we have these fancy brains to chew up the fibrous chunks of reality and regurgitate it into a nice, mushy paste which our conscious minds can digest. But whenever one of us notices something that doesn't exist, or fails to notice something that does exist, our personal version of the world is nudged a little bit further from reality. It makes one wonder how much of reality we all have in common, and how much is all in our minds
Suggested by Kristen H.
Further reading:
Details on Charles Bonnet Syndrome and related studies
CBS FAQ at the RNIB
Macular Degeneration
Information on the human blind spot
This is one of the most interesting DIs I've seen. I guess it has even more interest because some, maybe many, of us readers may experience this later in our life. Thanks for another very interesing article!
The workings of the mind are always fascinating to read about.
Now, talking about the visual cortex getting bored and seeing faces… I've actually noticed this kind of behavior when I look at something with seemingly random shapes for a while, say a carpet or something, and my eyes often start picking up faces from the shapes.
Very nice article. This sentence (5th paragraph) needs a little work in two places though:
Sometimes a significant segment of reality is altered– such as staircase which becomes a steep mountain slope or a room which morphs in size and shape– making the the world difficult to navigate.
If looking at a wall, particularly a roughly plastered wall in dim light, I tend to see large "curlicue" designs appear on the wall, usually in a lavender hue. That bored visual cortex at work?
My great grandmother's sister had macular degeneration, and she would tell my mother and I how she would see water in random places. For example she would see waterfalls coming off of buildings, or a stream instead of a street. She knew that it was just her mind trying to fill in the blanks, although we had not heard of CBS before. Good article!
" … the popular theory suggests that the brain is merely attempting to compensate for a shortage of visual stimuli. "
I was already thinking this might be the case before I got to this line in the article. I know that people experiencing total darkness will often "see" what they know to be there. People exploring caves can experience true total darkness (when you turn off your light). There are zero photons available to stimulate the retina. Yet, if you wave your hand around in front of your face, you think you can see it. The brain knows it must be there and resolves the paradox of not seeing it by interpolating the expected image.
The perception of alternate realitys may be a bit far fetched, but it isn't impossible. Besides, which is cooler, hallucinating, or seeing a parallel dimension?
"…a convoy of poached eggs may drape themselves on a legitimate mantelpiece."
Big Ben this here's Rubber Duck. Looks like we got us a convoy…of poached eggs!
Well done and once again, damn interesting!
I once thought I saw pink elephants on the ER wall, but chalked that up to the shot of morphine I got to calm me down from my kidney stone experience. NOT fun!
And now that we know where CBS comes from, anyone want to tackle ABC and NBC ?
Fascinating! Absolutly fascinating, Alan! This is so much more DI! than bombs and war killing machines. Thank you,thank you!
DI article! I wonder, does this all take place in the same part of the brain that causes some skitzophrenics to see people that aren't there?
Also, that picture with the face floating in th flowers gave me the heeby-jeebys.
"that these parallel realities must be strange places where people sometimes have flowers instead of heads, and preposterous guesses instead of evidence."
lol
very, very interesting! Now I have yet another reason to want to live to be old!
This article almost scared me… reality has to be one of the most interesting places I've ever been.
Especially with Pink Floyd (Welcome to the Machine) playing in the background…
That was good. Longer than usual. Lol. Anyway. Didn't you say that Bonneters don't hear sound? Because when you were speaking of dreams, you said that in dreams we had sound and feel too, implying that there was no such sound in hallucinations. If that is true, then how do people befriend their hallucinations and have conversations with them? I'm sure it's not sign language. lol
Ive just spent half an hour on that blind spot test. That has got to be the most entertaining pair of words and triangle ever.
The blind-spot test is really cool! The whole article is very (make that damm) interesting.
For almost 2 years I kept seeing what looked like a very tiny spider descending from the ceiling in midair. When I started to see it while I was driving , I had my vision checked and found out what I was experiencing was called a "floater". That was 20 years ago. I now have several and can control them. Hopefully they will never get big enough to impair my vision. They are caused by the changing in the shape of the gel of the eye due to age. They are usually only visible in very bright light. Oh the joys of getting older!
Wow, it's amazing that our brains are capable of fabricating a clear image. I know someone who had Macular Degeneration. She once mentioned seeing weird things like sudden flashes of light.
Perhaps, this has something to do with the times when you look for something that's sitting right in front of you and can't find it. That's truly Damn Interesting. Double scoop the whip cream for this slice of pie.
Bonnet's grandfather did not demonstrate any other signs of marble loss, in fact he seemed quite sane aside from the vivid hallucinations.
hahaha marble loss!!! Great turn of phrase! I also loved the blind spot test. DI Article
This is definitely one of my top ten DI articles on this site. I was a bit distracted in the second part of the article, though. After doing that experiment with the DI logo, I kept muttering to myself, "My eyes have blinds spots! My eyes have blind spots! My eyes have blind spots!" I hadn't the vaguest idea that I had a blind spots!
What a creepy idea, seeing things that aren't really there. It's no wonder people keep mum about it. Why would want to admit to seeing hallucinations?
OK so the eggs on the mantle are not real. could someone tell me about the group of tiny craftmatic adjustable beds that keep showing up eating fast food?
A few months back I read (broken leg=plenty of time) pretty much every article on this site.
This one is one of the best… That picture of a face staring from out of a bed of red flowers is D spooky though.
Also (sorry, guys), just above the pic there's a tiny little mistake: "making the the world difficult to navigate"
I had a Baader-Meinhof moment when I read this article just after pollinating my girlfriend's head, but the leprechaun in the La-Z-Boy told me it was just a coincidence.
Wow very interesting. Just a minor mistake i noticed: "In an ironic demonstration of their intact rationality, many people afflicted with with CBS choose not to report these strange visions for fear of having their sanity cast in doubt." Double "with" :)
Ever since those magic eye posters came out I try to see things in everyday patterns(i.e. piles of leaves, wallpaper, etc.). Our brains are damn interesting for sure, this made me think of an email i received awhile ago, so i looked it up, here it is:
Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch
at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid de os not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt!
Nice post, Madjack!
I contend that the difference between the human brain and our most advanced computers is our ability to perform pattern recognition, regardless of the context.
Okay, first post for me after lurking for a while now, and I just want to say - 'AUGH!!! Appearing and disappearing period at the end of the article! I must be losing my mind!' - or something along those lines.
Another DI article, Alan!
I wouldn't categorize dreams as the product of a bored cortex. I'm pretty sure that dreams are part of a neurological refreshment process by which some sort of beneficial effect is achieved for the brain. They have an evolutionary or neuromechanical purpose, for sure, we just don't know what it is yet.
Also my first post after lurking for a long time. Damn Interesting, but I was most taken aback by that first picture. In all the times I visited the House of Prayer, I never saw a guy in a sombrero hanging around the meeting room!
(See http://www.ehouseofprayer.org for a picture of the room without the macular degeneration or the guy in a sombrero.)
davidw987 said: "Nice post, Madjack!
I contend that the difference between the human brain and our most advanced computers is our ability to perform pattern recognition, regardless of the context."
Fuzzy Logic?
scrambled letter meme
This is cute but untrue. For anyone more interested about the concept behind why this particular letter jumble works:
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/
As for seeing crazy ass things when your eyes go bad, I can only hope that I am so lucky in my old age. DI for sure!
My grandmother suffered from this before she lost her vision due to macular degeneration. At first she would see a little girl, then, as time went on, she would see more and more people. It usually happened in the evening, when the light started to get low. She knew that they weren't real - when she first started seeing them, she would ask if we could see them. After we talked to her doctor, we came up with the same conclusion that the article suggests - that, as her vision declined, her brain was doing its best to interpret what little she could see. I even gave her doctor a few pages on Bonnet Syndrome, something that he'd not heard of before. He never diagnosed the problem, probably because it wasn't distressing her at all. Eventually, as the macular degeneration progressed, she stopped seeing her people.
Sometimes it was a little funny - she'd mention that she saw one of her people and my wife would say something like, "Do you think that they're real?" My grandmother would look at her like she thought that my wife had a screw loose. Still, I think that, deep down, they were actually kind of comforting to her.
I saw Chuck Bonnet And The Hallucinations open for Big Brother And The Holding Company at Winterland Gardens in San Francisco in 1967. I think…….
great Techno-kid
I never researched the email
Im hapy to know the truth behind it
vespurrs said: "Appearing and disappearing period at the end of the article!
What are you talking about? The period isn't flashing! Must be in your head.
"Some CBS visions are so outlandish that the viewers describe a moment of astonishment as they bid a premature farewell to their sanity."
Doesn't this happen with every television network? …
DI! (Long time listener, first time caller!)
Darn good article. Thanks for posting it.
It makes one wonder how much of our mythology is based on people having hallucinations like these before we had scientific explanations for them. For example, the comment that some of the faces look like the faces of gargoyles make me wonder if that is part of the origin of the mythology of gargoyles. People in earlier times might interpret these hallucinations as visions or attacks by the devil or other such things. Even today, people are willing to make bizarre and improbable leaps of logic, such as "visions from other dimensions," so I can only wonder about all of the other naïve explanations people in the past would have invented to explain these things to themselves.
When I first took LSD, popular culture led me to expect these type of hallucinations. I definitely experienced some interesting visual effects over the years, but never armies of gnomes or disembodied faces. Although, I did have a friend who took a combination of mescaline, psilocybin and THC who reported similar effects (seeing the city below engulfed by lava, having a conversation with his reflection in the mirror, etc.) If you wanted to experience this sensation, peyote might do the trick. But you might not be so convinced that your visions weren't real. Anyways, best article for a long time, Alan. You're really stepping up your game.
Incredible! My father in law suffered from this. Even tho he was sharp as a tack, we wondered if he was losing it. He was going blind from macular degeneration. and he often spoke of 'the visitors', a tall man w/ a kid. They sometimes interupted his sleep by sitting on his feet while he was in bed. He also reported watching old westerns in a picture frame in his living room. I wish I would have found this info before he died. Thank you Alan, this article was danged intriguing.
sh0cktopus said: "When I first took LSD, popular culture led me to expect these type of hallucinations. I definitely experienced some interesting visual effects over the years, but never armies of gnomes or disembodied faces. Although, I did have a friend who took a combination of mescaline, psilocybin and THC who reported similar effects (seeing the city below engulfed by lava, having a conversation with his reflection in the mirror, etc.) If you wanted to experience this sensation, peyote might do the trick. But you might not be so convinced that your visions weren't real. Anyways, best article for a long time, Alan. You're really stepping up your game."
Acid plus about four hundred mils of DXM will also produce very realistic waking dreams. Zicam is DXM over the counter.
I did this once, and it ceased being recreational when I began feeling threatened by some of the things I saw. Definitely only for psychonauts.
I am of the opinion that things seen exist, if not in the "real" world. I believe that the things you see whilst using powerful psychoactive drugs, whilst dreaming, and whilst "insane" exist, but most people can not perceive them. However, I also read too much Lovecraft.
Damned interesting.
Intrestingly enough if you read Heinlen as well as Lovecraft you would come across the opinion that if you believe in something enough, such as an author's fictional world, it becomes it's own dimension. If you're wondering that bit of philosophy comes from "The Cat who Walked Through Walls" by Robet Heinlen, A DI book! :-).
How easy is it to read Madjack's post for native english speakers? I'm French, and although I managed to read it, it was more like a word by word decyphering thant actual reading - I had to look at each word, and its correct spelling somehow appeared to me without consciously trying to reorder the letters, but I wouldn't call this "reading".
PhilD said: "How easy is it to read Madjack's post for native english speakers? I'm French, and although I managed to read it, it was more like a word by word decyphering thant actual reading - I had to look at each word, and its correct spelling somehow appeared to me without consciously trying to reorder the letters, but I wouldn't call this "reading"."
It seems to vary from person to person - a couple of my friends struggled with it, but most had no problems at all once they got going. The ones who did struggle aren't any worse at reading than the others. I think it also has to do with how you read it too. If I skim read it, it barely registers that it's different at all but if I try to read it at a slower pace, it starts to get difficult - I'd guess that having less time to think about each word when skim reading forces you to just go with your first instinct, which would normally be right because of the help you get from context.
If I could change the subject for just a minute. Does everyone remember the Grand Canyon Skyway article?
http://www.damninteresting.com/index.php?s=grand+canyon
MSNBC just did an article on it.
Canyon skywalk may bring riches, widen divide
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17514523/
Sorry for the post on here, but there are no forums and I thought some people might find it Di as a follow up.
PhilD said: "How easy is it to read Madjack's post for native english speakers? I'm French, and although I managed to read it, it was more like a word by word decyphering thant actual reading - I had to look at each word, and its correct spelling somehow appeared to me without consciously trying to reorder the letters, but I wouldn't call this "reading"."
Try this:
Sleon une édtue de l'Uvinertisé de Cmabrigde, l'odrre des ltteers dnas un mtos n'a pas d'ipmrotncae, la suele coshe ipmrotnate est que la pmeirère et la drenèire soit à la bnnoe pclae. Le rsete peut êrte dnas un dsérorde ttoal et vuos puoevz tujoruos lrie snas porlblème. C'est prace que le creaveu hmauin ne lit pas chuaqe ltetre elle-mmêe, mias le mot cmome un tuot.
I have no idea what this says since I don't speak French and obviously cannot babelfish it. I got it from the link I posted above.
Cheers all,
i've experienced CBS, my self diagnosis, and the several times these hallucinations overcame me…
i had intuited the stress of dehydration …in concert with one's active imagination & creative mind,
allow this "FREE Association" to run its course.
I have ingested a liter of water in an attempt to stop the visuals…and once found it desirable to take half a 'meclizine HCL 25mg' tab to quell that unwanted hallucinary onslaught…
i have mecilizine available for severe bouts of Vertigo,
but, it seems the modest ammount of H2O seems the Key antidote.
take it for what its worth,
perhaps a med student might grab this bataon and prove/improve the information
I will be totally honest, as I usually am… but the last few articles have been lacking somewhat in "interestingness."
This article totally changed all that. Great work Alan, as always. Very intersting and very well written. I can not imagine the fear/feeling of helplessness with such a syndrom. It is very much like our society to instantly label a person as having mental health issues and casting them aside out of the publics eye. If more people were made aware then maybe there would be a little more understanding for things like this. Thanks for the post!
I was curious about this:
"Consider that each human eye normally receives data at a rate of about 8.75 megabits per second, a bandwidth which is significantly greater than most high-speed Internet connections."
Do you have a source for this? I didn't see anything about it in the Further Reading links and I'm wondering how they measure that sort of thing.
Techno-Kid said: "Try this:
Sleon une édtue de l'Uvinertisé de Cmabrigde, l'odrre des ltteers dnas un mtos n'a pas d'ipmrotncae, la suele coshe ipmrotnate est que la pmeirère et la drenèire soit à la bnnoe pclae. Le rsete peut êrte dnas un dsérorde ttoal et vuos puoevz tujoruos lrie snas porlblème. C'est prace que le creaveu hmauin ne lit pas chuaqe ltetre elle-mmêe, mias le mot cmome un tuot.
I have no idea what this says since I don't speak French and obviously cannot babelfish it. I got it from the link I posted above."
Here it is, untangled (and corrected; three words had extra letters):
Selon une étude de l'Université de Cambridge, l'ordre des lettres dans un mot n'a pas d'importance, la seule chose importante est que la première et la dernière soit à la bonne place. Le reste peut être dans un désordre total et vous pouvez toujours lire sans problème. C'est parce que le cerveau humain ne lit pas chaque lettre elle-même, mais le mot comme un tout.
Rendered more or less literally into English, it's:
According to a study from the University of Cambridge, the order of the letters in a word has no importance; the only important thing is that the first and the last be at the proper place. The rest can be in a total disorder and you can always read without problem. This is because the human brain does not read each letter by itself, but the word as a whole.
dramafreak006 said: "Intrestingly enough if you read Heinlen as well as Lovecraft you would come across the opinion that if you believe in something enough, such as an author's fictional world, it becomes it's own dimension. If you're wondering that bit of philosophy comes from "The Cat who Walked Through Walls" by Robet Heinlen, A DI book! :-)."
For the sake of accuracy, Heinlein covered this in The Number Of The Beast in 1980. He used the premise again in The Cat (1985).
(from another big Heinlein fan)
Sir Osis Of Liver said: "For the sake of accuracy, Heinlein covered this in The Number Of The Beast in 1980. He used the premise again in The Cat (1985).
(from another big Heinlein fan)"
He might have hinted at it even earlier in the old sci-fi mag stories. And I think there was a cat in one of the earlier teens-in-space books, wasn't there? Can't quite recall. I guess if you asked any of the WOW gamers, they'd agree you can seriously get into an alternate dimension and hang out.
I could not get the visual illusion to work for me. I do remember being given prozac years ago. I would be off at work minding my business, only to stop suddenly to look at the visual hallucination that was suddenly unfolding in front of me - very like this article's description, in that it always seemed to be in my lower right field of vision. But the scene would always be complete within itself and very highly detailed - nothing incongrous, I mean, short of seeing stuff that wasn't there. It FELT more like looking at something real that was very far away, than looking at some unreal that was generated between my ears, anyway. I abandoned that little experiment very, very quickly! Fascinating, but scary.
Even though this was obviously drug-induced, I think that the issue might be less connected with macular degeneration itself that with what actually CAUSES the macular degeneration in the first place. There is some cutting-edge work being done this now associated with a certain hormone I've been studying for some time now. It's only an idea, but this would explain a lot, as the hormone is produced (or not) in the hypothalamus and can have quite a lot of impact on brain function and visual perception. DI stuff - expect to hear much more about it over the next few years. Looks like everybody and their brother is filing patents on designer versions.
My mum had this problem. At first I recorded her observations as I thought no one would believe me (or her). Eventually I found a similar article on this subject and her eye surgeon confirmed the disease. She often saw people in her bedroom. One in particular was an African warrior in a sort of loin cloth. He was squatting in the corner of her bedroom, about 3' above the floor, and holding a spear. Non talked, and some opened their mouths to display a cut tongue. Rarely, she saw angels, and clouds which seemed to move about the room. She didn't ever express fear of the people, just a humor over their presence. Brian
>> Some CBS visions are so outlandish that the viewers describe a moment of astonishment as they bid a premature farewell to their sanity.
"I recognize that those who didn't want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that." ~ D.Rather 15 Sep 2004
This is your brain…..this is your brain on CBS……any questions???
If this was first recorded in the 18th century, do you think that Lullen saw a guy in a sombraro?
Congratulations, guys! The Coast-to-Coast AM website just linked to this article.
Silverhill said: "Here it is, untangled (and corrected; three words had extra letters):
Thanks for the translation!
As a possibly on-topic update, yesterday I sneezed so hard I saw stars flying around my vision.
Phalanx said: "I was curious about this:
"Consider that each human eye normally receives data at a rate of about 8.75 megabits per second, a bandwidth which is significantly greater than most high-speed Internet connections."
Do you have a source for this? I didn't see anything about it in the Further Reading links and I'm wondering how they measure that sort of thing."
The information was deduced when researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine experimented with the retina of guinea pig. Placing the tissue into a solution to keep it viable (living), they measured the electrical impulses it produced when exposed to various types of movies.
The retina is a complex mixture of various ganglion cells. There are around 15 different types of these cells. Each type is stimulated by a certain frequency of light (or speed of motion). These cells working in harmony create the motion we perceive as vision. When stimulated they produce an electrical current. This current is received and interpreted by the brain to produce our visual world.
You need to understand that the retina and optic nerve are actually outgrowths of the brain, and not independent structures. If you understand computerese, the retina is the receptor (input device), transmitting its data along the optic nerve (organic T-1 line) to be processed by our biological CPU (Central Processing Unit or computer).
During the research, they only measured the response of 7 types of ganglion. By measuring the “spikes” of electrical activity of each of the ganglion, (a spike is equal to a bit in a data stream) they estimated due to the average human eye containing about 1,000,000 ganglion cells, the human retina could transmit data at around 10 million bits per second.
As a side note: The USAF performed a series of tests on pilots to measure visual response time. In one experiment, various pictures of aircraft were flashed on a screen in a dark room at 1/220th of a second. The pilots were not only able to consistently see the afterimage but could identify the plane. This shows the eye’s ability to perceive enough data information at 1/220th in a single frame to correctly identify the picture. Some could even tell what markings (numbers or nationality) where on the aircraft. Now that’s a lot of information.
As anyone who has decrease a picture for viewing or sending on the Internet, the smaller you make the picture, the harder it is to discern detail in the photo.
Next the eye is one of the fastest healing parts of the body. Years ago I had a splinter of wood pierce my eye next to the retina. The doctor removed the offending wood, put some “salve” on, and wrapped my eyes with cotton and gauze. Sent me home and told me I could remove the bindings in a few days. Ever had a 24-hour toothache in your eye? “Blinded” for only three days until the damaged area healed, and the bandages were removed. My eyes were fully functional and no pain from the wound. Yet tissue damage in my hands can take weeks to fully heal.
z said: "The workings of the mind are always fascinating to read about.
Now, talking about the visual cortex getting bored and seeing faces… I've actually noticed this kind of behavior when I look at something with seemingly random shapes for a while, say a carpet or something, and my eyes often start picking up faces from the shapes."
I'm not sure that this is related to CBS.
Anyone interested should read the Wiki article on pareidolia.
Wow! Damn interesting. Up to 15% of people with vision loss. Great work, Alan.
tinpeach said: "I'm not sure that this is related to CBS.
Anyone interested should read the Wiki article on pareidolia.
Yeah, I doubt it's related either, but something involving the same organs or just imagination at work. Or that pareidolia thing in the article.
For the past ten or so years, I've actually had something like this happen to me, and it's always been a point of curiosity. Especially in the dark, but even during daylight conditions, if I stare blankly for a while I will get a small patch of colours, like a hole, in my vision. They resemble a cell-shaded version (crisper than my normal vision) of stained-glass.
Well, now I know! Cool. :-)
There was an absolutely wonderful article about Charles Bonnet Syndrome in Fortean Times a while back. I believe it was #184, but if you go to the website (forteantimes.com) and do a search for "Charles Bonnet," you will easily find the article there.
Our DI article was so well-written and thorough, however; I don't believe that FT really had too much anything extra or different to add, but it's still an excellent article.
It will be at: www.forteantimes.com/articles/184_eye-spirits3.shtml.
Hmmm…Sorry about that; my link above doesn't seem to work. Try this:
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/184_eye-spirits3.shtml.
If that doesn't work, do go to the website and do a search for it. Very cool.
Why was it not named "Charles Lullin Syndrome" seeing as he experienced it long before Charles Bonnet did. I suppose that would mean no CBS jokes.
I am a hypnotherapist and I've been treating a guy with Charles Bonnet syndrome (successfully of course :-)) interestingly his hallucinations were mainly of a road coming at him at about 60 - 80 mph complete with surrounding countryside, cows in fields etc. His occupation, before he fell ill with mycosis fungoides and failing vision due to pressure on his optic nerve was…. a lorry driver. Yet another example of the power of the brain to create an unreal situation in order to cope with unwelcome circumstances. A million thanks for this site!
z said: "Now, talking about the visual cortex getting bored and seeing faces… I've actually noticed this kind of behavior when I look at something with seemingly random shapes for a while, say a carpet or something, and my eyes often start picking up faces from the shapes."
I do that too.
DI article…but seriously, can anyone think of a better name for a non-existent headlining prog rock band? "Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Bonnet and the Hallucinations!"
hah - first!
Damn Interesting, indeed! Great article - I'd never heard of anything like this before. Since macular degeneration and its polar opposite, retinitus pigmentosa (sp?) run in the family, I'll have to keep an eye out for stuff like that (no pun intended)!