![]() They are rather sudden, and they change suddenly. It's typical of these hallucinations that they may come in a flash and disappear in a flash. So on one occasion, when his granddaughters were visiting them, he said, "And who are these handsome young men with you?" And they said, "Alas, Grandpapa, there are no handsome young men." And then the handsome young men disappeared. But sometimes he wasn't sure whether he was hallucinating or not, because the hallucinations would fit in the context of the visions. It was a large blue handkerchief with four orange circles. The first thing he said was he saw a handkerchief in midair. And in 1759, he described to his grandson various things he was seeing. His grandfather was a magistrate, an elderly man. ![]() His grandfather had these hallucinations. Now with the original description in the 18th century, Charles Bonnet did not have them. You don't have to be completely blind, only sufficiently impaired. And about 10 percent of the visually impaired people get visual hallucinations. About 10 percent of the hearing impaired people get musical hallucinations. I see a lot of elderly people who are hearing impaired or visually impaired. I have Charles Bonnet syndrome." Well, so I did tell the nurses. ![]() She said, "Who is this Charles Bonnet?" She said, "Did he have them himself?" And she said, "Tell all the nurses that I have Charles Bonnet syndrome." You have Charles Bonnet syndrome." And she was very relieved at this, that there was nothing seriously the matter, and also rather curious. This was originally described," I said, "right back in the 18th century, by a man called Charles Bonnet. And I then said to her, "I think I know what you have." I said, "There is a special form of visual hallucination which may go with deteriorating vision or blindness. She wasn't on any medications which could produce hallucinations. She was a bright old lady, perfectly sane. She wondered if she was going mad or losing her mind. And none of the people or the animals, well, they all seemed oblivious of her. She said she didn't recognize any of the people or places in the hallucinations. She said that the hallucinations were unrelated to anything she was thinking or feeling or doing, that they seemed to come on by themselves, or disappear. She'd lived 95 years and she'd never had a hallucination before. She said, "All these people with Eastern dress, walking up and down, very repetitive, very limited."Īnd she has a sense of humor. But it's completely silent, like a silent movie." And she said that it's a rather boring movie. It's like a movie." She said, "It's got color. I said, "Is this like a dream?" And she said, "No, it's not like a dream. They wear bright colors, rose and blue, like Eastern dress." Sometimes, she said, before the people come on, she may hallucinate pink and blue squares on the floor, which seem to go up to the ceiling. They come to a certain point and then stop. I see this horse with a harness, dragging the snow away. But he has huge teeth on one side of his mouth. So I said, "What sort of things?" And she said, "People in Eastern dress, in drapes, walking up and down stairs. But now, for the last few days, she'd been seeing things. And she told me - the nurses hadn't mentioned this - that she was blind, that she had been completely blind from macular degeneration for five years. It was evident straight away that she was perfectly sane and lucid and of good intelligence, but she'd been very startled and very bewildered, because she'd been seeing things. And so they asked me if I would come and see Rosalie, the old lady. They told me that one of their residents, an old lady in her 90s, was seeing things, and they wondered if she'd gone bonkers or, because she was an old lady, whether she'd had a stroke, or whether she had Alzheimer's. A few months ago, I got a phone call from a nursing home where I work. So I am going to be talking about hallucinations, and a particular sort of visual hallucination which I see among my patients. They seem to come from the outside, and to mimic perception. But there are also hallucinations as well, and hallucinations are completely different. And we are familiar with the landscapes of our own imagination, our inscapes. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination. Oliver Sacks: We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well.
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