Losing Your Sight. But You See Things

It is very strange how some people who are losing their eye-sight can experience complex visual hallucinations. These hallucinations, called visual release hallucinations, which happen to a person with partial or severe blindness, usually feature characters or objects which are much smaller than normal.

These "lilliputian" hallucinations (the word coming from the famous children's story, Gulliver's Travels) were first described by Charles Bonnet in 1760, often feature faces or cartoons and animals, plants or trees and various inanimate objects.

This type of hallucination which is not connected with mental illness, cognitive impairment or dementia, can affect the young as well as older people. It is thought that these type of hallucinations are the result of the brain's hyperactive response to failing sight. 

According to the late and great Dr Oliver Sacks, Charles Bonnet syndrome images tend to be “more stereotyped than those of dreams and at the same time less intelligible, less meaningful” — they rarely yield “insights into the unconscious wishes, needs or conflicts of the person” but are instead the brain reacting to the loss of eyesight.

It is the deprivation of input which causes the brain to create its own input to replace what has suddenly disappeared. And although a person experiencing these strange and sometimes exotic hallucinations may be shocked and surprised by what they see, they know that what they are experiencing is not real. 

However, suffering from Charles Bonnet hallucinations can make life very difficult for some people, as the streets or rooms around the person may appear distorted. What appear to be walls or fences may suddenly appear in the path and this can be unsettling or frightening. 

The Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran wrote about the American author and cartoonist James Thurber, who likely had Charles Bonnet Syndrome, after becoming visually impaired from an accident in his childhood. In writing to his doctor Thurber described seeing "golden sparks, melting purple blobs, and saffron and light blue waves" and other more graphic hallucinations, like seeing an old woman with a grey parasol walk right through the side of a truck.

Other people have reported seeing cartoon characters dancing on the desk, a civil war soldier in the living room and a zebra walking down the street. All of which proves that, sometimes, seeing is not believing.

Maddened By Extreme Beauty

Stendhal syndrome, which is named after the writer known as Stendhal, is a psychosomatic medical condition which is specific to the city of Florence.

It was on one of Stendhal's visits to Italy in 1817, that he experienced rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting and confusion, whilst viewing Volterrano’s fresco of the Sibyls, at the Basilica of Santa Croce. He later wrote, "I was already in a kind of ecstasy.........contemplating sublime beauty, I saw it close-up — I touched it, so to speak". He also said that he felt "close to heaven”.

Time clips the Wings of the Fame by Volterrano

Stendhal syndrome was described by the Florentine psychiatrist, Dr Graziella Magherina, after treating many patients with similar symptoms. Magherini wrote a book, La Sindrome di Stendhal, based on 106 case studies, of patients who exhibited certain clinical symptoms.

There are risk factors that predispose certain people to experiencing Stendhal syndrome, while contemplating works of art. These include educational level, marital status, age, and stress from travelling. Living alone, reaching the end of a journey and a religious upbringing, are also major risk factors.

Patients affected by Stendhal syndrome are so overwhelmed by beauty that they are forced to remove themselves from the emotional art experience. Similar symptoms have also been described by people who have visited other cities, like “Paris syndrome”, described in 1986 by Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Ota. Although, this syndrome is somewhat different, as it mostly relates to Japanese tourists who are disappointed when Paris does not live up to their romantic expectations. Paris syndrome may also include psychiatric symptoms ranging from hallucinations, both visual and auditory, to paranoid persecutory delusions.

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Jerusalem Syndrome which mostly affects Christians can be triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem. In this disorder, the patient may become so affected by the religious significance of the place, that they may develop a “unique acute psychotic disorder.” This disorder, described by Dr Bar-El, causes the afflicted tourists to believe that they are characters from the Bible. Often the traveller will become very confused and believe that they themselves are the Messiah or redeemer.

Another controversial form of psychosis is "India Syndrome", which mostly affects Westerners. The French psychologist Régis Airault, who coined the term, “India Syndrome”, says, it is a form of “bouffée délirante” — short-term psychosis. Patients would claim that they heard the voice of Indian deities and they would attempt to swim back to Europe. Others might believe that they were the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. The Privat Hospital in New Delhi admits about a hundred delusional Westerners a year, many of whom had been practising yoga around the clock.

She Was The mother of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler's Mother, Klara Hitler

Klara Hitler (née Pölzl) who had a peasant background, was born in the small Austrian village of Spital. She was the eldest of only three children who survived childhood, out of eleven children.

In later years, Klara was described by the family doctor as being a very quiet, sweet, and affectionate woman. Yet somehow, Klara managed to give birth to one of the most murderous and deranged dictators that ever walked this planet. 

Klara Hitler, circa 1880s

As a devout Roman Catholic, Klara was a regular church attendee with her children, including Adolf. However, of the six children born to her, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula survived to adulthood.

It was in the year 1876 that Klara left her family's farm to begin work as a servant at the home of her second cousin, Alois Hitler, whose original surname was Schicklgruber; his name was changed to a variant spelling of his stepfather' Johann Hiedler.

Klara's cousin, Alois Hitler, was married to a well-off woman who was fourteen years his senior; she was in poor health and without children. However, Alois was soon engaged in an affair with, household servant Franziska Matzelberger, in 1877.

Portrait photograph of Alois Hitler née Schicklgruber

Franziska saw the young Klara as a rival and insisted that she leave the house. Franziska gave birth to a child named Alois, in 1882 and became Mrs Hilter after Anna Hitler died in 1883. Two months after being married, Franziska gave birth to daughter, Angela. Soon, however, Franziska was ill with tuberculosis and Klara was invited back to care for the children.

Franziska died in August 1884 and Klara and her second cousin Alois Hitler, married on 7th January 1885. Although, they had to obtain a special permit because they were cousins.

From various accounts, it appears that Adolf Hitler had a very close relationship with his mother. He later told Joseph Goebbels that his mother was "a source of goodness and love" whereas his father was "a tyrant in the home".

Adolf's sister, Paula, also said their mother was "a very soft and tender person, the compensatory element between the almost too harsh father and the very lively children who were perhaps somewhat difficult to train. If there were ever quarrels or differences of opinion between my parents it was always on account of the children. It was especially my brother Adolf who challenged my father to extreme harshness and who got his sound thrashings every day. How often, on the other hand, did my mother caress him and try to obtain with her kindness what her father could not succeed in obtaining with harshness!"

In 1907 Klara was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy and an experimental form of chemotherapy, called iodoform, which poisoned her. She died on 21 December 1907. Adolf Hitler. the man who authorised the "euthanasia" program, which was the systematic killing of those Germans that the Nazis deemed "unworthy of life." said that his mother's death was a "dreadful blow."

Magical Protections For Warfare and Life

Many, if not all societies have had supernatural belief systems, which provide individuals with existential meaning and a sense of purpose. Many of these beliefs are probably incorrect, but believe it or not, the belief in protection from spells during warfare, though often detrimental to the individual, is generally beneficial to society as a whole, bringing groups together and helping them to survive.

Magical Warfare Technologies

Since the 1990s, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced extreme levels of violence and political turmoil. High levels of displacement, disease and poverty exist here. There is also little in the way of governmental support or direction to provide help. This leaves the people of the Congo in a precarious position with high levels of existential angst. This is where supernatural beliefs come in. 

The Congolese, in general, have a high level of belief in the supernatural. They believe that unseen forces and agents inhabit the world. An example of this is the magical ritual of bulletproofing, 

The Mai-Mai guerrillas of the Congo would charge into battle naked with the belief that they were bulletproof. Such beliefs are not that unusual. A former commander of forces and member of the Sarpo tribe in Liberia, who was often referred to by the name, General Butt Naked, would lead his troops into battle, naked, except for shoes and a gun. He believed the nakedness was a source of protection from bullets. He also believed in increasing his powers by cannibalism, until he converted to Christianity. 

The rituals to make a person bulletproof vary, ranging from not drinking water, no sexual acts with a woman during her period and not eating zucchinis. Failure of the bulletproofing, such as death, would often be attributed to the failure to carry out the conditions of the ritual. Death and injury did not prove the belief system to be false.

Magical Tattoos

In Thailand, the tradition of sak yant tattooing goes back thousands of years. These yantra tattoos are believed to be magic and to bestow mystical powers, protection, or good luck. Of note, “Sak” means “tattoo,” and “yant” comes from yantra, a mystical diagram found throughout Dharmic religions.

People receiving these sacred tattoos believe that the drawings on their skin are magically charged and will bring many benefits. There is a range of protections and benefits which are believed to be provided by the tattoos, from protection to the bearer, attracting romantic partners and shielding the wearer from bullets and other weapons. 

Tattooing Yant at Wat Bang Phra Temple

The designs of the sak yant tattoos are derived from Buddhist and animist imagery, but each person receives tattoos that are suitable for his/her purposes and place in the world. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Steven Seagal and other foreigners have had sak yant tattoos inked upon their skins and this has upset the Thai people and led to the installation of 15-metre-wide billboards near Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport declaring that: "It's wrong to use Buddha as a decoration or tattoo".

Tribal Cannibalism and Tradition

Throughout the Pacific region, there has been a culture and tradition of tribal warfare for hundreds and sometimes, thousands of years. Although many of these preindustrial societies had institutions which were aimed at taming violence, such as the use of duels, enforced migration and compensation; as circumstances changed and populations grew, these often failed. In more recent years, Western justice systems have tried to stop the cycles of violence and revenge, called "payback" in pidgin English, by bringing fighting and the dispensation of justice into the courtroom. 

Back in the 1970s, Papua New Guinea was an Australian‐administered territory. However, at this time, there were still many "undiscovered" and uncontacted tribes living in New Guinea, particularly in the Highlands region. Some of these tribes were found to be eating the bodies of their enemies and keeping the mummified remains of their own dead tied to tree platforms in a sitting position. Other tribes would display skulls won in battle.

New Guinea native posing with a mummified body - WW2 era. Aussie Mobs

Some tribes practised cannibalism, so that they could obtain a witch's powers and prevent these powers from being used by others.  Some routinely cut off the heads of the rivals tribe and poured the blood over a special stone, then later drank brain soup. This was just part of the everyday tribal warfare. 

Books To Read

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by science writer Michael Shermer.

Plants Communicate and Feel Pain

It appears from research that plants have intelligence, as they can solve problems and learn from experience. In the book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben, these claims are supported by authoritative scientific publications.

Trees, it seems, are not isolated individuals. They actually live in communities with complex ecological relationships. These relationships are with organisms of the same species and with organisms of different species, and especially, with the soil fungi, which assist in the transmission of nutrients to plant roots.

Trees of the same species are almost tribal, but they will form alliances with trees of other species to communicate collaboratively through a network, which some have called, the Wood Wide Web. Through this network, trees send chemical, hormonal and slow-pulsing electrical signals, which scientists are just beginning to understand.

According to Jack C Schultz, a professor in the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, plants "are just very slow animals." He also says that plants move with purpose. They hunt for food, compete for territory, circumvent predators and some even trap prey.

Tree canopies often stop expanding when they touch the canopies of the trees around them, this is because of “Canopy shyness”. However, some trees only do this with trees from the same species. The Australian botanist, Maxwell Ralph Jacobs, noticed canopy shyness in eucalyptus in the 1950s. It seems that such trees are collaborating, so that all the tree canopies can receive light.

Some decades ago, scientists noticed on the African savannah, that giraffes would move on minutes after feeding on umbrella thorn acacias. These acacias, in response to the nibbling of the giraffes, would produce a toxic substance (ethylene) in their leaves. These trees would also send airborne scents to signal other trees in the vicinity, which would also begin to produce the toxic substance to deter the giraffes from eating their leaves.

Also, according to Peter Wohlleben, beeches, spruce, and oaks all register pain as soon as some creature starts nibbling on them. When a caterpillar takes a bite out of a leaf, the tissue around the site of the damage changes. In addition, the leaf tissue sends out electrical signals, just as human tissue does when hurt. However, the signal is not transmitted in milliseconds, as human signals are; instead, the plant signal travels at the slow speed of a third of an inch per minute.

Trees in cities are often stressed and have much shorter lives. Many experience sleep deprivation, with the constant light sources they experience. According to Daniel Chamovitz of Tel Aviv University in Israel, many plants have other similarities to humans, too, in the way plants experience the world. For example, they can distinguish between light of different colours and they are aware of aromas and of gravity and can sense which way is up or down.

Plants are much more complex than we humans have previously thought, which means that we may need to rethink our treatment and relationships with them. 

We Absorb Our Family Story

A few years ago, Alice Collins Plebuch decided to take one of those DNA tests which show your ancestry. She had always believed herself to be of Irish descent and her family fully identified as Irish-American Catholics, so she was disturbed and flummoxed when half of her DNA came back as being European Jewish, Middle Eastern and Eastern European. (read here).

And so, Alice began a journey to find out the real story of one-half of her origins.

As it turned out, to make a long story short, Alice's father Jim Collins, who had always been very religious and regarded himself as being an Irish-American, and who'd even had a Irish-style wake when he died, had been mistakenly given after his birth, to the Irish-American couple that he grew up to regard as his parents. His real parents were actually Ashkenazi Jewish-Americans. The Irish couple's own child had been given to the Jewish family and this child had been named, Phillip Benson.

Phillip Benson, like Alice's father, was born at Fordham Hospital in the Bronx and he had been brought up and married into the Jewish community. Someone it seems, mixed the children up and as the Washington Post stated, “Somehow, a Jewish child had gone home with an Irish family, and an Irish child had gone home with a Jewish family and the child who was supposed to be Philip Benson had instead become Jim Collins.”

Which just goes to show how most of us simply take on and adsorb the beliefs of our immediate family and surrounding culture, despite the origins of our DNA. 

The Parliament of Our Brain and Free Will

According to the work of neuroscience, our sense of self is simply an illusion. A trick of the brain. Whilst many of us believe we have a single integrated identity and free will, in reality, our brain is creating this hallucination.

Our brains, according to David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, are more like a "neural parliament", with different parts of the brain fighting it out in an attempt to control decisions.

Our sense of reality is constructed by the brain, by many unconscious processes and our sense of who we are is based on a story we tell ourselves, based on distorted and selective past memories.

Brains are locked inside the darkness of our skull and they depend on the information streamed by our senses. The brain then makes patterns and creates a picture of reality. But our response to this reality may not be simple. For example, I might see a delicious cheesecake in front of me and the parts of my brain which register hunger and pleasure might want it. Another part of my brain might be thinking about how I need to lose weight and that the ingredients in the cheesecake might not be good for my health. If I'm feeling particularly hungry or stressed, then the hypothalamus, an area of the brain in charge of the stress response and hunger may well prove to be dominant over the other parts urging me to control myself.

Consider also how a bottle of hand sanitizer can cause most of us to become more conservative. In general, conservatives have a stronger disgust reaction. According to research in the journal Psychological Science, reminders of cleanliness changes peoples social attitudes. Simply placing a bottle of hand sanitizer next to people answering a questionnaire causes respondents to answer more conservatively.  

Books To Read

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, is a social psychology book by Jonathan Haidt, in which the author describes human morality as it relates to politics and religion.