A recent case of a woman has been doing rounds wherein she can see distorted faces of people. According to a report in The Lancet, a woman suffered from a life-long history of seeing people's faces change into dragon-like faces and hallucinating similar faces many times a day.
The woman said that she could “perceive and recognise actual faces, but after several minutes they turned black, grew long, pointy ears and a protruding snout, and displayed a reptiloid skin and huge eyes in bright yellow, green, blue, or red. She saw similar dragon-like faces drifting towards her many times a day,” according to a report in The Lancet.
The condition, known as prosopometamorphopsias, caused the woman to see dragon-like faces drifting towards her from the walls, electrical sockets, or the computer screen, in both the presence and absence of face-like patterns, and at night she saw many dragon-like faces in the dark.
What is prosopometamorphopsias?
Also known as demon face syndrome, this is a rare neurological disorder that affects how an individual sees the faces of people. People who suffer from the condition tend to see people’s features warped or scary, like a demon, even when they look completely normal to others.
WebMD says that the condition is extremely rare and in the past century, there have been fewer than 100 cases reported worldwide.
What are the causes of prosopometamorphopsias?
Since the condition is extremely uncommon, scientists still don’t fully understand what causes it. But here are some factors that can cause the condition, according to WebMD.
- Brain damage: The brain’s ability to recognise and process faces is controlled by several networks in the brain. If these networks are damaged and can’t properly communicate with each other, it may make faces look different or distorted.
- Strokes or seizures: Both strokes and seizures can affect the brain, which may damage or disrupt the networks that help us process faces.
- Tumours: A few cases of prosopometamorphopsia have been linked to brain tumours. In most of these cases, the facial distortions disappeared after the tumours were removed.
- Psychiatric conditions: When doctors didn’t find any brain abnormalities, patients were diagnosed with conditions like schizophrenia, brief psychotic disorder, Charles Bonnet syndrome or Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
- Migraines: While less common, some people have had symptoms of demon face syndrome during a migraine.
- Drug abuse: People who regularly use hallucinogenic drugs are more likely to have conditions that have hallucinations as a symptom.
