Ghosts - The Possible Origins
Posted by Patricia on 11 Jan 2010 at 03:48 pm | Tagged as: Stories, Thoughts
My mother is 87 and has a steel trap mind. She’s 100% all there in mind….body, not so good and that’s important to know because of what I’m going to tell you. She has macular degeneration and only has about 10% of vision left in one eye. Several months ago she mentioned that she was seeing piles of sticks and strange faces with big red lips (you know, the kind we used to get made out of wax) and she had even seen a ’short movie clip’ of a 1940’s car driving through the snow at night, with snow falling and heading towards a small town. She said it was a beautiful scene.
The first thing I thought was that somebody in their communal kitchen was spiking the food with an illicit drug giving her hallucinations. But before I made any accusations, I made an appointment for her with the eye doctor and told her to tell him about these visions.
Here’s the amazing part! The doctor told her that some few people who have macular do see these visions and that it would not be wise to discuss it with people that didn’t know her well as they might tend to think she was slipping a little off her rocker. Since that time, she has seen many other realistic ‘visions’ - sometimes a lifesize woman dressed in clothing from the 1800’s holding the hand of a small boy is standing next to her bed when she wakes up. Sometimes two young boys also garbed from the 1800’s are there. And others that I won’t go into here - not one of them is anyone she knows or has ever known. But it can make you wonder if these visions, seen by credible people throughout the centuries, before macular was ever known about, were not the origins of ghosts. From everything she describes to me they certainly fit the description.
Dear Patricia,
your mother is suffering from Charles Bonnet syndrome. This condition is prevalent among a significant minority of people who have age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
It is scandalous that very few of those who are diagnosed with AMD are told about Charles Bonnet syndrome and the possibility that they may develop it. Consequently, when they do, it is a source of considerable anguish as invariably they think they are losing their mind.
It cannot be emphasised too strongly that THIS IS NOT A MENTAL CONDITION. It is a purely physical problem, caused by the brain desperately searching for the visual stimulus that it is being denied.
The more publicity Charles Bonnet Syndrome receives, the better, as at the moment AMD sufferers are being severely let down by the medical profession.
Many thanks to you, therefore, for bringing this subject to the attention of a wider audience.
For more detailed information on Charles Bonnet Syndrome, go to:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_rnib003641.hcsp#P64_5436
As a final remark, the connection you make between the visions induced by Charles Bonnet Syndrome and ghosts is a very interesting one and is really worth serious research. I also believe I have read somewhere that the universality of the imagery that the syndrome conjures up is also something that needs to be looked into and explained.
Kind regards,
Michael Aylward