Surely you have come across someone who is very imaginative and seems to have come out of a teenage fiction book. But this case is not like that, a woman has lived since childhood seeing dragons in people’s faces. As if she were Daenerys Targaryen, the mother of dragons, this woman has spent her whole life seeing the faces of absolutely every human deformed. And no, it is not because she believed in the theory that there are human beings who are reptilians that come from another planet to investigate us, in fact, this lady thought that everyone saw the same way she did!
Did she see… Dragons?
Since very young, this woman born in the Netherlands saw, in face-to-face conversations, strange faces deforming that made them look like dragons. Elongated faces, elongated snouts, scales and shiny eyes in red or yellow tones. Yes, dragons, not as friendly as Dragon from Shrek, but she understood that it was something she could not say out loud, so she kept her secret to herself.
As she grew up, eye contact became unbearable for her, and although she managed to work as a school administrator and start a family, the dragons were there, they did not go away. However, she knew they were hallucinations, she knew they were not real, that it was something in her head.
And what was it?
It is a disorder, it is known as prosopometamorphopsia, and it is one of those examples that the human brain is something extraordinary.
This neurological disorder alters the perception of faces, exactly what this lady was suffering, only in her case she saw dragons.
But they are not imaginations, but a failure of brain processing of facial images. Other patients who have suffered the same see deformations, strange colors or exaggerated expressions.
When did she know she had a disorder?
At 52 years old! Half a century seeing dragons and she decided to go to a psychiatric clinic in The Hague. At first there were no anomalies that drew attention, but an MRI revealed that she had small lesions in the white matter near the lentiform nucleus, the area that is in charge of facial recognition, memory and attention.
Understanding the human brain
Of course, this news has been quite impactful in the neurological world, in this case many have used it to understand how the brain builds visual perception, and how, without a clear diagnosis, this woman could have thought that human reality was like that, with dragon faces.
Researchers point out that prosopometamorphopsia can be related to brain injuries, epilepsy, migraines or trauma, although in this case there is no evident cause.
On the other hand, the publication in The Lancet has brought back the work of the famous neurologist Oliver Sacks, who dedicated part of his career to documenting neurological experiences that no one believes. This case adds to that legacy, showing that visual hallucinations can be very persistent, very real, and yet maintain an apparently normal life.
Does it have treatment?
The diagnosis did not give her a definitive solution, first she tried valproic acid (used for epilepsy), and although it reduced the hallucinations a little, it complicated her life more than it helped. Then she tried rivastigmine (a treatment for dementia), and for the first time in her life, she began to stop seeing dragons, although they have not disappeared completely, they have decreased a lot and this lady now manages to differentiate what is real from what is not.
The fear of the unknown
A whole life seeing strange things… And the fear of not being understood by society and being labeled as suffering madness only for having a brain condition that made everything a little different for her than for the rest. Luckily, she has been able to put a name to her situation and has now finally achieved a balance between what she sees and reality. And all thanks to neuroscience!