Hallucinations Charles Bonnet Syndrome

Characteristically the visual hallucinations in DLB consist of complete, detailed images, normal in size and tending to move, many containing people or animals. These descriptions are similar to visual hallucinations experienced by patients with other conditions including PD (Cummings Benson, 1992) and the Charles Bonnet Syndrome (Manford Andermann, 1998). Patients with DLB are also more likely to continue to have visual hallucinations during the duration of their illness than patients with AD (Ballard et al., 1998). 

Here I want to focus on people afflicted with certain eye diseases who report encounters with elflike beings from parallel universes. In particular, people with Charles Bonnet syndrome see beings from another world. Many scientists would call these beings hallucinations. Others call this syndrome a portal to a parallel reality. These individuals with Charles Bonnet syndrome (or Bonnet people ) are otherwise mentally sound. The beings appear when Bonnet people s visions deteriorate as a result of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration—or when patients have had both eyes removed. Charles Bonnet syndrome is more common in older people with a high level of education. 

Visual hallucinations have been associated with estrogen in a patient with Charles Bonnet syndrome (40). 

Dose-related visual hallucinations have been reported in a patient with macular degeneration taking phenelzine (the Charles Bonnet syndrome) the authors discussed the possibility that deprivation-induced visual phenomena had been intensified by increased central monoamine concentrations (5). 

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