And It's Not Supernatural. Imagine: you look at a person and after a few seconds their face “flows” - their features distort and float downward, like a Salvador Dali painting come to life. You turn away, look again - everything is normal. But after a few seconds it happens again. This condition is called prosopometamorphopsia, in which a person sees faces distorted. Some experts refer to it as Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
The distortions can be very different. Some people see only half of the face distorted, others see the entire face. Some people see only pinpoint distortions. For example, the ear migrates to the forehead. Other people see all parts of the face change. Some people see faces as if through a convex lens. There are times when only one eye changes color, stretches, multiplies, moves outside the face, or overgrows skin. The face may swell or shrink. It's a deeply unsettling experience.
There are only a few articles published each year on the subject of prosopometamorphopsia. In the last 100 years, there have been about 80 cases described in the scientific literature where people have been found to have the condition. But it is suspected that there are many more such people. When researchers from Dartmouth College (USA) announced that they would be “happy to talk” to people who have such problems, 150 people approached them in just three years.
Some patients had some kind of head trauma shortly before they started seeing distorted faces (for example, some of these patients appeared because of World War II - servicemen were wounded in the head and then saw distorted faces). Someone was experiencing mononucleosis. Brain tumor, stroke, epilepsy, migraine, multiple sclerosis - all this is also associated with prosopometamorphopsia. But there are also cases where a person has seen distorted faces for as long as he or she can remember. And while there's no proven cure-all (yet!), some people find relief through unexpected avenues. Think: colored lenses, meditation, even—wait for it—analyzing their natal charts on websites like pythia.guru/birth-chart-calculator. Look, I'm not saying your birth chart holds all the answers, but if it helps you feel more empowered and less alone in this weird, face-bending journey, who are we to judge?
Take, for example, the case of a resident of the Netherlands, who had seen dragon faces since childhood, because of her peculiarity could not establish relationships with colleagues and did not stay long at one job.
At the age of 52, she finally decided to seek help. Her doctor prescribed her an antidepressant and an antipsychotic, but it didn't help. Eventually she went to renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks, who referred her to local specialists. They canceled the previous prescription and tried a drug used particularly for epilepsy. It worked. However, due to side effects, it had to be changed to another drug (it is used for dementia). At the time of writing this article, the patient has remained in the same job for three years, and her relations with her colleagues have improved.
But there is no one-size-fits-all treatment. Moreover, it happens that patients who turn to doctors for prosopometamorphopsia are misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and prescribed antipsychotics as if they were hallucinations.
Unfortunately, there are non-pharmaceutical remedies. However, neither are universal. For example, researchers noticed that one of the people with prosopometamorphopsia sees faces not very distorted if he looks at them through a green filter. He was prescribed green glasses. Another person with the condition noticed that his partner's facial distortion could be interrupted by noticing a nose piercing (really!).
Fortunately - as far as we know - in most people, this condition eventually goes away on its own. In 70%, it goes away completely or partially. More often than not, the symptoms go away after a few days or weeks.
