Only 80 People In The World Have 'Demon Face Syndrome' — It Makes Them See Humans as 'Witches and Zombies'
The brain is an intriguing part of the human body that controls the way we perceive our surroundings. Even a slight malfunction can cause some big problems in this department. A case in point is prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), a neurological condition that causes people to morph faces into something else, as reported by IFL Science. It is, fortunately, exceedingly rare. The condition is also called "demon face syndrome," as in most of the recorded cases, patients have reported seeing the faces in front of them morph into monstrous beings like dragons and demons.
What Happens in Prosopometamorphopsia (PMO)?
PMO does not often happen at once. It takes some time, with patients looking at a particular face for a long time, and then suddenly witnessing it morph into "other face-like things" as per neuroscientist Dr Austin Lim. The individual's vision could be normal in all other aspects, but still fail to perceive another person or being's face or parts of it. For a patient discussed in a 2020 study, the faces melted on one side. He came to seek treatment, as this phenomenon was severely impacting his life. Researchers worked with him extensively to understand this unique condition. They showed him several faces of varied objects and determined that the issue arose only when he saw the faces of living beings. No matter from which angle he saw the faces, they were always melting. Since this distortion was happening in only one portion of the face, it was determined to be hemi-prosopometamorphopsia (hemi-PMO) by experts.
Causes of Prosopometamorphopsia (PMO)
Researchers are still unsure of what exactly causes this condition, but they have speculations. In the case of the 2020 patient, experts think that a lesion in the brain's splenium region led to distorted visions. The injury in this portion stops the individual's brain from fully figuring out another face. It is believed the eyes visualize a face by taking into account a directory of all the previous faces the brain has stored in memory. The splenium region plays a crucial role in this process, and an injury here hampers the function. WebMD claims other factors, like Tumors and strokes, could also facilitate this condition. The condition was first detected in 1904, according to Montare Behavioral Health.
Demon Face Syndrome
A 2024 study published in The Lancet described what exactly people suffering from PMO see when they view human faces. The investigation showcased that in most patients, the output resembled a monster-like being. Lim claims that some patients saw faces stuck together while others viewed witches and zombies. The most noteworthy of all the cases for him was that of a woman seeing dragons in her visions. "Like, their skin would change color. A lot of the time, it would turn to shades of purple. Their skin would also start developing scales, and their ears would get a little bit pointier. All sorts of unusual perceptual changes," he explained. Researchers still have no idea why these particular iterations happen in patients. Montare Behavioral Health claims that around 80 people have been diagnosed to date with this condition.