For the first time, researchers have created facial illustrations based on the description of a patient suffering from ‘demon face syndrome’. Officially known as prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), the rare condition has long been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.
For the few people affected by this condition, the world looks very different.
They perceive the human face not as the familiar features we recognize, but as distorted, demonic faces that could have come straight out of a horror movie.
Rare condition Prosopometamorphopsia or PMO – Demon Face Syndrome causes people to see demon faces pic.twitter.com/ls4019uyf4
— Interesting things (@interesting_aIl) March 23, 2024
Victor Sharrah’s life took an unexpected turn at the age of 56 when he began to see the people around him transform into beings from another realm. What was once the familiar face of his roommate became a nightmarish figure with exaggerated features.
“My first thought was that I woke up in a demon world. You can’t imagine how scary it was,” the 59-year-old said NBC News.
This alarming experience was not an isolated incident; it was a persistent reality that followed him beyond the safety of his home and cast everyone he encountered in the same demonic light.
The onset of Sharrah’s condition is believed to be related to a head injury sustained from an accident involving his truck, exacerbated by possible carbon monoxide exposure.
Unlike hallucinations caused by psychiatric conditions, Sharrah’s experiences are unique to face-to-face interactions, leaving photographs and digital images untouched.
This peculiar aspect of the syndrome has sparked the interest of medical professionals and provides a new avenue for research into cognitive disorders and visual processing.
Sharrah’s case, along with those of approximately 75 others worldwide, represents a beacon of hope for advancing our understanding of the human brain and potentially discovering treatments for this and similar conditions.
As research continues, there is a collective ambition that these findings will not only shed light on the ‘Demon Face Syndrome’, but also provide comfort and solutions for those who have lived in the shadows, misunderstood and misdiagnosed.
