Blindness and DID

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is an article about a woman who became blind in an accident. She also has multiple personality disorder. When certain personalities dominate she can see and with certain other personalities she cannot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3333615/The-blind-woman-suddenly-37-year-old-multiple-personalities-finds-vision-changes-depending-character-is.html

There have been cases where a boy developed rashes when he had one personality which disappeared during other personalities. People have been know to develop diabetes and even have different voices and eye color during different personalities.

Interesting!

Cheers.

Sriram

[SteveH]

I don't see how your eye colour could change.

[Rhiannon]

If you google you can find stuff about vision changes and personality disorders going back to the 80’s; it’s very definitely a thing. As for eye colour...

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6766/can-mental-state-affect-eye-color

[Anchorman]

I'd say the studies go a lot further back than the '80's, Rhi. I seem to remember something from Germany in the 1930's on the topic - from the same outfit who were experimenting with the first guide dogs. I'll try and find it.

[Sriram]

Yes...this phenomenon has been observed from ancient times.  When people claimed that women were possessed by spirits.....this is probably what they observed.

[Harrowby Hall]

This is the only reference that I could quickly locate:

The color of the human eye: A review of morphologic correlates and of some conditions that affect iridial pigmentation

Survey of Ophthamology

February 1997 Volume 41, Supplement 2, Pages S117–S123

Pascal D. Imesch, MD, Ingolf H.L. Wallow, MD, Daniel M. Albert, MD
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison Wisconsin, US

Abstract
Iris color can be affected by a variety of ocular disorders. It is suspected that iris color may not remain constant throughout life. These observations have drawn attention to the morphologic correlates of iris color and its regulation. Differences in the iris color of normal eyes are the result of variable amounts of melanin pigment granules within a constant number of melanocytes in the superficial stroma of the iris. These melanocytes seem to reach their genetically determined amount of melanin in early childhood, and their melanin content usually remains constant in adulthood. Diseases such as Horner's syndrome and Fuchs' heterochromic iridocyclitis affect iris color, resulting in a decrease of iris pigmentation. Evidence suggests that melanin content of some melanocytes is subject to adrenergic regulation even past childhood. Application of the prostaglandin analogue latanoprost, on the other hand, leads to an increase in iris pigmentation in some patients. Studies with cultured dermal and uveal melanocytes, as well as with uveal melanoma cells, however, show no increase in cell proliferation when treated with latanoprost in vitro. The mechanisms by which latanoprost affects regulation of iris pigmentation requires further investigation.

It would seem that pigmentation change in the human iris due to some pathology is not unknown and that the intensity of the colour of people' irises can fade with age.

However, if Sriram is saying that brown eyes can turn blue, then I think he is mistaken. Of course, people who are concerned to convince the credulous can always wear contact lenses.

[SteveH]

https://youtu.be/D-Cbj9-TP0w