A blow to the head can cause it to turn into a ghost, experts say. We are talking about a rare injury called Cotard syndrome, in which people sometimes think they have already died.
After a terrible motorcycle accident, 35-year-old English mechanic from Essex Warren McKinlay was sure that he had died, but for some reason he did not go to heaven, like the hero of Patrick Swayze in the movie "Ghost". Warren decided that he stayed on Earth and turned into a zombie. The man refused to take food, because he did not see any point in this, he sat for hours on end in one room, not wanting to talk to anyone.
After the accident, doctors recorded Warren's back and pelvic fractures, but he also damaged his brain when he hit his head on a tree. Only after 18 months of living in the form of a living corpse, Warren realized that he was not crazy at all. In reality, he became a victim of hallucinations caused by Cotard's syndrome. Very often, his victims sincerely believe in their own death, although elementary logic should have shown them that this is not so.
This syndrome, which is a nihilistic-hypochondriacal depressive delusion combined with ideas of immensity, has different manifestations. Someone begins to believe that his loved ones have been replaced by doubles. Another victim of Cotard's syndrome assures that all the people he meets in reality are one and the same person. These are not symptoms of mental illness, but the consequences of trauma. As well as the conviction of one's own death, as well as the absence of body parts that are present in reality.
Epileptic seizures can provoke sexual dysfunction. In 2006, a 37-year-old woman from Germany told doctors that she saw her body muscular and hairy during seizures. The scans showed a benign tumor near the right amygdala, which regulates our senses and self-perception. Antiepileptic medications have helped relieve hallucinations. In different cases, the treatment of Cotard syndrome requires an individual approach.