Rare brain condition leaves woman seeing everything upside down

A rare brain condition that has left a woman seeing everything upside down has baffled doctors.

Bojana Danilovic, 28, views everything the wrong way up because of a problem in the way her brain processes images.

The council worker has to read papers from the bottom up, uses an upside down computer screen and needs to work with topsy turvy forms in her job. She said: "It may look incredible to other people but to me it's completely normal. "I was born that way. It's just the way I see the world."

The economics graduate from Serbia, who has suffered from the condition since birth, relaxes at home by watching one TV balanced on its top while the rest of the family watch another.



Experts from Harvard University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say she is suffering from 'spatial orientation phenomenon.'
Ms Danilovic, who works in the Serbian town of Uzice, said "They say my eyes see the images the right way up but my brain changes them. "But they don't really seem to know exactly how it happens, just that it does and where it happens in my brain. "They told me they've seen the case histories of some people who write the way I see, but never someone quite like me."

Source

This is giving me a headache just thinking about it! Can you imagine what it would be like? You would think that in this day and age someone would have made her a special pair of glasses that rotates what she sees? I suppose tho that she has got used to seeing the world this way. Weird.

I'd think they'd be able to give her some goggles to correct it, I recall hearing about an experiment done forever ago where they had folks wearing such goggles and after six weeks or some such they brain flipped the image back over....

You'd think goggles like that would at least be some improvement to her...

Actually, according to experiments performed as long ago as 1896, if you wear such goggles for long enough, your brain will adapt and everything will appear right-side-up again.

www.gizmag.com...

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha
If she was born this way, wouldn't she have learned to read letters the way that she saw them? IOW, why would she turn a newspaper upside down to read it? I doubt that she went to a special school where the alphabet was turned upside down just for her to learn?

reply to post by butcherguy


right, you'd think if all was upside down to her she'd learn to read upside down...


almost smells like some fish.

It seems to me that a person would acclimate to that and it wouldn't be a problem. I know people who had their world turned upside down...That is a little different though

I imagine seeing bridge of your nose and arms upside down in the top of your field of vision must be difficult. I can't even imagine, I could deal with upside down newspapers, TV, etc, but to have a degree of dissociation from your own limbs in that manner must be bizarre.

Seriously though, how are they not able to correct this?

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


Wow

How truly bizarre that must be. But since she has had this condition from birth, how much does it really affect her.

She said: "It may look incredible to other people but to me it's completely normal.

"I was born that way. It's just the way I see the world."

It might make certain things difficult for her. But is this not the same as having any other handicap. I know that nowadays they would certainly have the technology for creating a special of glasses for her nevermind goggles..
I wonder if she gets much help.

s/f for interesting find OP

This is the oddest thing I've heard. But i bet she can understand more of whats on ATS now.

reply to post by butcherguy


I cant seem to find much about her education or schooling but I imagine she would have just had to adapt, like you say, I cant imagine teachers or professors at university writing upside down for her lol, since its a condition from birth she would have had to adapt, hard going for her id say in her early school days.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


Not at all to make light of someone suffering from a disease, but methinks she is seeing "reality" just as it is these days--everything all upside down.

She should move to Australia lo.... okay cruel joke sorry.

Well i dont really see why it would be so bad, annoying, but the brain is absolutely marvelous at working round obstacles, including missing entire parts and rebuilding with whats remaining - they say we only use 10% of our brains.... the other 90% is backup brain cells

Oh, now she went and got herself famous. Imagine what the CIA would have paid her to pose as a translator or aid to people who frequently sit across important desks with material spread out but upside down. She could skim read the whole desk from the other side as quickly as any of us could from the right side.

A career of fortune and obscurity, lost forever.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


It seems like the visual photonic signal from observe input point into the eye as it transfers thru optic nerve that there may be an issue from optic nerve to brain link. For she is processing the photonic data with the more hardware the eyes and it seems the information makes it to the brain and gets processed. So it seems along the way somewhere there is an issue. 1 is not trained in these current optometrist fields of study but hopes she can find help to fix the issues she is experiencing..

NAMASTE*******

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


very good,

She can console herself by baking a lovely upside down cake :-)

This is curious, as Komonazmuk pointed out, this type of thing has been studied for a long time, so why news?

To be fair, WE see everything upside down, the optic nerve inverts the image in exaxtly the same way a camera does. So, our brain "interprets" the image and acclimatises us. Orientation swapping spectacles have shown that the brain re-orientates itself no matter which perspective it is shown.

I guess it's the "receiver" in the brain that's broken, and she would aclimatise anyway, but i would also think that an upside down tv could be a relief sometimes.

Thanks for sharing

Have anyone ever flashed the wrong ROM on an android phone and the camera view comes upside down?
I guess this must be like it. I just got a small panic attack just by thinking about it.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


How does she walk down the sidewalk without feeling like she's about to fall down into the sky? Lol.