Is it really possible for someone to not recognize his own reflection? It was until a recent case was revealed. A man who thought he saw a "stranger" in the bathroom mirror, when he was actually looking at his own reflection, only to find out that he has a rare neurological condition, a new case reported.
According to the authors of the online report published in the journal Neurocase, The 78-year-old man from France, only identified as Mr. B, reported that he noticed a stranger in his house. Mr. B said that the stranger just looked at him, but stayed in the bathroom mirror and didn't move an inch.
The researchers reported that Mr. B told them the stranger was a double of himself: he was the same size, had the same hair, body shape, and features, wore the same clothes and acted the same way. Mr. B. tried talking to this stranger but was left confused because he knew so much about him. He even brought food to the mirror good for two persons.
Dr. Capucine Diard-Detoeuf, a neurologist at the University Hospital of Tours in France narrated that as time passed, the patient told his daughter about the stranger and how he had become aggressive, leaving her to decide to drive her father to the hospital. Dr. Diard-Detoeuf was the one who treated the man and is one of the co-authors of the report.
After a series of tests, doctors diagnosed Mr. B with a condition called atypical Capgras Syndrome. In a normal case of Capgras syndrome (named after French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras, who first published a report on the disorder in 1923), a person may think that a friend or family member has been replaced with an identical imposter.
Diard-Detoeuf told Live Science that In Mr. B's case however, it was atypical because his delusion did not concern another person, but himself. Doctors gave Mr. B an antipsychotic medication for his delusions. They also prescribed him anti-anxiety medication because he felt anxious and nervous about being in the same house with an "aggressive stranger."
After three months of medication, Mr. B recovered, and reported that the stranger had disappeared.
