Advertisement
A 37-year-old woman from Germany shocked doctors after regaining her sight more than 15 years after becoming blind. What made her case even more unusual was that only some of her personalities could actually see.
The woman, identified only as B.T., lost her vision after a traumatic accident and was diagnosed with cortical blindness. This type of blindness happens when the part of the brain that processes vision is damaged. Even though the eyes still work, the brain can’t make sense of what they see, so the person remains blind.
But blindness wasn’t her only condition. B.T. also had dissociative identity disorder, or DID, which means she had multiple distinct personalities. Reports said she had more than ten personalities, all different in age, gender, and behavior.
Her sight came back in the strangest way possible. It didn’t return to B.T. herself but to one of her alternate personalities, a 13-year-old boy. During a therapy session, that personality was suddenly able to read words from a magazine. When she switched back to another personality, her vision disappeared again. It was like someone was flipping a switch on and off in her brain.
Over time, with therapy, most of her personalities gradually regained sight, except for two. This strange pattern fascinated psychologists and neurologists, who wanted to understand how this was even possible.
German psychologists Hans Strasburger and Bruno Waldvogel studied her case in detail. They wanted to find out what had really caused her blindness. Tests confirmed that she hadn’t been faking it, EEG scans showed her brain produced no visual response when she was in a “blind” state.
This discovery led the researchers to a new explanation. They concluded her blindness wasn’t caused by brain damage at all. Instead, it was psychogenic, meaning it came from her mind, not her body. Her brain had shut off her vision as a coping mechanism after trauma.
Each of her personalities seemed to have different coping responses. Some could see, while others remained blind, depending on how her brain had divided those experiences.
The case of B.T. is now seen as one of the most fascinating examples of how powerful and complex the human brain can be. It showed that the mind can not only create distinct personalities but can also control physical abilities like sight in ways scientists are still struggling to fully understand.