This is an ABC podcast.

Mary Lovett is 87 years old and she's blind.

But sometimes she sees scenes like this.

It was like a video unraveling.

Everybody was beautiful.

The men were wonderfully dressed and really good looking,

and the girls were gorgeous, wonderful hats, wonderful hair,

beautiful dresses and wonderful complexions.

That was for quite a while, and anyway, one day,

one of the people men winked at me,

and I thought, this is not a fun thing, thing this is something else I've been enjoying all this for

for quite a few years I don't know what it's it's not about fun it's about something else

hello welcome to all in the mind I'm Lynne Malcolm today we explore what sometimes referred to as the plaything of the brain for those

who are blind. It's called Charles Bonnet syndrome. He is the late neurologist, Oliver

Sacks, on his interaction with an elderly person in a nursing home.

A few months ago, I got a phone call from a nursing home where I work.

They told me that one of their residents, an old lady in her 90s, was seeing things.

And they wondered if she'd gone bonkers or because she was an old lady whether she had a stroke or whether she had Alzheimer's.

And so they asked me if I would come and see Rosalie.

I went in to see her.

It was evident straight away

that she was perfectly sane.

...