A man from London was left hallucinating a woman with 'Baywatch-style boobs' for ten days after undergoing laser eye surgery. Mark Bryan, 45, experienced the bizarre visions following treatment for diabetic retinopathy, a complication of his type 1 diabetes.
Mr Bryan, a retired teacher from Redbridge, said the image, which he nicknamed 'Taloula', would appear without warning, much like a 'jumpscare'. He likened the experience to having 'Pamela Anderson pinned to my face'. The hallucinations occurred up to 20 times a day, even when his eyes were closed.
The visions were so distracting that Mr Bryan was too embarrassed to leave his house for two days, as the image superimposed itself on people he saw in public. He found that concentrating intensely or swearing loudly could temporarily make the hallucination disappear.
After ten days, the visions faded. On October 8, an optician diagnosed Mr Bryan with Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS), a rare condition causing hallucinations after vision loss, unrelated to mental health. The hallucinations were triggered by a bubble of air placed in his eye during surgery to help heal his macula; the wobbling of the bubble gave the image a 'very animated' appearance.
As the bubble reduced over three weeks, the hallucination diminished, eventually resembling 'a topless man'. A repeat procedure in September did not cause a recurrence. Mr Bryan said: 'That makes me feel like a bit of a perv. It's embarrassing, but you've got to have a bit of a laugh.'
