Movie quality over the years has improved to the point where the hyperrealism of IMAX and 4k and 48 FPS such as you’d find in an Avatar or Hobbit movie make the scenes less artistic and move immersive. Gone is the motion blur of 24 FPS and Standard Definition television. Lewy Body Dementia turns all that up to 11.
The hallucinations caused by Lewy Body Dementia are the worst of the symptoms in my opinion. They can’t be banished or ignored. There’s no Beautiful Mind method of dealing with them, though I suppose every sufferer goes through the motions at first of pretending they don’t exist. My father kept them hidden from us at first, but eventually he let it slip. Suddenly I understood all the stares he’d give my food as I prepared it. Cocking his head to one side Dad squinted out of one eye while examining the dish with the other. A confirmed germaphobe, he often expressed opinions about the cleanliness or purity of a dish. I endured this examination because I thought it gave him some measure of peace. My father taught me how to cook and I assumed he was inspecting his handiwork. Now I realize his gaze more than likely filled him with horror as the skillet writhed and contorted like a hidden chamber in an Indiana Jones movie.
My mother’s struggle with LBD has been somewhat different than my father’s. While he hid his hallucinations from us early on she was the exact opposite. Mom immediately told me the day they appeared. She described them as “spider webs” that hung in the air or covered the walls. It was here we learned her vocabulary, never very extensive, began to shrink. The word she couldn’t find was doily, those small white lace drink coasters from days gone by. Upon waking they’d appear in mid-air while she slowly exited sleep. At first we thought of them as a visual artifact on her eyes, but visits to the optometrist proved they were not physical. Then we treated them as if they were an artifact born of conflicting medicine, but a full clean out of all medicines, including her chemo pill for breast cancer, did not banish them.
Mom has a passion for certain styles of art, notably things in the style of Rembrandt or more classical paintings like The Lady of Shallot. The spiderwebs transitioned to mathematical formulae and charcoal drawings because of this painting.
One day she called to tell me her walls were covered in math and this is the painting I think generated those hallucinations. LBD patients don’t always realize their visions come from their surroundings. But the kicker for her was when the pictures themselves animate to the point where they speak to her. Even today she’ll tell me “Gabriel is talking to me.” Gabriel comes from this painting:
He turns his head to look at her, sometimes smiling, but always with his mouth moving in silent speech. Today her hallucinations can make some noise, but generally they are silent. Photographs of us as children speak to her all the time. She actually enjoys those moments, especially when our older brother who passed in 2004 begins to speak to her.
Solid objects can generate motion as well. We gave Mom a small Christmas tree this year but the lights on it danced so much and the ornaments morphed into squirrels and when she covered the tree with a towel the squirrels would knock it off. She called me in a panic demanding someone come to remove the tree.
And some medicines like quetiapine (Seroquel) make them even worse. Parkinson’s medications that affect the neurotransmitters can also enhance the effect. There’s simply no escape from the previews or the main feature in this theater.
The movie never ends for these people. Every surface become a screen, every box a television, and every frame a window into madness. And an infection like a UTI will send the patient into a raging series of visions that only serves to jack their anxiety up to insane levels. There is no escape and the patient is left trying to explain to friends and family how real they are. Mom will send me pictures at least once a week, asking me if I see the offending interlopers. What do you say when someone asks you if you can see their hallucination? Don’t lie, but you don’t have to scold them either. When it doesn’t matter it’s probably okay to indulge a little. When she sees my brother I smile and say “isn’t that a nice surprise?” When she sees a demon dog I say “Well, the good thing is it isn’t real, Mom. Try to poke it with your cane and it will go away.”
I know one day it will not go away. One day she will swing at the dog and it will growl and stay, staring at her from the other side. But for now it’s a game of diminishing lies, which I will continue to tell until reality can no longer sooth her.
Maybe then this movie will end.