Frightening visual hallucinations: atypical presentation of Charles Bonnet syndrome triggered by the Black Saturday bushfires.

Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) is a disorder in which psychologically normal people, often with vision impairment, experience complex visual hallucinations. The hallucinations are purely visual and do not occur in any other sensory modality, and people with CBS have full insight into the unreal nature of the hallucinations. This report describes the case of a CBS sufferer who experienced a distressing change in the nature of her visual hallucinations following a stressful event--the Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009.