Serbian woman's rare brain condition: She sees the world upside down
By Michael Walsh
Bojana Danilovic, 28, sees everything the wrong way up because of the unusual way her brain processes images. She uses a special upside-down computer screen and keyboard.
Rare condition: flipped vision creates a Wonderland perspective.
A Serbian woman who sees the world upside down has neurology experts at MIT and Harvard scratching their heads.
Bojana Danilovic, 28, has a rare condition called "spatial orientation phenomenon" where a jumbled connection in her brain flips what she perceives, reported Central European News.
"They say my eyes see the images the right way up but my brain changes them," explained Danilovic.
"But they don't really seem to know exactly how it happens, just that it does and where it happens in my brain."
Danilovic, an economics expert, uses a special inverted computer screen and keyboard at her town hall job in the city of Užice. She also uses special official work forms that are easier to fill out upside down.
Because of her condition, Danilovic reads papers from the bottom up.
"It may look incredible to other people but to me it's completely normal," said Danilovic.
"I was born that way. It's just the way I see the world."
At home, her family watches a television placed upright while she watches another overturned television, which the Cambridge, Mass. scientists have never seen before.
"They told me they've seen the case histories of some people who write the way I see, but never someone quite like me," said Danilovic.
Danilovic knows no other way of perceiving her surroundings and, all things considered, the standard way of viewing the world is just as peculiar to her as her way is to most others.
mwalsh@nydailynews.com