We call it pattern recognition. A lot of it is hallucination.

Last week, we wrapped up our series, The 5 Minute Deck Review. But before I move on, I want to share something that recently happened, because it reframes what we’ve been talking about.

My grandma recently turned 98. A few weeks ago, she was rushed to the hospital, and I jumped on a plane to be with her.

What the doctors found wasn’t illness. It was her brain compensating for severe macular degeneration with something called Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Deprived of visual input, her brain generates its own. She sees people, nature, and patterns that aren’t really there. Like phantom limb syndrome, the brain doesn’t just accept absence. It fills the gap with what it expects to see.

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