A mother-of-two who went into a ‘trance-like’ state whenever there was a full moon has been diagnosed with a rare mental health disorder.
The woman would reportedly ‘act strangely’ during a full moon event, and start speaking in a different voice, sit unusually still and sob uncontrollably.
The episodes often began without warning, her family said, and would last up to two hours — with the woman appearing to be ‘possessed’.
The 55-year-old housewife, who was from India, was treated by local alternative medicine practitioners for seven years before finally being admitted to the hospital.
Doctors there ran tests on her liver, kidneys and brain, which all came back normal — but a psychiatric evaluation revealed she had been suffering from depression since her adolescence.
She also told doctors she was suffering from low energy, feelings of hopelessness and social withdrawal. This, combined with her erratic behavior, led to a diagnosis of ‘trance and possession disorder’ (TPD) — a state of altered consciousness and inconsistent behavior — with dysthymia — a moderate form of depression.
The woman was started on anti-depressants, and she went to weekly psychotherapy sessions to help improve her symptoms.
Over the next few months, her condition gradually improved and the periods where she appeared ‘possessed’ became less frequent.
A woman in India who said she was ‘possessed’ was diagnosed with a mental health condition (stock image)
Revealing the case report in the journal Cureus, her doctors — from the Datta Meghe Institute of Higher Education in Maharashtra, India — said: ‘Psychotherapy played a crucial role in helping her understand the link between her depressive tendencies and trance episodes.
‘She learned effective coping strategies and assertiveness skills to manage stress and emotional triggers, which contributed to her overall well-being.’
They added: ‘The delay in seeking treatment for TPD, secondary to stigma (mainly observed in rural areas), can worsen the patient’s symptoms.’
TPD is a rare condition with no known estimates of how many people suffer from it.
It is often typified by patients experiencing an extreme narrowing or loss of awareness of their surroundings, leading to a lack of responsiveness and uncontrollable movement of the limbs or fingers and toes.
In the International Classification of Diseases codes (ICD), the global system used to define diseases, TPD is described as when an individual’s sense of personal identity ‘is replaced by an external “possessing” identity and in which the individual’s behaviors or movements are experienced as being controlled by the possessing agent’.
The woman in the case report was brought to the hospital by her daughter, who said her mother was also experiencing regular headaches, low mood, difficulty performing daily tasks, sleep difficulties and withdrawn behavior.
She had no history of drug abuse, according to members of her family and close social circle.
Her episodes of ‘possession’ would most commonly occur during a full moon, the family said, but could happen at any time during the day.
Some studies have suggested that a full moon affects sleep, possibly leading to less sleep overall and less deep and REM sleep.
This disruption can lead to someone being much more tired during the day, raising the risk of problems with concentration, exhaustion and conditions like psychosis — or a loss of touch with reality.
A larger study from 2015 involving 2,125 people, however, found no association between sleep and the lunar cycles.
In 2022, scientists revealed a similar TPD case in a woman from Poland.
The woman, who was a Roman Catholic, would at times suffer from a lack of control over sexual impulses and alterations of consciousness and was put through an exorcism before help was sought from doctors.
Revealing the case, doctors warned other physicians to avoid using the word ‘possession’, saying it was ‘burdened with social consequences’ and can ‘reinforce patients’ beliefs about the supernatural.’
