Mirror Agnosia has been prevalent in a number of experiments with patients who have displayed signs of neglect. It has been termed Looking Glass Syndrome mostly as a link to Lewis Carolls Alice Through the Looking Glass,in which Alice shares a similarity to Neglect patients in that they inhabit a no-mans land between both illusion and reality.

To give you a more detailed understanding of Mirror Agnosia I will quote from the book Phantoms in the Brain;V Ramachandran & S Blackesless Fouth Estate London,1998,p125 , inwhich a doctor is dealing with Ellen, a stroke patient showing severe signs of neglect.

I asked her to describe her eye glasses, lipstick and clothing while looking straight into the mirror. She did so with no trouble. On receiving a cue, one of my students standing on EllenÍs left side held out a pen so that it was well within the reach of her good right hand but entirely within the neglected left visual field.......Do you see the pen?Yes,Okay, please reach out and grab it and write your name on this pad of paper Ive placed on your lap.Imagine my astonishment when Ellen lifted her right hand and without hesitation went straight for the mirror and began banging on it repeatedly. She literally clawed at it for twenty seconds and said, Its not in my reach.When I repeated it the same process 10 minutes later, she said, Its behind the mirror, and reached around and began groping with my belt buckle. A little later she even tried peeking over the edge of the mirror to look for the pen.

The author has given two interpretations of Ellens inability to recognise the mirror and they are that firstly it is caused by neglect: Its as though the patient is saying to herself, unconsciously, Since the reflection is in the mirror, the object must be on my left . But the left does not exist on my planet - therefore, the object must be inside the mirror. Second, the looking glass syndrome may not be a direct consequence of neglect, even though it is usually accompanied by neglect. We know that when the right parietal lobe is damaged, patients have all kinds of difficulties with spatial tasks, and the looking glass syndrome may simply be an especially florid manifestation of such deficits. Responding correctly to a mirror image requires you simultaneously to hold in your mind the reflection as well as the object that is producing it and then perform the required mental gymnastics to locate correctly the object that produced the reflection. This very subtle ability may be compromised by lesions in the right parietal lobe, given the important role of that structure in dealing with spatial attributes of the world.

The authors also mentioned that Lewis Caroll suffered from migraine, and suggests that if the migraine was to the right parietal lobe, it may have caused momentary confusion with mirrors thus influencing his writings of Alice. Caroll also held a fascination with mirror writing and a general obsession with mirrors.

Anyone with any experiences of Mirror Agnosia are welcomed to submit their story for inclusion in this site and my thesis . Articles may remain anonymous should you wish.