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Mental disorders affect millions of people around the world, especially in urban societies, where the stress of living can easily wreak havoc on the mind.
The latest Singapore Mental Health Study reported that 12 per cent of people in Singapore will have some kind of mental disorder in their lifetime.
For most, mental illness will hit by the time they are 29 years old.
However, while most will suffer from more familiar mental disorders such as depression and alcohol abuse, others may encounter conditions that are downright mind boggling and the stuff of fiction.
One such condition (which might not be that surprising in view of the Twilight mania) is Cotard’s Syndrome.
Sufferers of this condition believe that they are dead, non-existent, putrefying and/or devoid of blood or internal organs.
For some, it can even exacerbate into delusions of immortality.
Or have you heard of Stendhal Syndrome, where you are literally left breathless by beauty?
Stendhal Syndrome is a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to extreme beauty.
As strange as they sound, many of these conditions have been medically studies and verified, such as the Foreign Accent Syndrome."
This syndrome, whereby sufferers mysteriously acquire a foreign accent after they experience a head trauma or accident, has 60 recorded cases between 1941 and 2009.
In 2011, Huffington Post reported that a woman from Newport, Oregon, emerged from oral surgery with an Irish accent.
Here’s a compilation of some of the strangest and disturbing conditions of the human mind: