Charles Bonnet syndrome and thoughts on psychosis

I've just had a quick read of the RNIB information about this condition.
http://www.rnib.org.uk/eyehealth/eyeconditions/conditionsac/Pages/charles_bonnet.aspx

It's something that happens to people who have problems with sight. They
hallucinate. Sometimes they're relatively simple hallucinations such as
repeating patterns and other times they're scene of life or people.
According to the web page the symptoms are often short lived and often
happen near the time of significant deterioration of sight.

I've experienced the pattern or line hallucination while working in the
darkroom. The photographer's darkroom provides an unusual opportunity:
to see pitch black. A black and white film needs to be loaded from the
roll into a cannister and this has to be done without the red light.
Even the darkest nights are never true black but a proper darkroom shuts
out all the light. If I had my eyes open I'd see patterns and things
fading in and out of my sight in the pitch black. These would usually
disappear when I shut my eyes. I guessed that the mind needs to see when
the eyes are open, and in the absence of any information the mind just
started making it up.

This is another condition that confuses me about psychosis and mental
illness and the spiritual interpretations. Outside the fringes of mental
health the experience of hallucinations is rarely considered to be
anything other than a disorder or dysfunction. The RNIB factsheet
doesn't go into depth of course but I'm doubtful if there's a movement
within the blind and partially sighted community to recognise Charles
Bonnet syndrome as a positive experience which may have spiritual or
other worldly significance. It may do, but no one thinks that way. In
mental health the Hearing Voices Network, Intervoice and other
organisations consider the supposed delusions and hallucinations of
schizophrenia to have meaning, significance and are a possible
connection to the spiritual world.

I think if I started to look further into the condition I might find
cases of unusual information or alternative experiences within those
diagnoses with Charles Bonnet syndrome. It's the sort of thing few
doctors would note though. The single case study published in the
British Medical Journal of a person who had auditory hallucinations
which helped her diagnose a brain problem is the exception to the rule.
I think it's significant and not to be dismissed because I have a
background in real sciences where every anomaly has to be explained.

There's an interesting bit on the factsheet about the stigma of mental
illness.
"
> Although the condition was described almost 250 years ago, it is still
> largely unknown by ordinary doctors and nurses. This is partly because
> of a lack of knowledge about the syndrome and partly because people
> experiencing it don't talk about their problems from fear of being
> thought of as mentally ill.
"