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Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

TulipTree

Gone But Not Forgotten
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The idea for this thread was caused by the concern I felt while reading the "Big/Small" posts. In no way do I mean this as a blanket explanation for all paranormal experiences, but I feel that those who are still experiencing these sensations as adults should have a place to go where they can compare these sensations to the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy or TLE.

I'll get into the symptoms in just a moment. First I want to say that absence seizures are relatively common in children. Using my own unscientific reasoning and your posts, I'm guessing that other types of seizures are fairly common in children as well. Just because you felt these sensations as a child, does not mean they're going to continue into adulthood.

Secondly, in testing for seizures, the clinicians use a few techniques to induce them. One is encouraging you to hyperventilate, another is to flash a strobe light. Many people have reported feeling these sensations while doing experiments in breathing such as meditation exercises. Many have also reported having these experiences in the car where the movement past trees and objects cause a kind of strobe affect.

Lastly, (this is all so formal, isn't it?) I want to talk about the stage between sleeping and waking. For me, this is the most dangerous time and where I have experienced the majority of my gran mals. Sleep in general is very difficult for me. From what I've read this makes sense because the function of the temporal lobes (memory, emotion) are related to the function of dreaming. It would also make sense that these symptoms are experienced not only while sleeping but in that wonderful, frightening state between dreaming and waking.

With that out of the way, I want to get on to the symptoms. The difference between someone with TLE and, say, schizophrenia is that TLE hallucinations usually last somewhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. They then go away leaving you scratching your head or with anxiety depending on how comfortable you feel about your own sanity or how many "True Tales of the Paranormal" you've read. A common general symptom is a funny feeling in your stomach, a rising, floaty, nauseating sensation. Another common symptom is apparantly a buzzing sound.

Someone with Left Temporal Lobe epilepsy is likely to experience a lot of memory hallucinations, things will appear familiar when they're not or unfamiliar when they are, including seconds long periods of amnesia. Left TLE seizures are often accompanied by bursts of out of place emotion like euphoria or a sense of doom like something terrible is going to happen.

Someone with Right Temporal Lobe epilepsy is likely to experience aural and visual hallucinations. They might hear music when there isn't any, or a voice. This isn't the schizophrenic type that interacts with you, it's more like hearing a memory. The visual hallucinations are very much like the big/small sensations in that they have to do with spatial relations. Since I don't have Right TLE I don't know if the strong out of place emotions accompany these hallucinations, but I assume they do.

If you suspect you have TLE it wouldn't hurt to see a doctor. While many people with TLE function just fine without medication and even enjoy their seizures as a kind of drug experience without the hastle of actual hallucinagins, there is the risk that your seizures could generalize into gran mals. The neurological term is called "kindling" in that once an area of your brain has reached an out of control active state, it's easier for it to spread to other areas. For those of you who say "I don't have epilepsy, I can induce these sensations at will." all I can say is "So can I." Your brain is a remarkable tool that forges pathways of learning. Congratulations, you've "learned" how to induce your own seizure in that a handy pathway is there just waiting for the right trigger. Personally, I have to be very careful about remembering actual seizures becaue this can induce a fresh one.

Here is a handy medical website.http://www.emedicine.com/NEURO/topic365.htm

That's it, my conscious is clear. :p
 
A fascinating subject, well worth a thread.

Many 'paranormal' experiences can be traced to TLE.

A fellow student recently told that he has it, but only in his sleep, and was applying for a driving licence on the basis of not having had a seizure for a few years. I hope he can get one as he's a super chap.
 
Thanks, Escargot and Welcome Back! I was thinking of adding a follow up post (because my first wasn't long enough ;) - oh someone please shut me up!) that shows examples from my own life how the hallucinations can and can't be mistaken for paranormal activity by the person having them.

I hope your friend gets his license. Sleep seizures are really common with TLE so I wouldn't be surprised if what he says is true. I drive now that I'm medicated. If I'm extra tired I won't drive just to be safe. Once you're brain's slipped out of your control, it's just hard to get that confidence back again.
 
What I'd worry about, re TLE, is having a seizure in the bath.
This uneasy feeling was reinforced on the day of my conversation with the colleague by an episode of The Bill that night which featured exactly that scenario :eek!!!!:
 
Tulip Tree said:
Someone with Left Temporal Lobe epilepsy is likely to experience a lot of memory hallucinations, things will appear familiar when they're not or unfamiliar when they are, including seconds long periods of amnesia.
Patients may experience depersonalization (ie, feeling of detachment from oneself) or derealization (ie, surroundings appear unreal).
I used to experience a lot of déjà vu. I have often (not so much anymore) experienced derealization/depersonalization. I'd realize that my body, mind, soul, friends and loved ones, the Earth, and the entire Universe do not exist - never have, never will – and that what I see before is one big, sickening lie. The thing is I don’t see this experience as a disorder. Even reflecting back on my depersonalizations/derealizations now, I have the sense I was glimpsing the sad but true nature of reality. I had not seen the Matrix. I hadn’t been exposed to any Gnostic philosophy either. The emotion that accompanies this (de)realization is like a combination of hopeless despair and ultimate cynicism - DISillusionment. A feeling of sickness in my stomach, a headache, and maybe a feeling of faintness usually accompanied this realization, IIRC. It’s hard to recall because I wouldn’t have been concerned about something as inconsequential as a headache in such a state.

Left TLE seizures are often accompanied by…a sense of doom like something terrible is going to happen.

Someone with Right Temporal Lobe epilepsy is likely to experience aural and visual hallucinations. They might hear music when there isn't any, or a voice…like hearing a memory.
I’ve experienced both of these in that stage of consciousness that’s smack dab in the middle of being awake and being asleep. I can only recall waking up to that sense of impending doom twice in my early childhood. Each time, it was followed by nightmarish hallucinations.
 
I have pretty much all the symptoms of left TLE, though my diagnosis is of a dissociative disorder.

Strangely enough I was talking to my therapist today and she was saying how in really bad cases the dissociated part of your mind can induce siezures (thank god, it's never happened to me).

I do sometimes suffer from amnesia, often I can be in a car with a friend going somewhere then I realise that I can't remember where we're going, things like that happen a lot, then it comes back to me after maybe 10-15 seconds.

The most annoying thing though is a feeling like 'fuzz' in my head, that I will be so glad to get rid of.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I have pretty much all the symptoms of left TLE, though my diagnosis is of a dissociative disorder.

Strangely enough I was talking to my therapist today and she was saying how in really bad cases the dissociated part of your mind can induce siezures (thank god, it's never happened to me).

I do sometimes suffer from amnesia, often I can be in a car with a friend going somewhere then I realise that I can't remember where we're going, things like that happen a lot, then it comes back to me after maybe 10-15 seconds.

The most annoying thing though is a feeling like 'fuzz' in my head, that I will be so glad to get rid of.
Have you ever had an EEG? I know that at times having TLE, especially before I was diagnosed, could wreak havoc on my social life, school and career plans. Someone might have thought I was dissociating when really I was taking a big step back from commitment because I was afraid I would eventually go crazy. My seizures would come in clusters usually when things were going really well. This meant that I was really pushing and making myself tired, but I didn't know it at the time. It just seemed like fate hated me and wanted to hold me back. It was always a real downer.

Misdiagnosis is common for TLE. Two people I know of were even diagnosed with Narcolepsy because the seizures are so 'dreamy' and make you so tired. The neuro-psychologist I saw for awhile said I was lucky that I didn't end up as being misdiagnosed as bi-polar and being given the wrong treatments. The misdiagnosis would have been easy because TLE does induce short bursts of strong emotions.

I'll get the 'fuzz' in my head after even partial seizures. Like a gelatinous thickness it's hard to think and respond through. I'd always associated it with being tired and now I see it as a 'post-ictal' or 'post-seizure' reaction. I don't know if it's because the brain actually gets tired or if it's almost a sleep state that's been activated that won't easily shut off again.
 
Re: Re: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Bannik said:
I used to experience a lot of déjà vu. I have often (not so much anymore) experienced derealization/depersonalization. I'd realize that my body, mind, soul, friends and loved ones, the Earth, and the entire Universe do not exist - never have, never will – and that what I see before is one big, sickening lie. The thing is I don’t see this experience as a disorder. Even reflecting back on my depersonalizations/derealizations now, I have the sense I was glimpsing the sad but true nature of reality. I had not seen the Matrix. I hadn’t been exposed to any Gnostic philosophy either. The emotion that accompanies this (de)realization is like a combination of hopeless despair and ultimate cynicism - DISillusionment. A feeling of sickness in my stomach, a headache, and maybe a feeling of faintness usually accompanied this realization, IIRC. It’s hard to recall because I wouldn’t have been concerned about something as inconsequential as a headache in such a state.

I’ve experienced both of these in that stage of consciousness that’s smack dab in the middle of being awake and being asleep. I can only recall waking up to that sense of impending doom twice in my early childhood. Each time, it was followed by nightmarish hallucinations.
You're describing my first partial seizures at around 11 or 12 - without the deep philosophical thoughts of course. It started as dreams about numbers, the numbers would fall and it was my job to keep them falling in an orderly way. If I didn't, something terrible would happen. Always the numbers would go out of control. The dreams were always accompanied by that sickening feeling. I now believe this was symbolic of my seizure disorder. A short time later, I had my first waking partial seizure. I was in our basement in front of our chalkboard and the world just turned unreal around me. Everything seemed to pulse with that numbers rythymn. When I came out of it, I just ran outside. I was so afraid that this was a sign that I was going to go insane.

I am also really prone to hypnogogic hallucinations. When I was younger, I sleep-walked, talked in my sleep, and had night terrors. The time between sleeping and waking is sometimes really horrible for me and the time when I've had the majority of my gran mals.
 
escargot said:
What I'd worry about, re TLE, is having a seizure in the bath.
This uneasy feeling was reinforced on the day of my conversation with the colleague by an episode of The Bill that night which featured exactly that scenario :eek!!!!:
Yeah, I barely escaped dying once (pun intended). :D I was really tired and had gone back to sleep after seeing spouse off for the day. Big mistake. I can never wake up fully and go back to sleep within an hour without seizures.

I got in the shower right away on waking the second time and felt an aura. I thought, well it could just be a complex partial or it could generalize, I'd better get out just in case. My plan was to sit on the hallway floor just in case. I woke up two hours later in bed with a nasty gash on my back. The shower was still running and I was still naked. Thinking back, I vaguely remembered getting up off the kitchen floor saying "I really should drink like that" and stumbling off to bed. In my confusion, I had skipped the hallway, made it to the kitchen, fell against the cupboard edge, bit my tongue, and gashed my back. Having the usual post gran mal amnesia, I just assumed I was still in my early 20s and having a youthful drinking binge.

Unfortunately, that day time gran mal was a break through seizure that led to another waking gran mal where I hit my head again. I haven't been as smart since. I can really feel the loss. I don't know whether the lack of smarts is from the seizures, the concussions, or the medications.
 
I read a book this year called "Phantoms of the Brain" by a Dr Ramachandran. Twas an excellent booke which encompassed this topic and much more. I would highly recommend anyone interested in abberant brain function have a look at this.
 
Re: Re: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Bannik said:
I used to experience a lot of déjà vu. I have often (not so much anymore) experienced derealization/depersonalization. I'd realize that my body, mind, soul, friends and loved ones, the Earth, and the entire Universe do not exist - never have, never will – and that what I see before is one big, sickening lie. The thing is I don’t see this experience as a disorder. Even reflecting back on my depersonalizations/derealizations now, I have the sense I was glimpsing the sad but true nature of reality.
Similar to what is being discussed in other threads regarding hallucinagens and paranormal experiences, I think that misfiring in the brain can lead to profound experiences. What you were saying reminded me of some posting from a board when I was "Complex Partial" and was specifically trying to figure out how different my experiences were from people who don't have TLE.

I hope Phillip and the gang don't mind me posting a link to a thread on trancework.

http://pub66.ezboard.com/fthepeanutsgangfrm6.showMessageRange?topicID=22.topic&start=1&stop=20

I think how profound and enlightening the experiences are depend on you personally. For me, they just made me hope that I ended up in a nice institution and not on the street. For St. Paul (if he did have TLE from falling on his head), he may have assumed the hallucinations were proof of God's approval or disapproval - this was, afterall, a man who would literally kill for God before his accident so God would be seen as the source of his dream states. For you, IF your brain is misfiring (big IF because you haven't been diagnosed or had an EEG and this is just speculation), the experiences might lead to a questioning of the nature of reality because you're a deep and thoughtful person with an organized mind.
 
For you, IF your brain is misfiring the experiences might lead to a questioning of the nature of reality because you're a deep and thoughtful person with an organized mind.
And you're not?:hah: Come on, give yourself some credit. ;)
 
Bannik said:
And you're not?:hah: Come on, give yourself some credit. ;)
I thank you! :eek: I just mean that I'm not much into philosophy, and as a child I never really questioned the nature of reality. I just believed that there was some physical cause, something wrong with me, which to me at the time could only mean looming insanity.

Besides the fact that people interpret the intense bursts of emotions differently based on their own world views, there is another reason why people with TLE aren't easily diagnosed and why they sometimes blaim the paranormal for their experiences. Look at this list of symptoms.

List One:
1. Dejavu: for me, a strong feeling that I've dreamed this moment before.
2. Euphoria
3. A feeling a doom
4. A sense of strong and important meaning.
The above partial seizure would often hit me in a rush of intense feeling leaving me wondering what it meant. It seemed to mean that I was psychic and dreaming the future. The only thing that made it unbelievable was that it so often involved a really mundane moment and if some terrible or good happened it was because of something I had, or hadn't done before that moment. It seemed to me that if I had a psychic gift it would be more useful at the moment I was screwing up then after the fact. With lack of evidence that this was a true psychic gift I was just left with a confusing symptom that I was reluctant to discuss with my Dr.

List Two:
1. Wernicke's Syndrome: otherwise known as word salad where your words come out out of order.
2. Fuzzy headed or tired.
3. Verbosity: I'm not really sure what this means, probably what I'm doing right now ;)
Wernicke's Syndrome would hit me on bad seizure weeks, along with being just plain tired and fuzzy headed. That coupled with the fact that I was normally pretty quick on my feet with speech and humor (and verbose?) made me appear inconsistent and I was afraid people thought I was on drugs. I blamed myself for this, that I was just undisciplined and "unwilling" to focus as well as other people.

List Three:
1. Seizures between sleeping and waking
It was impossible to convince a Dr. that these were seizures because the Dr. would say "sleep paralysis". It didn't matter how much I tried to explain these were painful, tooth chattering, twitching, uneven breathing episodes. This left me feeling like a hypochondriac.

Instead of seeing a relationship with these three lists, I thought of myself as an unbalanced, undisciplined, hypochondriac, psychic wannabe. I was only diagnosed because I'd finally gotten married at age 29 and my husband saw me having a sleeping gran mal. After my EEG confirmed the TLE diagnosis, I realized how connected all these symptoms were. I also realized, based on how I felt, that this was not the first time I had had a sleeping gran mal. The familiar post ictal symptoms explained a sometimes debilitating tired, fuzzy headedness, that I would wake up with "out of nowhere" and that would take a few days to go away.
 
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