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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
Morning all
I'm going to try to explain this but it doesn't make much sense to me so I should imagine that it won't to you either but here goes:
Every morning for the past 2 weeks, I've woken up with this weird sense that I'm still asleep and dreaming. I have been having disruptive daydreams when awake that terrorize me all the time. I can't think. These images just seem to come into my head and give me a sense of dread and impending doom and I get anxious and have a raging panic attack. This morning I almost fainted. i got so dizzy and scared. I feel like I'm really losing it. Talk about your unreality! It's very overwhelming to feel that you can't stop the thoughts and images from taking over. I see flashes like images under a strobe light. They aren't coherant but I know they terrify me. I don't know what this is?
I have panic disorder but this isn't like any panic attack I've had before. These make me feel like I'm really going to go mad and be carted away. Does anyone have an explanation better than this? Do you know what this is?
I'm really worried
thanks
tina
Posted by dreamer on June 29, 2001, at 10:13:08
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
> Morning all
> I'm going to try to explain this but it doesn't make much sense to me so I should imagine that it won't to you either but here goes:
> Every morning for the past 2 weeks, I've woken up with this weird sense that I'm still asleep and dreaming. I have been having disruptive daydreams when awake that terrorize me all the time. I can't think. These images just seem to come into my head and give me a sense of dread and impending doom and I get anxious and have a raging panic attack. This morning I almost fainted. i got so dizzy and scared. I feel like I'm really losing it. Talk about your unreality! It's very overwhelming to feel that you can't stop the thoughts and images from taking over. I see flashes like images under a strobe light. They aren't coherant but I know they terrify me. I don't know what this is?
> I have panic disorder but this isn't like any panic attack I've had before. These make me feel like I'm really going to go mad and be carted away. Does anyone have an explanation better than this? Do you know what this is?
> I'm really worried
> thanks
> tinaHi again Tina,
Seems like I've been suffering something similar but without the panic after but it does switch my mood.
The annoying thing is its as if I'm still dreaming [not daydreams]in the background when awake .Pictures surface, flash but as soon as I try to recall it it goes away again .I would dismiss them normally but often they seem dark, spooky. I suppose its similar to an annoying tune a catchy one that you hate playing over and over in your head and the only way to get rid of it is to sing the whole damn thing loud ~thats if you can remember it.
I wish I had an answer~ bye for now
Posted by JennyR on June 29, 2001, at 17:11:16
In reply to Re: What is This?? Anybody? » tina, posted by dreamer on June 29, 2001, at 10:13:08
The part about the light flashes sounds like "visual trails" which some meds can cause. I had it when I was on the max dose of Serzone. I can't say about the rest, but if you're on new meds or a new dosage or a new combination, it can be doing strange things to you.
Posted by Shar on June 29, 2001, at 20:43:49
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
Hi, T:
My therapist would refer to what you're experiencing as dissociation. According to her, it can come in varying degrees and be as simple as not "remembering" someone's name after 6 weeks of group or as complex as something akin to blackouts. In the middle are all the experiences of us ending up in places we don't remember going, or talking to someone and hearing it as if from a distance, or experiencing an out-of-body sort of feeling (similar to your description).Dissociation, as I understand it from my therapist's perspective, occurs when being in the here and now is too anxiety provoking, or too painful, or REMINDS us of a situation that was overwhelming, anxiety provoking, painful.
When it happens in our group, she just asks us to "come into the room." Sit and put our feet on the floor, feel the floor, breathe, breathe, breathe, look at people there, look at surroundings, etc. So we sort of get back in our bodies.
Then deal with the anxiety or whatever provoked the experience if we know. Deal with it using a "here and now" perspective. Hard to do, I know. So easy to slip out of the present.
Hope this eases up for you.
Take care,
Shar> Morning all
> I'm going to try to explain this but it doesn't make much sense to me so I should imagine that it won't to you either but here goes:
> Every morning for the past 2 weeks, I've woken up with this weird sense that I'm still asleep and dreaming. I have been having disruptive daydreams when awake that terrorize me all the time. I can't think. These images just seem to come into my head and give me a sense of dread and impending doom and I get anxious and have a raging panic attack. This morning I almost fainted. i got so dizzy and scared. I feel like I'm really losing it. Talk about your unreality! It's very overwhelming to feel that you can't stop the thoughts and images from taking over. I see flashes like images under a strobe light. They aren't coherant but I know they terrify me. I don't know what this is?
> I have panic disorder but this isn't like any panic attack I've had before. These make me feel like I'm really going to go mad and be carted away. Does anyone have an explanation better than this? Do you know what this is?
> I'm really worried
> thanks
> tina
Posted by medlib on June 29, 2001, at 21:41:30
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
Hi Tina--
What you describe sounds like pure hell! Assuming that you've had no recent med changes that might be triggering these waking nightmares, it might be time for a neurologist consult.
Am I remembering rightly that this is a particularly high stress time for you? High stress can trigger many disorders, including:
- a PTSD episode (if you've suffered from that in the past) which can manifest as visual hallucinations/unreality, or
- SSE (Subsyndromal Epilepsy). Dr. Bob's Tips includes a good indicator/prediagnostic questionnaire you might want to check out at:
http://www.dr-bob.org/tips/isse.html
If this seems like a possibility to you, you'll want to check it out with a neurologist who specializes in epilepsy. Have you ever taken Depakote as an antidepressant? It's prescribed frequently for SSE or partial seizures.I've recently survived an 11 day period of severe twice daily anxiety/panic attacks accompanied by EPS (extrapyramidal symptoms) which were triggered by a trial of Geodon. Each attack lasted about an hour. Never having experienced anything like that before, I wasn't all that confident that I could survive them--and, after having several, I wasn't sure that I wanted to. Now, even though they're finally over, I still feel exhausted and traumatized.
I hope that you're able to find something that can halt the horror. You're in my thoughts---medlib
Posted by Willow on June 29, 2001, at 22:23:37
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
It's probably "just" the anxiety. I usually get all the lovely physcial stuff. I've had the weird dream stuff too during fevers, starting medications, and sometimes it's just there when I'm worse for wear. Wish I could take it away or give some advice. Maybe it's a "Canuk" thing, too much raw beaver meat when we were children?
Do you get migraines? I've found after I had the children my migraines stopped, but I still get auros etc.
Willow
Posted by Anna Laura on June 30, 2001, at 7:43:02
In reply to What is This?? Anybody?, posted by tina on June 29, 2001, at 9:40:40
> Morning all
> I'm going to try to explain this but it doesn't make much sense to me so I should imagine that it won't to you either but here goes:
> Every morning for the past 2 weeks, I've woken up with this weird sense that I'm still asleep and dreaming. I have been having disruptive daydreams when awake that terrorize me all the time. I can't think. These images just seem to come into my head and give me a sense of dread and impending doom and I get anxious and have a raging panic attack. This morning I almost fainted. i got so dizzy and scared. I feel like I'm really losing it. Talk about your unreality! It's very overwhelming to feel that you can't stop the thoughts and images from taking over. I see flashes like images under a strobe light. They aren't coherant but I know they terrify me. I don't know what this is?
> I have panic disorder but this isn't like any panic attack I've had before. These make me feel like I'm really going to go mad and be carted away. Does anyone have an explanation better than this? Do you know what this is?
> I'm really worried
> thanks
> tinaHi Tina,
I think i know what you're talking about. I've suffered from this strange discomforting "problem" since i was a child.
It occured very rarely though (two or three times a year).
I've read somewhere that it's connected to temporal lobe discharges (it might be a benign form of epilepsy). My sister is epileptic, what about your family/realtives?
Even if they were quite infrequent, i can recall those "crisis" very vividly. It's difficult to explain, I'm aware that this is going to sound kind of funny, but i'll try to describe it anyway.
Well, these "crisis" occured every time as soon as i woke up: it was like the proportions of "things" (objects, sounds and even more immaterial things like thoughts) were growing "abnormal".
I wasn't hallucinating though: it wasn't a visual thing but rather a perception-kind-of-thing . it was like my body perception "grew" wider and wider and all of a sudden i was big as the whole house : sometimes only small parts of my body "grew " bigger. (do you recall Alice in Wonderland when she ate the magic mushroom and all of a sudden her neck got stretched and grew higher and higher so that she reached the top of the trees?). This perception would switch abruptly, feeling my body growing smaller and smaller , ending up feeling like a tiny little bug. It was scary, and worst thing of all, i felt like i was paralyzed, could barely move: this horrible thing would crush me down. One morning a try to sing a song and it went away. Later on i found out that i could control it a little bit by reciting a poem, catching a piece of paper and writing anything down or by calculating (doing addictions etc...).
Sometimes sounds were twisted; other times perception of objects in my bed-room grew bigger and bigger up to the point they would "fit" the whole bed-room.... i know, it's hard to explain, hope it didn't sound too weird/difficult to understand.
Well, this is my experience so far....
Posted by Willow on June 30, 2001, at 9:00:42
In reply to Re: What is This?? Anybody?, posted by Anna Laura on June 30, 2001, at 7:43:02
I wonder if somehow it is related to fainting. As a child before I knew enough to watch overheating, I use to blackout from overheat. Everything use to close in until the centre of what I was looking at would disappear, by then I had blacked out. But the expanding thing sounds similar to this except the opposite phenomena.
Then when I got a fever, heat again, everything visual would be distorted. My hearing was fine and I would still be able to talk and rationalize. As I got older the perceptions, all visual, changed again. Everything would turn to different shades of orange and I would lose my legs and almost passs out but be able to fight it. It finally progressed to the point where I would be half dreaming/half awake. This I call my psychotic phases because I wouldn't always be rational.
Weird stuff the brain can do!
Split Willow
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