I occasionally get Ocular Migraines, or "auras" They are a weird thing that few people have heard of. Physiologically, they are related to migraines in that if you catch one in an MRI, you see a sweeping electrical blackout traveling across the brain and the resumption of signal in the aftermath is what they think causes the headache pain of a migraine or the visual disruption of the aura.
Some people have mirgraines with aura. Some have just migraine. And some like me get the aura alone.
It's a strange and unnerving sensation. First you get a sort of uneasy vertigo, just mild, but you tense up knowing what's coming...
Then you get a spot in your vision, usually in the center of one eye, or so it seems. If you close that eye, the aura remains "in your vision" but the brain processes it as belonging to one eye.
The spot is usually triangular kaleidoscope-like patterns, colorful and flashing. It grows in size and then at a certain point the middle of it starts to clear and it continues growing as a ring; still colorful and flashing geometric lights.
During this time your brain seems to say, "this could really hurt, you know. If I flip this one switch you'll feel it all. In fact, your body does feel it, I'm just not telling you." Because your body does tense and feel like it is using a ton of energy. Meanwhile, it's really hard to read anything or concentrate because of the visual disruption and the feeling of impending excruciation. You _can_ drive, such as getting to an exit and pulling over, or continuing if you are on uncrowded freeway, but it's distracting, so if I have a co-driver I'll pull over and switch.
After about 20 minutes, the visual disruption expands beyond the field of view. But in the aftermath you feel exhausted, drained and "bruised" as you would if there had been actual pain.
Weird stuff.
Anyway, in case you ever were curious about these things, that's it. I only get them a couple of times a year, and I may have even posted about them before. But they fascinate me, so I'm deciding to post about it again. That weird electrical blackout line, the predictability of the patterns, the shape of the visual disruption, it's progression from central spot to annular growth, the location, the duration and the aftermath.
Some people have mirgraines with aura. Some have just migraine. And some like me get the aura alone.
It's a strange and unnerving sensation. First you get a sort of uneasy vertigo, just mild, but you tense up knowing what's coming...
Then you get a spot in your vision, usually in the center of one eye, or so it seems. If you close that eye, the aura remains "in your vision" but the brain processes it as belonging to one eye.
The spot is usually triangular kaleidoscope-like patterns, colorful and flashing. It grows in size and then at a certain point the middle of it starts to clear and it continues growing as a ring; still colorful and flashing geometric lights.
During this time your brain seems to say, "this could really hurt, you know. If I flip this one switch you'll feel it all. In fact, your body does feel it, I'm just not telling you." Because your body does tense and feel like it is using a ton of energy. Meanwhile, it's really hard to read anything or concentrate because of the visual disruption and the feeling of impending excruciation. You _can_ drive, such as getting to an exit and pulling over, or continuing if you are on uncrowded freeway, but it's distracting, so if I have a co-driver I'll pull over and switch.
After about 20 minutes, the visual disruption expands beyond the field of view. But in the aftermath you feel exhausted, drained and "bruised" as you would if there had been actual pain.
Weird stuff.
Anyway, in case you ever were curious about these things, that's it. I only get them a couple of times a year, and I may have even posted about them before. But they fascinate me, so I'm deciding to post about it again. That weird electrical blackout line, the predictability of the patterns, the shape of the visual disruption, it's progression from central spot to annular growth, the location, the duration and the aftermath.
