Saturday, August 28, 2010

Abductees and migraine auras

Hi readers

Adelaide is experiencing its wettest August for 18 years. This is quite something for us here, given that a year ago we were in the grips of a long drought.

Today's post is a new area for me in some ways. I am always on the look out for scientific research which bears on the topic of UFO abductions. I was in my local library (you know I am a book nut don't you? Didn't the pile of books by my bed give that away?) the other day browsing the shelves, when I came across a book titled " Migraine Auras:When the visual world fails" by Richard Grossinger. Published by North Atlantic Books. Berkeley, CA. 2006. ISBN 978-1-55643-619-2.

I was not thinking about UFOs, simply flicking through the pages when I came across the following on page 121.

"Alien abductions"
Accounts from reputed UFO abductions have a distinct migrainoid ring to them: inexplicable lights, missing time, humanoid or animal-headed creatures-though these matters of course raise other ontological issues.

Attribution of migrainoid qualities addresses the neural components of such "close encounters," it is not to say that there are no alien abductions ...merely to note that these episodes share elements with fugues that originate in the brainstem. Encounters with aliens...might be actual metaphysical meetings and yet evoke migrainoid vestiges, falsifying the entities..."

Hold on, I thought, could there be anything to this ides? So, I borrowed the book to read it. The following are my notes which I'd like to share.

Firstly, the subject of the book is "Migraine Auras."

"In ordinary discourse migraines are pulsating, throbbing headaches with one sided pangs..." (p4.)

However, "A headache is neither a sole nor necessary nor even primary criterion of a migraine..." (p4.)

The term migraine "...is a loose confederation of altered neurological and psychomatic states within a single biophysical matrix." (p5.)

"..."Common migraines" are aura-less pulsing unilateral headaches. "Classical" migraines, by contrast, are headaches with auras." (p5.)

"Today people mostly skip the old terminology and refer to "migraine with aura" or "migraine without aura."" (p5.)

Frequency

"Current estimates are that approximately 15 per cent of migraine headache sufferers experience an initiating aura. " (p5.)

"About 20 per cent of all migraineurs report auras without headaches; and at least 3 per cent of migraineurs only experience auras, never headaches." (p6.)

The initiating event produces a flow which "...grows until it becomes a spreading moil, a mirage reliable enough to have a scientific name. It is called a scotoma (the plural is scotomata)..." (p10.)

Comment:

I was not aware, until reading this book that a person could experience a migraine aura without a headache.

What is a migraine aura?
It can be a visual effect, but can also affect any neural pathway.

"Visual distortions are the most common auras; yet auras comprise symptoms as diverse as tingling, muscular or motor weakness, hemiplegia (paralysis on one side of the body), faintness, decreased levels of consciousness, impediments to language formation and memory, lethargy, sleepiness, spasms (almost anywhere), unpleasant temperature variations (surges of both heat or cold or both simultaneously), and other spontaneous sensations...hearing...tactility...kinesthesia...and strange or wrong smells without a source..." (pp6-7.)

Examples:
1. When reading it may appear that a flaw appears in the text, which expands covering up words.
2. Flashing, zig zag patterns in either eye.
3. Loss of peripheral vision.

Complexity

"The migraineur does not know whether there are real objects behind these hallucinations, as they may develop into entire landscapes with imaginary personages and events. One sufferer regularly encountered a figure clad in black seated with his back toward him or standing at a long table." (p37.)

"...some migraineurs see expressionless faces or faces that are not faces..." (p40.)

"Advanced migrainious sensations...There may be extreme deja vu...and jamias vu...Time may also seem to be progressing in slow motion or at sonic speed...A few people experience magnification or diminution of their own body image..." (pp40-41.)

Comment:

I had no idea that there were such complex aspects to a migraine aura. The appearance of landscapes and persons is a new concept to me.

Little attention

"Despite their commonness and frequency, migraine auras become an enigma. A majority of people in the West have either never heard of them or, if they have, do not know their nature, degree of seriousness, or ubiquity. Most people who have experienced their spontaneous distortions of vision have no name for these and have gotten no diagnosis. " (p53.)

More statistics

In 2006 in the USA, 28 million suffer chronic migraines. 12 per cent experience migraines in any one year. Women outnumber men 3:1. 25% of auras occur in the age range 30-40 years.

"Migraine auras can be both early-life phenomena that decrease in frequency with age and later-life phenomena that increase in frequency with age...The former pattern is, however, more common . " (p65.)

Familial - "...roughly 25-30 per cent of offspring with a migrainious parent and 70-75 per cent of those with both migraininous parents being migrainious too..." (p65.)

Frequency - 8-10 per year, once monthly, once a week- it varies.

OBE-like?

"I noticed that the ground looked further away than usual, and then it seems that I was looking down from a height of perhaps 10 metres, watching myself crossing the field..." (p67.)

Aura onset

"Migraines are often augured by incipient sensations, an undefined prodrome that may occur days, hours or just minutes before hand..." (p69.)

Sleep and auras

"Auras may begin during sleep and elapse entirely in a dream -a pulsing light or oscillating feature in the dreamed landscape blossoms into a scotoma... The dreamer, if she awakes at this point, does so into a full-blown aura." (p82.)

"Usually one gets to escape such hallucinations by waking up, but migraines can merge with dreamscapes while retaining autonomous identity..."

Comment:

This is an extremely interesting bit of data. I'd like to see if any abductees who experience migraines would like to comment on this entire topic! Particularly the area of auras without headches, where a person may not even know they are experiencing a migraine!

Would it be possible for someone who experience only the aura and not a headache, to wake up from an attack top find strange figures int their room and perceive them as aliens?

What degree of reality does an aura have? Is it as real as real?

End of an aura

"Not only do auras (and ensuing headaches) culminate spontaneously, but their abatement is often accompanied by a variety of soothing and/or invigorating, purgative, and cleansing events. Dissolution may give rise to an outburst of tears, copious urination, a bowel movement, a fit of impressible sneezing, a discharge of sweat glands throughout the body; a nosebleed or a runny nose." (pp85-86.)

Comment:

A nosebleed. How many abductees could relate to this?

"Some people experience full hallucinations or dysphasia after scotomata have passed..." (p88.)

Example given are of a man hallucinating a hot summer day in California with his wife while he was actually with another person in New York.

Summary:

As you will see by my scattered comments, this book which is the first comprehensive compilation of material about migraine auras, may have much to relate to, and possibly explain, some apparent alien UFO abductions.

Don't forget, migraine auras are not happening in the eye but in the brain itself.

An end note

One of the concluding sections to the book is about the use of herbal medications in treating migraine sand migraine auras.

"Wood betony improves digestion,...Considered to have a grounding influence, Wood betony was the herb of choice in medieval times for demonic possession and visions and has been rediscovered in a modern context for inconsolable paranoia following UFO abductions." (p192.)

7 comments:

  1. As a migraineur (and unrelated nosebleed sufferer) this was particularly interesting. Thank you.

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  2. I dont think i ever had waking migraine auras turn into elaborate landscapes. They are always fairly simple flashing arcs , zig zags, or blotches of color. I remember having alien contact. I have had hypnogogic imagery that looked similar to migraine auras turn into dreams perhaps.

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  3. I have had abductions my entire life and been implanted twice. Once my husband and I woke up to blood all over the sheets, but none on our clothing or ourselves.( there was blood underneath us and on the top sheet covering us, even on both sides of our pillows) BUT NONE ON US!There was nothing indicating on our bodies where it came from! One time I woke up to a headache that was unbelievable! The clock said it was exactly 7:00 am and exactly at 8:00 am the pain starting going away and it was really strange the way I did it! It was like an invisible force field of pain insjde my skull that starting subsiding from my eyebrows and slowly moved to the base of my skull where if ended! Then exacfly at 9:00 am I could feel it at the base if my skull slowly go over my skull and ending at my eyebrows. When I was in pain i got in a fetal position, couldn't say anything, drool would be coming out of my mouth and I was so SICK! Then, exactly at 10:00am if started slowly retreating again to the base of my skull and I was fine again! This one hour on and one hour off headache lasted from 7:00 am on Sat. Til 4:00pm on Sunday! Every hour it was on and off! You could have set you're watch to it! I called the hospital and they wanted me to come in but j couldnt coz I had no insurance. I was about 40 when this happened. I am now 60 and I had a stroke at 59 and the two don't even compare!! I have been having visual problems for a few years now that mimics(sort of) like auras w/o headaches. I can see periphally, and I guess in front of me but, I see things all-around me that shouldn't be there. It's kinda like if hour watching TV and somebody opens the curtains behind you, you can see in the TV screen what's happening behind you. AS say, thel as your watching the program! It's kinda like I'm am seeing a different dimension! When I close my eyes it all goes away so, that tells me it's not something neurological. I had my eyesight examined and they said I have cataracts and prescribed glasses but, I can't see anything with them coz everything really seems blurry then! So, I don't know what's going on with my eyes its there all the time now!
    I would like to prove a myth that most researchers are getting wrong coz, the truth is important! Most of us want to know if aliens are acting covertly or not it definetly makes a diff. I will prove to you that their not erasing peoples memories. Most people who report an abduction or encounter always say

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    Replies
    1. Hi just wondering is your email address the one over your profile? I just sent you an email, I'd love to get more info from you if OK thank you

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  4. That they see a light or ufo coming towards them.then they say...the next thing the remember is watching it fly away from them. This is almost always true in reports! If aliens WERE erasing peoples memory, wouldn't they also erase the memory of watching them fly to them too? Leaving them only with the memory of watching them leave? Common sense says if they were hiding what they were doing they would erase that part as well.this changes and solidifies there not hiding any thing from us!I believe it's the effects of their craft that causes the lapses in memory! When it reaches a certain distance it maybe scrambling the brainwaves! And that is what causing the memory lapse, cause after a certain distance when its leaving the brainwaves return to normal!
    I also think I may have the reason for their scoop marks and what they do with them. First, I'll explain what I believe they DONT do with them. It's not for the cells and being able to clone someone for the purpose of hybridization with people because if that were the case they would only need a few people to do this! They could clone on their planet till their hearts are content!So, its not for cloning and creating hybrids! You can rule this aspect completely out of the picture! Most people who get scoop marks have visitions and/ or abductions after the scoop marks...why? Now here's what I do believe as to what they do with the tissue and return at least a second time. I believe they take the tissue and somehow use it to encapsulate a implant so the body won't reject it!
    I have other things I can talk about but I don't have the time right now, if anybody is interested in what I have to say, please E-mail.

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  5. I disagree with these findings I didnt start getting aura migraines till after I was abducted.. never had a migraine ever before then..I think it's vise versa.. in another words because of the abduction we get migraines, abduction isnt a product of hallucinations because of them, but as a result of being abducted.

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  6. ive been getting ocular migraines for the last 5 years.. just this year, the usual blurry spot started to come into focus as another landscape which changed as I moved (like looking out a porthole). it was very weird. just yesterday i had another ocular migraine and it was only the zigzag lines, not like looking into somewhere else through a straw.

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