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I would lose the right half of my vision, except not like anyone here (without similar experiences) is probably imagining it right now: it was not like my right

I would lose the right half of my vision, except not like anyone here (without similar experiences) is probably imagining it right now: it was not like my right eye stopped working, no, the part of my brain that processes visual information would deny the existence of the right half of my vision and replace it with a reaction-diffusion lookalike aura. Split precisely down the middle, doesn't matter which eye. Even freakier, if I were to look at someone's face, my eyes would refuse to turn and show me the missing half of said face on the "left" side of my remaining vision. Similarly I could no longer read words or sentences because they were cut off and my eyes refused to do the normal reading saccades. It was then that I first learned that my conscious is only a small part of my mind, and not in direct control of everything. If I would have been stuck with that mode of perception permanently I would have gone crazy.

coldcode 5y ago
I know exactly what you describe, I had migraines for many decades; oddly enough now that I am older I still get the aura, but the headache itself is barely a Tylenol. I also had cluster headaches one summer in college; now those are truly the worst pain in the world. Imagine an electric drill going through your head for 15 minutes once a day, then vanishing.
Apofis 5y ago
> It was then that I first learned that my conscious is only a small part of my mind, and not in direct control of everything. We're made up of disparate systems that our conscience pilots essentially, even our mental faculties are disparate systems. This can sometimes make it hard to recognize when one of these systems is under-performing or worse-yet failing.
555watch 5y ago
> It was then that I first learned that my conscious is only a small part of my mind, and not in direct control of everything. That's probably the craziest takeaway from these. In my experience, losing half the vision + the middle part was the most often one. However, the craziest attack was when I temporarily lost the control of speech. The mind and thoughts were there, but nothing verbally said made sense when listening to myself. I'm so glad that taking a nap was enough to resolve that...
SavantIdiot 5y ago
> the part of my brain that processes visual information would deny the existence of the right half of my vision YES. I get the scintillating scatoma but also a new thing, that I call "the folded magazine page": it looks as if someone folded out the middle of a magazine page and I have to turn my head left & right rapidly to construct the rest of the image. My brain is like: nope, not gonna show you the middle strip, just gonna cut-and-paste the left and right thirds together in the middle.
lostlogin 5y ago
> If I would have been stuck with that mode of perception permanently I would have gone crazy. I get some sort of hearing perception change and vertigo to the point of vomiting. However the devastating pain makes any examination of the strange hearing changes near impossible. Anyone who has these last any significant duration has my sympathy.
miguelrochefort 5y ago
This exactly describes an experience I had recently. I ended up in ER thinking it was a stroke. Nobody ever mentioned migraines or auras.

coldcode 5y ago

I know exactly what you describe, I had migraines for many decades; oddly enough now that I am older I still get the aura, but the headache itself is barely a Tylenol. I also had cluster headaches one summer in college; now those are truly the worst pain in the world. Imagine an electric drill going through your head for 15 minutes once a day, then vanishing.

Apofis 5y ago

> It was then that I first learned that my conscious is only a small part of my mind, and not in direct control of everything. We're made up of disparate systems that our conscience pilots essentially, even our mental faculties are disparate systems. This can sometimes make it hard to recognize when one of these systems is under-performing or worse-yet failing.

555watch 5y ago

> It was then that I first learned that my conscious is only a small part of my mind, and not in direct control of everything. That's probably the craziest takeaway from these. In my experience, losing half the vision + the middle part was the most often one. However, the craziest attack was when I temporarily lost the control of speech. The mind and thoughts were there, but nothing verbally said made sense when listening to myself. I'm so glad that taking a nap was enough to resolve that...

SavantIdiot 5y ago

> the part of my brain that processes visual information would deny the existence of the right half of my vision YES. I get the scintillating scatoma but also a new thing, that I call "the folded magazine page": it looks as if someone folded out the middle of a magazine page and I have to turn my head left & right rapidly to construct the rest of the image. My brain is like: nope, not gonna show you the middle strip, just gonna cut-and-paste the left and right thirds together in the middle.

lostlogin 5y ago

> If I would have been stuck with that mode of perception permanently I would have gone crazy. I get some sort of hearing perception change and vertigo to the point of vomiting. However the devastating pain makes any examination of the strange hearing changes near impossible. Anyone who has these last any significant duration has my sympathy.

miguelrochefort 5y ago

This exactly describes an experience I had recently. I ended up in ER thinking it was a stroke. Nobody ever mentioned migraines or auras.