Musical pseudoseizure

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Certain times, when I listen to a song with a repetitive motif at full volume, I feel like my mind kind of buzzes and seizes. My skin feels cold and tingly, and I close my eyes, or roll them back upwards. The rest of the world and my thoughts fade out, and I'm entirely entranced. I can stop this from happening if I focus, but it's generally a pleasant, if overwhelming sensation. When it's over, I feel kind of spacey.

Apparently, there is a term for this: musicogenic seizures. I'm not sure that my experiences are indeed seizures, but they're an altered state of some kind. I had a few seizures when I was very young, but that was due to an illness.

I love music too. I have an enhanced sensory modality and can accidentally become entranced with stimuli, such as glittery/reflective objects, firelight, running water, etc. I do have a mild anti-seizure prescription which helps. But I try to limit my time exposure - just in case. I am not an epileptic and I do not really have petit mal seizures. I think it's just part of being autistic.

Anyway, have you considered brain surgery? ...just a thought

Good music can give you euphoria sometimes. Girls would faint at Beatles concerts. I think what you're describing is a little different though.

thats whats been happening this whole time to me my entire freaking lives

For some reason, dense foliage makes me dizzy. I think it's too much information for my brain to focus on, and I feel better when I avert my gaze to something simple, like a wall or the sky.



I just bought a special trepanation bit for my Dremel.



Yeah. I get the euphoria aspect. Supposedly, emotional arousal plays a part in musicogenic seizures.

There's a Beatles song that has induced this state in me ("I Want You / She's so Heavy"). As for the girls, I recall a documentary where the Beatles claimed that towards the end of their touring career, the shrieking from the girls totally drowned out their music, so they stopped touring.

well, my eyes dont roll back into my head, but i do becom entranced and completely absorbed into the music. I might start shacking excitedly and smile etc.. Rocking a bit... its awesome and is a natural high

I sometimes take music trips... get something nice and atmospheric, turn off the lights, and meditate to see how far out my mind can go... I'll sort of fall asleep but not really and when I wake up my brain will be flooded for dopamine and I won't have ADHD for about an hour

The ADD free hour is pretty much the only time I'm able to attentively read more than a paragraph about anything... I'm also smarter and much more socially adept... maybe this is what meds would do but I'm afraid of that stuff...

Interesting. I've got ADD as well, but I haven't really noticed how it's affected by music. I do tend to get a lot of work done when I have some tunes playing on my computer, though. It keeps my mind from wandering to some other form of amusement.

The repetitive music that gives me these weird experiences, however, isn't good for my attention. I'm markedly spaced out for an hour or so afterward.

Repetitive stuff does NOT work well for me because it doesn't take me anywhere. The stuff is preferably constantly changing with swirling layers... I've talked with NT's about this and some can do it... it tends to be those who have unlocked their minds previously with psychedelic drugs. Maybe after all we are doing totally different things, which isn't entirely impossible...

Imagine your central processor that guides all the thoughts you make shutting off and handing all it's responsibilities to the specific processor that processes sounds and music... this one has no conscience, no direction, no filters, no anything and therefore lets you explore otherwise undiscovered feelings... the music shuts off all boundaries and frees the mind completely... almost like a very weak dose of LSD if you've ever tried it... after the fact I have no memory whatsoever of what happened during the time, all I know is that i'm happy AND focused afterwards... it IS a natural high, so is it the same thing we are experiencing? I don't know.

If it matters, I don't have any suseptibility to seizures at all. I also have never experienced sensory overload and probably don't have Asperger's.

I have experienced something like this when I was in my teens, but then it just disappeared. What a shame...

That would explain a lot about what has been happening to me. Unfortunately, I don't get a 'nice, pleasant' effect, I become nauseous, headachy, angry and sometimes completely lose track of everything. Come to think about it approximately 70% of my past violent attacks happened after hearing bass music (which causes the head vibrations and makes it feel like electric shocks shooting through my brain.). It would be interesting if more research is done on this.

i read that link but im afraid i have no ida what it ment .... he had mild seizures in response to certain noises?

ive had similar experiences to what you described though if i really get into something

if im really tyred and i listen to sunn 0))) really loud (but i dont think theres any other way to listen to sunn 0)))) its really cool i see rather odd stuff its almost like a dream so long as i stay relaxed

It wasn't a tonic clonic type seizure, but an "internal" one. The brain is still firing incorrectly, but it doesn't affect his muscles as much as his consciousness. Your mood and train of thought are derailed, and when you regain awareness, you feel different.

These types of seizures (absence, partial, complex) are difficult to identify without an EEG. Weird seizures are thought to underlie a lot of disparate phenomena (attacks of rage, religious experiences, binge eating, deja vu ). Anticonvulsant medications are used for a wide range of disorders beyond epilepsy.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks has a new book coming out in a couple months called "Musicophilia". Might be of interest to some here. I read & enjoyed his recent story (in New Yorker mag.) on the topic, excerpted from the book.

brief description:
http://www.nyas.org/events/eventDetail. ... 6:00:00+PM

Quote from link:
"In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people—from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; from people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds—for everything but music."

If music with a repetitive motif does that to you (as it does to me) then you might want to check out early Queens of the Stone Age stuff. That band is basically built around repetitive "robot rock" rythms with drugged-up sounding steel guitar and vocals. Oh, and excellent guitar solos . Here are some examples:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=MSAKExg9uCw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=xW2AKkwJb_c[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lj1Nss0g3ZE[/youtube]