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Weird Headache
Charles Kinbote
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So ever since I've been a little kid, I've had these strange headaches that, to be frank, don't feel entirely unpleasant. As a kid, I got them when I was playing some kind of make-believe game, and since I've stopped doing that kind of stuff, it's been happening when people are lying or telling a lie and are, themselves, not aware of it. I would say that was some weird self-hypnosis thing, but I've used it to call people on shit that turned out to be a falsehood when I've had no other reason to suspect them.
It feels like a weird, pulsing...ache, I guess, in the back of my brain. But I like the sensation (and not as some weird masochism thing, I mean it's genuinely pleasant). Sometimes, when a passage in a book or an audio track or something triggers it, I'll repeat the stimulus to keep it going, because it really is pretty nice-feeling. It's not painful, it's not at all sexual or anything, it's just a very pleasant ache that crops up from time to time.
Anyone know what could be causing this? Is it a brain tumor? Latent psychic ability? I've brought it up with other people, but no one has known what it is. Educate me, H/A!
It feels like a weird, pulsing...ache, I guess, in the back of my brain. But I like the sensation (and not as some weird masochism thing, I mean it's genuinely pleasant). Sometimes, when a passage in a book or an audio track or something triggers it, I'll repeat the stimulus to keep it going, because it really is pretty nice-feeling. It's not painful, it's not at all sexual or anything, it's just a very pleasant ache that crops up from time to time.
Anyone know what could be causing this? Is it a brain tumor? Latent psychic ability? I've brought it up with other people, but no one has known what it is. Educate me, H/A!
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Under what conditions can you tell if people are lying? Like, always, or only some of the time? Do you have to be in the room with them, or would over the phone work, too?
condition. Now, if your blood pressure is fine, get the opinion of a Neurologist or Brain Surgeon, a CAT Scan will rule out any tumors (if you don't have one).
So what's a CAT scan, anyway?
"Computed Axial Tomography" is the process of using computers to generate a three-dimensional image from flat (i.e, two-dimensional) x-ray pictures, one slice at a time).
I've gotten these same feelings since I was a lot younger (earliest I can remember is 6), usually when someone is saying something that I know isn't true (it happens with facts people have wrong, and aren't straight out lying). I don't think it has ever happened to me when somebody was lying and I didn't know it.
I've had an EKG\ECG before and haven't suffered from any serious blood pressure problems.
For anyone who hasn't had the feeling, it feels almost like a nice and softer version of your foot falling asleep, except in your head.
I've always wondered about this feeling, does anybody here know what it is?
It isn't consistent, but it has happened while over the phone, AIM, reading a letter, an e-mail, whatever.
Treeloot has it down.
"But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward..."
Anyways, um, help/advice...erm, see a doctor? Or maybe if other people have it, like Treeloot, it's just some sort of quasi-common alternative wiring of the brain? That's so weird and cool, actually.
You psychic detectives ought to call James Randi.
And then maybe try to find a doctor whose specialty relates to this sort of thing.
O_o
...
I, for one, welcome our new psychic overlords.
I've had this before but I never noticed if it was ever triggered by anything. It has been near the back of my skull right before where the neck muscles start. I could also see it described as being inside the brain. It has only been within the past 5 years though.
One time I had a very very intense feeling of what I could only describe as being tickled in my brain. Not the funny "haha" tickle, like the over sensitive kind. It seemed to be located somewhat behind and above my eyes. It know it wasn't in my sinuses either. I was driving and listening to music when it happened. Whatever it was, it never happened again.
I've been having odd stuff happen with my perception since I was a kid. Time appearing to slow or appearing to take on a musical appearance. (Like that woman in the scrubs episode) Not to mention the odd memory/emotion/location thing that I can't even begin to describe (that one still happens)
I started to read this thread thinking it was just interesting, until I got to someone describing the feeling and realized that I have the same exact thing happen to me. I'm not sure exactly when it started, it's happened for as long as I can remember.
I've only ever really had it happen when people have been speaking to me, never from reading or watching anything. Basically, in some situations if people are talking to me and there's nothing else really going on in the room. It is exactly like a gentler version of when your feet starts to fall asleep, and it does feel strangely nice.
Like you, I always end up wanting the feeling to continue, so I usually try to draw the conversation out if I can. It even happens sometimes when there's a person talking but it's not to me.
If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to hear it.
Oh god you're right it happens all the time when I'm overhearing people.
Sometimes I'll be talking to someone at like lunch or something, and the feeling will start, and when I recognize it I'll think "what is triggering this?" and all of a sudden my perceptions will entirely shift to a couple at a table nearby and their conversation.
And it feels fantastic. I call it a headache because I don't know what else to call it.
It's sort of like smoking a cigarette, when you can feel the nicotine travel up from your lungs to your brain and suddenly sink into your brain, and you lose track of it as it becomes a part of your body. I mean, it doesn't feel like that, but what do you call that? There's no word for it that I know of. There really isn't a word for this, it's just a remarkably pleasant sensation.
I now suspect that this may be the kind of thing that people have but have never thought about. Let me freak you all out; have you ever been almost asleep, and you suddenly have the sensation that you're about to trip over something or fall down something, and you jolt awake in bed? Bet you haven't thought about that much in your waking hours, but I just brought it to your conscious mind. I imagine this is like that; people would realize that this happens to them.
As far as psychic-ness goes, I'm a little doubtful because I've never really believed in "psychics", per se. I am pretty close to the down-to-earth definition of an empath, though. I'm not going to explain because this is the internet and nothing I said would really be taken seriously, but I'm usually pretty good at reading emotions. I dunno.
I don't know if I believe that psychics or a collective subconscious exist, so I don't know if this is related. I think it's rare, but now that I know other people have it I assume it's been documented and I'd love some help.
Dissociation is a pretty common phenomenon which becomes a real problem in people with anxiety disorders. I don't see any reason why in a person who doesn't suffer from anxiety it couldn't be seen as pleasant. Think of it like deja vu, it's just an odd psychological phenomenon that sometimes happens.
That would be my theory at least.
Edit: A few descriptions of some examples of dissociation:
Depersonalisation: Feeling like you are detached from your body, standing alongside, or having an out-of-body experience.
Derealisation: Feeling as if your or your surroundings are not real Looking at things through a 'fog'. Feeling as if the ground is moving under your feet. Stationary objects appear to move.
It wouldn't be nearly as bizarre if it had cropped whenever I thought someone was lying, but it generally happens when I completely believe them, and the headache is the only thing to tip me off.
The only problem is, I can't figure out what else triggers it. There's this certain....criteria in things I really can't put a word to because it's such an abstract concept, and I really can't remember specifically what the trait is. Even when it was being triggered I couldn't explain it. It's just...I remember this happening with a bunch of books, where I'd read one paragraph, and it would be triggered, and I could keep reading it and the feeling would get stronger until somehow the paragraph lost its ability to cause the headache, so it would slowly fade out.
As to how I know they're lying when they don't know they are, that's exactly part of what makes it so interesting. And I really, really don't believe I just "associate" it with lying because I've used it to call people on shit that I had no other reason to suspect.
I don't have any anxiety disorders, and in fact, I don't even really feel "stress" unless I'm doing something very precise, like trying to thread a needle's eye. Also, that still doesn't explain why it would be pleasant, or why it would inform me of something I didn't already know.
Confirmation bias could easily explain that. You feel this way when someone happens to be lying to you a few times, you realise through natural intuition that they're lying and you add that as "proof". All the times it happens when someone isn't lying (you mention one in your last post) are disregarded. It's a natural behaviour of the brain.
Read my post again, it's something that happens to everyone, not just people with anxiety disorders. It's just that in the case of anxiety disorders it's misunderstood as something to worry about - hence anxiety.
Edit: Additionally:
The above symptoms may be accompanied by a sensitivity to light and sound. People can feel as if they are losing touch with reality and are going insane (in the case of people suffering from panic disorder).
Some people can predict when the symptoms will occur as they are sometimes preceded by a tingling or electric sensation, or a wave of energy or heat passing through the body.
I would agree, but I've been very interested in what this is, and I've begun writing down every occasion when I feel it, and trust me, it's not the kind of thing I can disregard. It basically consumes my consciousness for the time it's going on because its presence is, frankly, completely unignorable. Every time it's happened it's either the result of a fictional stimulus or a nonfictional mentiroso, so it's not randomly triggered, trust me. It has never ever happened while I was just sitting in bed, or by myself, I'm always being engaged in some way.
Yeah, sorry I misinterpreted. That thing you edited in, though, is completely irrelevant; I never feel like either of those things are happening, and I've never experienced any of the precedents.
See I don't want to jump to conclusions because, quite frankly, I don't believe in psychic powers. I believe in the possibility of a collective subconscious, but I don't believe some people are just born with the ability to tell whether people are lying. On the other hand, I am 99.9999% sure that that's what causes it most times.
Ugh. I don't know.
So. Confused.
I wouldn't call it psychic, since it only happens to me when I know the other person is wrong. I've never been able to call someone out on something because of it.
And if this is at all the same thing, as far as I know it doesn't happen when a person is lying.
This actually happened to me the other day while I was at work. A colleague of mine who I get along well with was explaining something that needed to be done, there was no lying involved what-so-ever, but I began to get this feeling as I was hearing them talk. I wasn't zoning out, falling asleep, or thinking exceptionally hard. I was listening as I do any other time a task is given. I don't feel it's a matter of disassociation with anything, unless I'm interpreting that wrong.
I'd say I get these feelings at least once a month, if not maybe once every other week. I don't really think it has anything to do with any kind of "psychic" abilities .. but if it counts, when I was younger, I used to think if I wished for something hard enough I could make it happen. Wish for it to rain the next day before I go to bed at night. Wish for a teacher to be sick the next day when I had a test I wasn't ready for. I'm not willing to connect anything to a psychic ability, though, really.
Unless you guys have some sweet costumes and a team name ready. And some kind of secret lair. If there's a lair involved, I'll start to talk more about being a psychic. Get back to me on that.
We, uh, may be villains.
I don't have the wish things, but I show a remarkable aptitude for judging the actions of other people. I've been sitting in a park, and said "The 27th person to come around that corner will be ____", and lo and behold, it'll be him. or I'll say "I bet when ____ shows up, she'll be wearing ____", and bam. Also, I can finish people's sentences, any people's, before they can, coming up with the exact word they were looking for before they themselves know what it is. Recently, a friend and I were talking about a hole in my jeans, and she said "Is it uh...in your" and I said "posterior?" and her response was "holy shit". Posterior isn't a word that regularly crops up in our conversation.
My own BS detector is something to behold, and it works in concert with everything else- body language, verbal and tonal cues, positioning, motivational strategies, etc. I don't get a head tingle, but there are times when I know, know the other person is lying when having nothing solid to put my finger on.
It is interesting that this mentioned tingle is sort of in the same spot worked when one opens up thier perception. When one widens thier eyes a bit, and concentrates more on thier ears etc, the muscles and skin on the back of the head and neck are activated. It's something you don't see much of anymore, because we are always being bombarded by unwanted sound and imagery - most people actively 'close up shop' more than anything.
I can certainly see where if one had been tipped off by a little something, body positioning, an off tone, posture, errant word choice, that some would experience and feel the changes brought on by alertness and hyper-alertness. It's related to anxiety, but not anxiety itself, because it's just detection - anxiety attacks are when the flight/fight/fear response gets triggered for no real reason. There's a relationship there, but they aren't always going to be hand in hand.
It meshes with the another aspect mentioned here as well, time slows. I get these as well. The passage of time is marked by a system that measures a few different things. Some of these things are physical, some of them are mental. When you hit a certain level of focus, there is a time when the mental clock suddenly speeds up, but the physical measurements haven't been processed yet - one is leading the other - so time seems to slow.
When I was a kid, I used to trigger this on purpose by jumping off roofs and high sets of stairs. You run, getting your adrenaline pumping, you launch while bringing focus, and then when you start falling adrenaline meets focus and poof - you're in bullet time. You have ages to arrange your feet properly, pick out a nice spot to land, etc. A second and a half is really a very long time, relatively speaking.
As for the other psychic stuff mentioned so far... mebbe. It's neat anyway. I tend to think that people living in the same place absorbing the same culture tend to think along the same lines - making it easier to predict the actions of others. Life repeats as memory fades, so most people and up recycling thier actions in a six week rotation - the nouns change, but the themes remain the same. Which is in itself a pretty neat thing.
Eeenteresting.