Is this how insanity starts?

I didn't know where else to post this, but I figured maybe someone here had experienced something similar.

Last night I woke up at 3 am, and my brain was going nuts. If you have ever seen those EKG brainscan things where they light up with different colours.... well my whole brain felt like it was lit up. Like I was hyperactive or something. I was thinking non-stop and it was like a mental overload, like I was on the edge of having a breakdown. The craziest thing is that in my head I had 2 voices, where I normally have one. It's important to distinguish that it was MY voice still, I'm not "hearing voices" or having demons telling me to do stuff. It's like the voice that everyone has in their head how you hear yourself when you are thinking, except that I had two now, and they were both going at the same time. I went to the bathroom and got a drink of water from the sink, and my brain seemed to settle a bit. But when I laid down again, it started going super-active again. When I tried to close my eyes, it was really bad. It was like a collage of split-screens, 6 different dreams/"visual thoughts" all happening at once. I tried to focus my mind and just think about one thing to try to get back to sleep, but I couldn't.

Oh, this entire time I was also shaking uncontrollably. I think I was just shivering, but it felt like convulsions, like I had developed Parkinsons suddenly or something. I put on a hoodie and pants to try and warm up but it still went on for a little bit, but finally it stopped. I rolled over the other way on my bed and managed to calm my mind down a little bit. The racing mind and the shivering both stopped, and I finally got relaxed enough to start going back to sleep. It was 4 am, it had been an hour.

I kind of felt like how you see people portrayed in cartoons when they have WAY too much coffee, like I had taken a massive amount of some stimulant or I had been poisoned or something. But I hadn't eaten or done anything out of the ordinary last night before I went to bed. So I'm stumped as to what is going on. This is the first time it has happened.

If it happens again I'm going to the doctor, but I am just wondering if what I experienced has any kind of name or catagory.

Wow that sounds scary, And Yes I would recommend that you see a doc,

I know this may sound odd but did you have wind at all?

I know that in extreme cases that it can cause uncontrollable shakes and some odd feelings,

I would advice that you see a doc instead of waiting till it happens again.

Have you been under allot of stress?

When things like that happens, by experience I will tell you that are related to something that is happening with your life at this time.

It can be related to stress or just getting out of a stressful situation.

Some of the symptoms are, waking up without remembering where you are or who you are.

Voices and charter box that will not stop.

Hallucinations, including lights, colors or shapes.

Now have you been a new medication? Or a medication for a long time?

In some instances some medications will give you side effects immediately but others you will not have them until later on.

Is ways to make yourself better with the practice of meditation, and breathing exercises to calm yourself down.

Panic attacks also feels like that but your hart will start raising also.

If this never happens to you before, and you are young at least under 40 then is probably something related with you everyday life.

If you are older, those nasty life changes affect man and woman.

But if this bothers you a lot and it happens again a doctor advice is not a bad idea.

Now remember that doctors will treat as a mental stress and the obvious treatments are anti depressant drugs.

I have been able to stay off those nasty pills with meditation and it works when I started to have the panic attacks.

The doctor wanted me on Paxil, but after reading the side effects I decided that I would deal with it myself.

And I did.

Just remember that the key is not getting in a panic if it happens again, just relax and try to clear your mind.

But as anything that it doesn't feel right is good to see a doctor if it gets worst.

I would say I have been under a little more stress than usual. Work was really busy around Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Years. I go back to college on Monday. But I have been in stressful situations before and never had this sort of thing happen.

It's funny that you mention panic attacks. Around November, I went to the doctor because I was experiencing shortness of breath. It felt like my lungs were tightening and it was harder to breathe. It happened in class at school sometimes and actually got to the point that I would get dizzy after 30 minutes or so. It happened similarly when I went to see a comedy show. It was in rooms that were kind of closed off and poorly ventilated. I'm not claustrophobic so it wasn't that. But then it has also happened when I am just watching TV, not even thinking about anything. So i don't know if stress was involved.

Anyway I went to see the doctor. His first suggestion like you was that maybe I was having panic attacks. But he checked and he determined that I had a slight bronchitus with weezing, etc. I got inhalers and went back in a week or two to see if I was better, and my bronchitus was cured. But in the month or so since then, I have still had difficulty breathing some of the time.

The only medication I have been on were the ones for the bronchitus.

My heart rate/pulse was pretty fast when it was happening too. At times I can feel my heart in my chest. I figured this was just that I was out of shape. I was going to start really exercising again soon, as I thought maybe the difficulty breathing and high pulse was just being out of shape. I think I will still try exercising, it can't hurt.

I am no doctor but for what you mention you are overly stressed and experiencing panic attacks.

I end up a couple times on the emergency room with them.

But with meditation and recognizing when one is about to happen and stop the palpitations with deep breathing I have been able to fight them and even making them lest frequent.

My daughter is also in college and she is having the panic attacks also, they are getting worst with each semester.

She uses natural herbal relaxants when it gets too bad, last semester she was really bad and she was calling me during the night so could help her relax.

She have one more semester so I told her that after next semester she can relax few months before entering the working force.

She is going back to college tomorrow and she was telling me that her hart was starting to get fast again. Most of the young people my daughter knows in college are on some type of anti-depressants, their parents are on them also, I see it as a vicious cycle of finding an easy way to scape.

Even when is people that really, really need them because of chemical imbalances.

I always say that if you can work it out with natural medicine, exercises, meditation or whatever works to alleviate them go for it, before asking a doctor for drugs.

Because the drugs can have worst side effects that the problem itself.



[edit on 5-1-2007 by marg6043]

Yes I've been thinking about drugs and I don't want to be on them. I don't know what it feels like to be on Prozac or anti-depressents because I've never taken anything like that, but I imagine they would change me in a way that I wouldn't like. Plus the side effects like you mentioned.

I've been trying to relax lately, but I feel like relaxation and meditation may have even caused this whole thing. It used to be that I would just breathe and not think about it at all. But since I started trying to relax and controlling my breathing, taking deep breaths, it seems like my breathing has switched over from being automatic, to where I have to actually conciously keep breathing. I don't know if this is possible, or maybe I am just thinking (STRESSING ) about it all too much.

I definately feel like it is something chemical. The other day I felt really depressed too. Just a sense of woe and despair, like life was meaningless. But I went to work and in a few hours I stopped feeling that way when I had to be around people and pretend to be happy.

I just don't understand why this is all happening now. I have always been rather stressed, but I've never had stuff like this happen because of it.

[edit on 5-1-2007 by Yarcofin]

Marg you mention natural medicines and herbal remedies that could help control the problem..... is there any specific suppliments or anything you take that seem to help reduce stress and panic attacks? And also what kind of meditation exercises do you do to help?

I have had people even suggest to me that maybe a demon was trying to possess me since it happened at 3 am which someone told me is "The witching hour" . But I think that a panic attack seems like the most plausible thing so far.