Yuku free message boards

1. Name or screen name: Ram L H

2. Email: Doplegager@gmail.com

3. Location: Kansas

4. Age: 22

5. Sex: male

6. Nationality and Race: caucasion

7. Do you have classic migraine (migraine with aura) or common migraine (migraine without aura)? When did it begin? I've never been diagnosed with migraines, but had intense headaches until around the age of 14, coinciding with the beginning of high school. Most of my visual snow symptoms are nonstop and seem independent of the kinds of triggers and symptoms I would imagine are associated with migraines.

I'm not sure when the visual snow began. I became conscious of it about a year ago during a time when I was reevaluating my sanity and began asking my peers about their basic sensory perceptions. As far as I know, I've been experiencing visual snow my entire life and simply took it for granted. There is one incident, around the age of 13, where I had an intense hallucination (presumably as a result of a fairly bad sunburn and heat exposure). I remember something similar to intense visual snow; my persistent visual snow may have continued after the intensity leveled off and the strength of the experience made the after effect seem mild enough to be normal.

That said, I remember looking up at the sky as a child and seeing a million stars on even the cloudiest nights. I still look at the night sky and see the stars, but I can recognize them as visual snow. This makes me think I've been experiencing the visual disturbances most of my life.

8. What do you take for your classic or common migraine and does it help? n/a

9. Have you been diagnosed with persistent aura (prolonged migraine aura status)? no

10. What is your visual problem and how long does it last? As near as I can tell, I experience varying degrees of visual disturbance during every waking moment. The basic visual disturbances are similar to a thing layer of static covering the entirety of my field of vision at about 5-10% opacity. On this basic level, the static is largely random and seems independent of what I'm actually seeing. I also experience a fair number of floaters, but not enough to be distracting.

The disturbances sometimes peak into more intense experiences in which the static becomes more dynamic. Afterimages become more noticeable and the static is influenced by the shapes of objects. The static sometimes takes on elements of geometric forms (circles, squares, lines, etc), often pulsing or moving but sometimes hovering. There is usually a correlation between the shapes and shapes other places in my vision, but there doesn't seem to be any significant correlation between the location of the physical shape and the shape of the visual disturbance. I sometimes also experience the visual disturbances as a kind og network of explosive lights, like a kind of web. There are also times where there are areas of fairly fuzzy light or dark that don't fit with physical lightsources. The transition into these episodes is subtle, but I'd estimate they last about 30 minutes or less on average.

During more extreme episodes, the shapes creating by the static become much more dynamic, simulating movement similar to looking into a bucket of worms wiggling amongst eachother. During the most extreme episodes, the static begins to be interpreted as figurative images. The images are still very morphous, rarely lasting more than a few seconds and are rarely more strongly defined than the kinds of images one would see in clouds. I'd estimate that these more extreme episodes last no more than 10 minutes on average but seem to last longer during periods of religious activity.

11. Any other problems that you think might be related? I've had a history of depression and anxiety most of my life, but there seems to be a correlation between how many visual disturbances I'm experiencing and my anxiety levels.

12. What do you take or do for your vision problem and does it help? I haven't found any consistent ways to decrease symptoms. I have, though, noticed that the visual disturbances become much more pronounced when they are set against a dark or shadowy background. To experiment with this, I began wearing an eyepatch over my right eye. This effectively ups the visibility of the visual disturbances to 25-45% opacity and also causes the visual disturbances to become more dynamic; abstract and figurative shapes become much more noticeable. My impression is that the sensory deprivation of the right eye doesn't actually increase the severity of the visual snow, but simply makes it more visible.

Imagine a movie made out of pointalist paintings lightly imposed over a figurative image. When you try to focus on the figurative images, the real world, the dots of the movie look completely random. When you block out half of the figurative image and let the dots become dominant, it becomes easier to see the movie. In this case, the movie is a psychadelic art film that plays nonstop.

Experimentation with the eyepatch sometimes induces a feeling of religious experience and sometimes induces a feeling of anxiety.

I've also begun paying attention to the visual disturbances during tai chi and have found that they become strongest between the middle and end of my tai chi sessions, but I'm not sure what parts of tai chi correlate with the increased symptoms.

13. Have you found a trigger for your vision problem? Aside from the situations described above, not really. I haven't focused much on how most aspects of my environment affect the visual disturbances. I vaguely recall experiencing strong visual snow during experiences with sleep paralysis, but have few enough of those experiences to recollect accurately.

14. What tests have you had and the results? I haven't had any medical tests related to the visual snow.

15. Drug history (pre VS): No significant prescription drugs, and no personal experimentation. My mother has a history of drug use which would include at least a little of almost everything. I don't know of any specific drugs she may have taken while I was in the womb.

16. Drug history (post VS - effect on VS - negative, positive, not at all): I've had three experiences with marijuana with no effect on the visual snow, and haven't experimented with any other illegal drugs. Likewise, most prescription drugs have been antibiotics and such, with no noticeable effects on the visual snow. I've been invited to take hallucinogens, but have never felt grounded enough to feel comfortable experimenting.

17. Do you have a positive family history for migraine? If yes, who is affected? Not on my mother's side, but I don't have much access to my father's family's medical history (aside from a few heart related problems).

18. Other information you want to provide? I had a series of traumatic events in 2005 and have anxiety attacks and flashbacks to the events, but my counselor hasn't given any clinical diagnosis. He has, though, commented that I have dissasociative tendencies, but it was mostly in the context of how I was able to remain surprisingly functional despite adverse circumstances.

I was raised by a wiccan priestess and was raised to be very spiritually inclined, providing me with an appropriately unusual childhood. I'm not sure whether this spiritual context has made the visual disturbances stronger, or if it has allowed me to better handle them. My mother's interpretation is that the visual snow is a part of my growth as a shaman. Different members of my religious community attribute various metaphysical qualities to the visual snow and I know at least three other people in my peer groups that have described similar static.

I'm a visual artist and have recently noticed minor influences from the visual snow in my art.

Known family medical issues include depression, heart problems, diabetes, sleep apnea, and asthma.

Hey KSomething! Like I mentioned in the e-mail, I've mostly been taking care of end-of-the-semester assignments. I'll try to answer the follow-up questions:

First an anecdote that is related to my history of headaches. When I was young, between the ages of 8 and 12, I had fairly serious headaches that would last for several hours. I also tended to be nauseous and generally crummy feeling, symptoms that often overlapped with the headaches. I need to double-check my mother's records to find out when I went to the doctor about it (I think it was somewhere between age 9 and 10), but the doctor ended up sending me to a therapist on the assumption that the headaches were stress-induced as a result of gender issues. Having been raised in a militantly feminist pagan household in Kansas, therapy was quite a misadventure. I tend to avoid going to doctors when I can help it.

"There is one incident, around the age of 13, where I had an intense hallucination (presumably as a result of a fairly bad sunburn and heat exposure). I remember something similar to intense visual snow" - Can you describe this a bit more? Did the onset of this intense visual snow occur during the day? Or was it first there the morning after awakening? How long did the intense hallucination last? Did you have accompanying headache at the onset of this intense visual snow? Did you visit a doctor thereafter?
I had spent a good chunk of the day outside in Lake Texoma during a summer camp and had forgotten to put on sunscreen. I burn very quickly and it tends to really suck the strength out of me and make me just a little loopy. The full effect hit me during the evening, near sunset. The camp (South West Unitarian Universalists Summer Intensive; SWUUSI) had a yearly summer solstice celebration in a large clearing. Near the beginning of the celebration, my legs started to buckle and I excused myself. I remember feeling intense heat and severe nauseau. I managed to find my way into an air conditioned building where I waited until the ceremony was over. I don't remember this part very well, aside from my perceptions weren't working right. The next thing I really recollect was having help walking back to my cabin. I remember someone hearing my symptoms and describing it as heat stroke, but this was never confirmed by a doctor.

I think the hallucination was later that evening, after I had rested a little more and drunk more water (including some headache/pain medication, but I can't remember which part it was for- I don't distinctly remember having a headache). There was a pool party for the kids in my age group. I remember sitting in the corner of the pool. I remember hallucinating that there were four armies on horseback crashing down onto me. When I closed my eyes, I could see explosions of light and dark that weaved into staticed figures that I could still see when I opened my eyes. I remember the staticed figures looking like they were separate from the rest of the world. My ears were filled with explosions of noise that I interpreted as the sounds of the hooves of the horses and the battlecries of the cavalry. I remember that my teeth were chattering loudly and uncontrollably as though I were freezing even though I felt warm. When I clenched them, I started crying uncontrollably even though I felt emotionally ok. I think this part lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. I vaguely remember the figures becoming strong enough that it began to feel like tunnel vision, but that memory doesn't feel completely reliable, and feels almost more fitting for the experience earlier in the day.

(Amusingly, almost all of the symptoms ended at about the same time that I was asked to a slow dance. I took it as some kind of sign and hooked up with one of the girls, resulting in my first romantic relationship, lasting about 4 years. Since I felt better before I went to bed, and continued to feel better the next day, it didn't seem pressing to see a doctor.)

From which year on do you have the persistent floaters?
I think I've been conscious of the floaters since at least 12, but possibly earlier.

Can you make an illustration of the floaters, the visual snow/static at day and during night?
Most of my visual work tends towards high contrast black and white illustrations, which isn't very fitting for the subtle and shifting grays I see, but I've been thinking about trying to capture it more accurately. It'll probably take awhile, especially since the movement and flow of the static feels really important to the sensation.

I did a series of pieces a year ago where I used sharpies to draw lines on black mattboard and then used whiteout to draw lines over them in a way that really, really freaked out my afterimages.

"The disturbances sometimes peak into more intense experiences in which the static becomes more dynamic. Afterimages become more noticeable…." From which year on did you have these attacks of other or more intense visual disturbances lasting some 30 minutes? Do you have headaches together with these attacks?
I've only been conscious of them in this context for the past year or two (from 2005-2006 to present, ages 20-22), but there have been other instances that I interpreted as hallucinations that, in retrospect, feel similar. My interpretation is that, prior to the past year or so, I was really only aware of the visual snow during heightened episodes- kind of like seeing a forest, but not knowing what a tree is.

Considering how unavoidable the static is now, it seems weird to think that I used to take it completely for granted. I almost want to dismiss the possibility, but it seems the most honest. I first began to become consciously aware of the static in the past year or so, but considering the previous experiences, it seems unlikely that it only began in the past year (or, perhaps I want to hold on to the static to avoid having to use psychosis as an explanation). My first true conscious recognition of the static as unusual was when I started asking friends "hey, I've been seeing these things for as long as I can remember... you see them too, right?"

You wrote that these attacks may manifest as increased afterimages. Are these positive afterimages (where dark parts of the original image are dark in the afterimage and bright parts of the afterimage are bright in the afterimage) or negative afterimages (where dark parts of the original image are bright in the afterimage and bright parts of the afterimage are dark in the afterimage)?
I think they're most often positive afterimages, but they're almost always very blurry and seem abstracted.

From which year on did you have depression? Did this manifest in one or more depressive episodes (when)?
As my childhood friends would have put it, I was always moody. I remember becoming tired of being frustrated, angry, and sad all the time about the time I began high school, so I began meditating and trying to focus on maintaining a kind of emotional neutrality. Combined with changes in my social environment, I ended up becoming very active. Depression became an active part of my life again around October 2005 (age 20), following the suicide of my father, and continues to the present. I've always been fairly good at objectively analyzing situations aside from my emotional state. It doesn't keep me from feeling shitty, but keeps me from doing anything extreme. ("Oh. My voice is raising and my muscles are tensing. Is there any external stimuli? Hmm. Not really. I should probably find a safe place to cool down and relax for a few hours.") There's history of depression on both sides of my family.

From which year on did you have anxiety? Does this manifest as panic attacks? And/or as generalised anxiety?
I've only begun to feel panic attacks during the past two years, some of which have felt debilitating. There's also currently a steady beat of anxiety in the background of my mind. I think these aspects are fairly new, but it's hard to tell whether earlier behavior was motivated by anxiety or personality quirks.

Did you get a diagnosis by psychiatrist/psychologist for the depression/anxiety issues? If yes, which?
The first time I went to a psychologist since my childhood experiences was last year when I began visiting university counselors because I was beginning to doubt my sanity as a consequent of the events of October-November 2005. The counselor I saw helped work through immediate issues, but didn't offer a diagnosis.

From which year on did you have sleep paralysis?
If my memory is accurate, I've been having about 2-4 episodes of sleep paralysis per year for at least four or five years. I know I had experiences with it as late as my senior year in high school, but I'm not sure if I had it prior.

In which year was the use of marijuana (3 x)?
All three instances have taken place between the summer of 2006 and the present, with the only strong experience occurring in the summer of 2006 during a trip to visit my brother in Berkeley, California. The two following instances were much milder, lacking any noticeable side effects (other than coughing; that part kind of sucked). I've been exposed to second hand marijuana smoke most of my life.

"I'm a visual artist and have recently noticed minor influences from the visual snow in my art." Can you expand a bit on this?
I'm a published cartoonist and self-published comic book artist. The influence I've found most amusing was a visual convention that I used to call "muse bubbles", which were circles and other geometric forms that I would draw around a character to indicate they were inspired. In retrospect, the muse bubbles bear some resemblance to floaters, explosions of light, and geometric forms I've noticed when I focus on being aware of the visual static. There are also a few examples of the kinds of tendril, wormy-like appendages I see during heightened episodes sneaking into the art.

My visual static is almost exclusively grayscale, and I have a bad history of inability to use color effectively in my art. When I told her about visual static, she teased me that it might be at fault for my insensitivity to color. It also feels like there is a connection between the grays of the visual static and my interest in high contrast black and white imagery, but I don't have any support for this other than a gut feeling.

I haven't sat down and looked through things thoroughly for potential overlaps. I don't expect to find much, other than a few slightly amusing instances.

I can't guarantee how accurate my answers have been. If I can think of anything related, or corrections, I'll try to let you know. (I sometimes joke that I put the Ram in rambling; hopefully there are some nuggets in there.)

-Ram