{"id":1398,"date":"2015-03-05T12:46:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T19:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/?p=1398"},"modified":"2016-10-19T14:34:53","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:34:53","slug":"strange-sensations-after-a-brain-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/?p=1398","title":{"rendered":"Strange Sensations After a Brain Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Linda W. Arms<\/p>\n<p>After a brain injury there are many strange sensations in our head and body.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For me, the sensations began a few hours after my injury and have slowly decreased in intensity and frequency over the last years.\u00a0 \u00a0Sometimes, lying awake at night, I would notice these and be afraid because I felt that no one really knew what was going on up there in my brain.\u00a0\u00a0 Science still refers to the brain as the \u201clast frontier\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I felt I was in a strange, mystifying state where that \u201cbrain fairy\u201d was doing its work that others did not understand.<\/p>\n<p>I expect everyone with a brain injury has different sensations.\u00a0 \u00a0I&#8217;ve noticed from reading others\u2019 experiences there seem to be some similarities.\u00a0\u00a0 How many of you felt the same things I did?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flip-flops or butterflies in my head\u00a0\u2013 it actually felt like there was a movement up there, sort of like waves, very strange.\u00a0\u00a0 It was not pleasant.\u00a0 Sometimes very intense. I couldn&#8217;t do much of anything when this was going on.\u00a0\u00a0 The first hours after I got up in the morning were especially bad.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes I would just sit in a comfortable chair with my head back and let the \u201cbrain fairy\u201d do her dance.\u00a0\u00a0 I could not stop it.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing would stop it.<\/li>\n<li>Bursts of light\u00a0\u2013 during the many hours each day where I would be sleeping \u2013 before falling asleep or waking, there would be little bursts of light when my eyes were closed.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m not really sure if I saw these with my eyes or if it was just a sensation in my brain.\u00a0\u00a0 Again, very strange, very mysterious.\u00a0\u00a0 Almost like shooting stars.<\/li>\n<li>Pains in my head\u00a0\u2013 obviously my head hurt from the physical trauma but there were odd shots of pain in different places in my head.\u00a0\u00a0 Very quick.<\/li>\n<li>Tingling, prickling and numbness\u00a0\u2013 this was a rather obnoxious sensation I had in different parts of my body.\u00a0\u00a0 I would feel it in my face, my head, my hands and feet.<\/li>\n<li>Slideshow at super speed\u00a0\u2013 this is strange, I know.\u00a0\u00a0 As I woke, with my eyes still closed, I would see a bunch of unrelated pictures that would speed through my head.\u00a0\u00a0 It was like someone was running a slideshow in my brain but very fast.\u00a0\u00a0 I could not really focus on the picture but I could tell it was a person, or a scene or something.\u00a0\u00a0 I mentioned this to many of my medical providers.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, one doctor said it was something called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hypnagogia\" target=\"_blank\">hypnagogic hallucinations<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Creepy crawlies\u00a0\u2013 when I was very tired, usually in the evening, my entire being felt totally discombobulated, everything throughout my body felt unsynchronized.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a physical and mental sensation.\u00a0 It was a disturbing sensation that was made worse by sounds and light.\u00a0 There would be a throbbing in different parts of my body that was not in the same rhythm as the throbbing in another part of my body at the same time. I wanted to curl up into a tight little ball and be thrown down a dark hole were nothing could disturb me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank goodness these things have faded.\u00a0\u00a0 They still come back sometimes but not to the degree they where in the early years.\u00a0\u00a0 Does any of this sound familiar to you?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1303 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood-300x240.jpg?resize=210%2C168\" alt=\"Beechwood\" width=\"210\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood.jpg?resize=300%2C240&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood.jpg?resize=1024%2C819&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood.jpg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebrainfairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beechwood.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/The-Brain-Fairy-Living-with-TBI\/288317964619749\" target=\"_blank\">LIKE THE BRAIN FAIRY ON FACEBOOK<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"mailto: MINAK@THEBRAINFAIRY.COM\">SEND EMAIL TO\u00a0LINDA ARMS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Linda W. Arms After a brain injury there are many strange sensations in our head and body.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For me, the sensations began a few hours after my injury and have slowly decreased in intensity and frequency over the last years.\u00a0 \u00a0Sometimes, lying awake at night, I would notice these and be afraid because I felt that no one really knew what was going on up there in my brain.\u00a0\u00a0 Science still refers to the brain as the \u201clast frontier\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/?p=1398\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2GcQn-my","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebrainfairy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}