Back in my teens I used to get killer migraines. They’d start off by messing up my vision, just removing parts of the scene in front of me. (This never left a big hole – it was a seamless removal, like a t-shirt image being obscured in folds. Incredibly weird sensation. I vividly remember having a conversation with a classmate when I was about 14 and explaining that I knew I was going to have a migraine because I couldn’t see him, even though I was looking straight at him.)
Then you get the big spirally halos, like when you stare at a bulb and get the afterimage, only the afterimage is a thin strip of metal dipped in oil reflecting rainbows at you. And the halo would get bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it disappeared off the edges of my vision.
And then, about half an hour after that, the migraine would kick in proper and if I wasn’t in a place where I could lie down, it was too damn late. Migraine is nasty. You get the headache mixed in with intense nausea and hypersensitive physicality. Brain is firing all kinds of nonsense, head is aching, stomach feels like it’s in the wrong way. This for about four hours, then another four of decreasing intensity, and then another 48 of gingerly moving through the world with little aftershocks making you watch your step.
Bleah. Anyway, I grew out of them when I left my teens. I had one in 2000, out of nowhere, but apart from that, none since about 94 or so.
Except I had one back at the end of August (the night of the Spearhead gig, curse it) and another one this Friday gone. Two inside of six months after only one in the previous decade… I don’t know what to make of this, exactly. It ain’t a trend I’m encouraging. Hmm.
Anyway, I was in a weird space all that day. I kept having incredibly intense deja vu and presque vu. All the vus. It had got to the point where I had started composing a blog entry beginning “I’ve been spending all day dangling just out of reach of an incredibly vivid but imperceptible other reality.” Or somesuch. That was the idea, though – that it felt like there was another me in another life and I was having crossover. I could never quite grasp the specifics, but I felt over and over again that something was *there*, just out of my mental grasp.
Anyway, then I had the migraine. You can put your cause and effect whichever way you like there.
The migraine was accompanied, when sleep eventually came, by remarkable dreams literally filled with people from my childhood and youth – I remember a group of five polynesian guys I haven’t seen since I was about 12 or 13 and having a big conversation with them. I don’t remember who they were now I’m awake, I don’t remember even if they were real, but I believe they were. One thing the brain is remarkably good at, after all, is remembering faces. Anyway, those five and dozens and dozens more. If you were at my primary school there was an even chance you would have turned up. The only other moment I remember with great clarity was when I dreamed Nikki Schollum (“smile and say hi” type-acquaintance since primary school, some readers I’m sure will know her) being completely unable to remember the name of the big country next to New Zealand. (It’s Australia, honey. You’re welcome.) (Actually, I don’t think I was in the dream at that stage. But if I had been there, I’m pretty sure I coulda told her.)
Anyway. Out of it all now. But migraines are weird things and they mess up your head something wild. Neurons firing all over the show. Wild. And, lest it not be clear, not fun at all.
(Oh – It’s going around, it seems.)
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The delightful Craig Duncan was in town this past weekend, not long after his New Years Day nuptials to longtime boyfriend Marcel Hodel – longtime receivers of my morgueatlarge travel emails will remember the photo of those two from back in December, no doubt. I thought it was a great photo. Wonderful to see the old boy.
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I’ve realised I’ve got more to say about Lost In Translation, but I’m not going to say it now. Time to go home.
Oh, yeah, my new shoes are T-Mac 3 (since the demise of my beloved Converse to Nike, I’m investigating the exciting land of Adidas). To all (Jon Ball) of y’all (Jon Ball) who are interested (Jon Ball), they are the cool ones with my usual black-with-blue preferred coloration. And you can watch a movie about them over here.
Peace. I windmill whenever I want, apparently.
5 thoughts on “Flashy halos of death”
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Couldn’t see the movie! You need to take a digi photo, animate them yourself and post it on your blog.
Love you lots xxx JB
One of the consequences of tidying an enormous pile of Stuff as part of moving was that I ran into a whole lot of things I’d tucked away for future reference.
Like invitations to the Jon Ball and the Pigphone party.
So – shout outs to the members of the pigphone phlat, especially Jon Ball. Someone on this side of the world was thinking fondly of you guys at about 11pm on a Sunday, as he waded through the accumulated nonsense of several years. 🙂
Migranes.
Scary things, I was the same as you Morgue used to get them all the time in high scholl. Mine would start with bluriness at the edge of my visions and then that would spread to cover everything in sight. An hour after the effect started I also had to be laying down somewhere cool, quiet and dark.
I haven’t had a real one since I left High school and thought I had left them behind. But now after what you say I’m a bit worried although I know there is nothing I can do about it. It’s not something I want to go through again though.
Migraines suck ass. (What a revolting image!) I got ’em all the time at school, but quite infrequently nowdays (fingers crossed).
Oliver Sacks wrote a book about them that looked fascinating, but I had to give Svend his copy back straight away ’cause the pictures – mostly paintings by migraine sufferers – were too vivid and made me feel like one was coming on.
I still remember watching tv with Morgue, switching channels and both of us screaming when confronted with an image of Dr Sacks removing a human brain from what looked like a fish tank.
Psychedelic experiences have a lot in common with migraines, but are infinitely more pleasant.
well you wouldn’t be surprised that certain mystical visions correspond to migraine symptoms… okay, we’re back to Oliver Sacks I guess. I think there’s a relatively painless (black & white illustrations!) shorty in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. Epilepsy’s also good for religious misdiagnosis, and has a good selection of vus in tow.