Brainstorm

T minus 0:40 seconds

The screen flashes.

My view of Moria has been obscured. Instead of the pure crystalline view of god-rays and water, I see a series of landscape paintings, interspersed one after another with frames of black.

"Crap."

"What's up?" asks Shawn, on the other end of the headset.

"My screen went stroby on me. I'm guessing it's my SLI dying."

Shawn says something consoling. I miss it. Black. White. Black. White. I'm overwhelmed with a sense of time dilation. It's not deja-vu. It's an oncoming freight train I know all too well. There's a lightning storm in the left temporal lobe of my brain. Again.

My palms burst with sweat. I feel vaguely nauseous.

T minus 0:35

"I, um," I mutter, knowing that my words are starting to slur. "Gotta go."

I push back from the desk. Time slows down. Moria. Black. Moria. Black. I'm still staring at the flickering screen. My hand moves slowly. I watch my right index finger press the glowing orange power switch on the lower right-hand corner of the offending black frame. It occurs to me, at a remove, that I could have turned my head instead.

Black.

T minus 0:30

Time speeds up. Everything is edges and flat planes. The white walls are supersaturated with the orange glow of the single incandescent bulb illuminating the basement. I stand up, steadying myself against the soft, soft wall.

But that's not right, I think. Concrete walls. Drywall floors. Ouch. I move for the stairwell.

T minus 0:20

"Jesnnn ..." I mumble, as the stairs roll underneath my legs and I float into the kitchen. Couch. Pillows. Carpets.

The couch is blue. Very, very blue. It's so blue that it's exactly like the sky in Utah where Jess and I retired to ski last year.

No, that's not right. I'm only 42.

T minus 0:15

Crimson Skies. I remember standing outside the loft in Boston 9 years ago. I pulled over the pickup truck and stared at the rooftops. Nathan Zachary was doing combat with heavily armed Zeppelins. I can hear the gunfire. I can smell the AvGas.

The sense of place is an ache. If I just think hard enough I can be in the plane. I can be Zachary, and there will be no game. There will only be me, and my plane, and the open air.

Jess is sitting on the too-blue couch with me. She's painfully beautiful. Her hands are calm. She rests her hand on my knee. Orange moves from her fingertips into my leg. Time slows down again.

"Sorry," I say.

"Shh..."

The world fades.

T plus 1:00 minute

Black turns gray turns blinding white turns blue. The plain blue of the couch. There is no orange climbing up my leg. There's no longing for that day in Boston which never actually happened. Time steps forward, the way I assume it does for everyone most of the time. I can't be sure, of course. I've long since given up any hope of understanding my sand-like perception of time.

"That was a good one, eh?"

I nod. "First time I've had the strobe thing happen."

T plus 10:00

I'm still sitting on the couch. Every muscle in my body limply hurts.

I return to the basement. Shawn is still in vent.

"I'm OK, but I think I'm done with LOTRO for a while."

He laughs.

T plus everything

The warning in front of virtually every video game has struck me as something of a dare these last 10 years. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is usually characterized by long wind up periods (called aura), and fairly simple, nonviolent seizures. I rarely fall down, much less flop around on the floor and knock over wine glasses. As far as the outside world goes, I'm much more in the "cheap date" category of social misfits than the medieval "demonic possession" camp.

In other words, I've got the very best kind of epilepsy you can have.

My auras are intense. They're crazy dream-states of time-alteration, sense-intensity and quite often hallucinations so real it hurts when they leave. Most often, my auras (and I use the possessive with profound intent, I've come to cherish them despite their destructive capacity on my otherwise sedate life) contain imagery, scenes and stories from games. It's unsurprising, really. The experience of a game is far more intense, visual and engaging than that of most books or movies, and better fodder for a good hallucination than real life.

These alternate realities -- the game ones -- provide stimulation that is often nearly as intense as my auras. That sense of truly being a different person, in a different place, and perhaps most poignantly in a different time, is when games are at their best. Games can create an intense dream state. So it should be no surprise that my two dream worlds collide when the neurons misfire.

At my most peaceful and accepting, I tell myself that my auras are a gift. I can run the roll-call of hypergraphic writers and demented visionaries with my kind of epilepsy. I can think back on the stories that have been told in these 1-minute bursts over the last decade and be thankful for unique and compelling experiences.

But these are ultimately lies. Justifications I use to fund silver-lining expeditions into what will be, for the foreseeable future, a lurking cave of dream and doubt.

Comments

How are we so sure this isn't a plot by Certis to raid your lootz?

Wonderful prose, as always. I've been interested in how gamers with medical conditions (color blindness, synesthaesia, etc) make the game experience fit into their lifestyle. The majority of us use it in a mindless entertainment fashion (and no doubt the Gamers with Conditions do so as well), so the illness intersect adds an interesting spin on the experience of it all.

Or maybe I'm a morbid weirdo...

The couch is blue. Very, very blue. It's so blue that it's exactly like the sky in Utah where Jess and I retired to ski last year.

No, that's not right. I'm only 42.

Is there any connection between the way the brain starts to act during an epileptic seizure and dream states? Your descriptions of this episode sound very much like some of the lucid dreams I've had in that netherworld between sleep and wakefulness where reality follows a battle between the dream and my faculties of reason.

I've always thought of epilepsy warnings on games as equivalent to nut allergy warnings on packets of peanuts: surely they're preaching to the choir.

When I was younger, I dated a woman with epilepsy & what you're describing sounds really similar. The big difference was that what she saw really scared her. I'm sure I'm not getting this completely right, but for 18 years I've had this vision in my head of what she told me. She would notice, like you do, that it was coming, but wouldn't have much time to do anything. Things would fade & then she would find herself in her family's kitchen. There would be a slight summery breeze coming through an open window, and the room was lit from the outside with tree-diffused sunlight. A large black bird would land on the sill of the open window, turn its head toward her and begin to talk intently. As it talked, things would fade, and she would fall into darkness. When she regained consciousness, she'd come back with this strong sense of unease. I don't think she could remember what it said to her, but she found it very frightening. She also believed that each time she "visited", it would repeat itself, but also add a little more to what it said. At the time I knew her, I think she was getting really creeped out with the understanding that she was trapped there with it longer and longer each time.

Insectecutor wrote:

Is there any connection between the way the brain starts to act during an epileptic seizure and dream states? Your descriptions of this episode sound very much like some of the lucid dreams I've had in that netherworld between sleep and wakefulness where reality follows a battle between the dream and my faculties of reason.

The dirty little secret about epilepsy (and many other things neurological) is that modern medicine really has very little idea how consciousness *works*. They can observe brainwave patterns and make inferences, but as far as I've ever been able to discern, nobody really knows how any of this stuff connects. The sensation for me is very much like lucid dreaming, but far more intense and far more real. The oddest part is the time distortion. It's nearly impossible to accurately describe. It's the worst deja vu you've ever had multiplied by a bazillion.

I don't mean to belittle epilepsy in any way, but Rabbit's description makes me want to have one seizure. Only one. It truly sounds like a mad weird experience, and I'm a fan of mad weird experiences.

It's a shame you can't have the good without the bad.

Hey Rabbit - glad all is okay and you didn't bite a hole through your tongue (or worse). I wish I could put events into words as well as you have here, especially when I see my neuro!

I think I'll start paying better attention to all the warnings now - I noticed it's on screen before the Halo Wars demo...

Also, sorry for suggesting a couple months back that you play WipeOut PS3 to test it for the rest of us flounderers. I was obviously kidding (well I hope it was obvious). Regardless, in light of recent events, I'd like to make a full retraction!

Jonman wrote:

I don't mean to belittle epilepsy in any way, but Rabbit's description makes me want to have one seizure. Only one. It truly sounds like a mad weird experience, and I'm a fan of mad weird experiences.

It's a shame you can't have the good without the bad.

You can! Consume lysergic acid diethylamide.

From wikipedia:

Some psychological effects may include an experience of radiant colors, objects and surfaces appearing to ripple or "breathe," colored patterns behind the eyes, a sense of time distorting (time seems to be stretching, repeating itself, changing speed or stopping), crawling geometric patterns overlaying walls and other objects, morphing objects, a sense that one's thoughts are spiraling into themselves, loss of a sense of identity or the ego (known as "ego death"), and powerful, and sometimes brutal, psycho-physical reactions interpreted by some users as reliving their own birth.

I wondered what exactly happened after I heard the last podcast. Thanks for sharing.

7thSON wrote:

Hey Rabbit - glad all is okay and you didn't bite a hole through your tongue (or worse). I wish I could put events into words as well as you have here, especially when I see my neuro!

I think I'll start paying better attention to all the warnings now - I noticed it's on screen before the Halo Wars demo...

Also, sorry for suggesting a couple months back that you play WipeOut PS3 to test it for the rest of us flounderers. I was obviously kidding (well I hope it was obvious). Regardless, in light of recent events, I'd like to make a full retraction!

I don't have the spazout kind of seizures, so the whole tongue biting thing has never really been a problem. Wipeout HD I had no problems with it. I'm guessing that since I've only ever had that one experience (I believe my strobe-EEGs were all negative too) that this isn't going to be a normal problem. I don't plan on playing a lot of games with black-white screen cycling. At least, not unless my SLI rig dies for real!

rabbit wrote:

SLI rig

Oh stop it.

OldMud: "Beautiful and frightening."

Couldn't have put it better myself. Great piece.

I've begun to look forward to these little tidbits from Julian. Artfully written so that particular structures and phrases (the sense of place is an ache) haunt me randomly during the day while I do other things.
Keep up the good work, and take care.

Amoebic wrote:

particular structures and phrases haunt me randomly during the day while I do other things.

Thank you. That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever, or ever will, say about my writing. Thank you.

rabbit wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

particular structures and phrases haunt me randomly during the day while I do other things.

Thank you. That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever, or ever will, say about my writing. Thank you.

You're such a sap when you're sober!

This was an interesting read. Sorry it happened to you, glad you are okay and thank you for writing this.

With games being so mainstream now, there are ever more occurrences where the problem of game accessibility arises.
People like me – with normal vision, adequate hearing, no epileptic difficulties, and fully functioning limbs– will forget that there are people who enjoy games that are not as fortunate as us.
I suppose that the developers of LOTRO should have written some sort of code for their game that would have prevented what happened to you. Alas, all developers are human…

Thank you for sharing such a terrifyingly amazing and sensitive experience with us! I have a friend with a son that suffers Epilepsy and often wonders at some of the things he experiences, but dares not ask because he is already having a hard enough time coming to terms with it himself!

Sadly so often people in the street acting strangely are taken for plain weirdos, yet in many cases they are suffering some sort of seizure and people just step away from them.

A scary place to be and your loving Jess providing the calming influence just when its needed..

My wife was recently diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. She was undergoing a stress test to try and explain all the issues she's been having the past few years and by a stroke of luck she had a seizure while hooked to the EEG. She's on her third week of Lamictol so far and things seem better modulo the side effects of taking new drugs, and we're hoping things get sorted out before the state of CA gets involved and suspends her driving license for being an unmedicated epileptic. The test showed that she has the photo trigger as well (is this true for all epileptics?), and I've become a lot more careful in the games and such that I show her. Anyway, I remembered this article and thought she might appreciate it, so thanks Julian for writing it.

Hey Complex,

So no, everyones E is different, and it can also change. In my case I never had photosensitivity until pretty recently.

Be careful on the driving thing. The issue is less the state than your insurance coverage. If you're knowingly violating the conditions of your drivers license, it's possible your insurance will be null and void should (god forbid) she have an accident. It won't necessarily have to have anything to do with her E, the insurance company will look for *any* reason to nullify their liability. The E bulletin boards are full of horror stories about things like this.

Also, you should be aware that unless things have changed in the last few years, CA is a mandatory report state, meaning your Dr. *has* to tell the state about any patient who has a seizure, or they can lose their medical license. (http://epilepsyunited.com/index.php?...) Also note that medication has nothing to do with it. Any loss of consciousness or siezure counts, and you have to have a certain seizure free period (on or off meds) before you get your ticket back.

In short, take the liability stuff seriously. Even if she just has a fender bender, it could cost you a large amount of money.

Thanks rabbit. We definitely are taking this seriously. We just discovered the license thing while googling yesterday, so shes going to contact her neurologist and see what's up. I think the issue is that she hasn't received an official diagnosis yet--I was unclear in my last post--so far the neurologist has said "you're having seizures in your temporal lobe," which is a slim distinction I'll admit. At 37, I don't think any of us expected her to wind up with this diagnosis (she was in a bad car accident in her early 20s which likely caused this), but it explains everything that's been going on, which is huge.

Yeah, the not knowing is the worst part. I thought I was literally a crazy person for quite some time before I got a positive EEG.