Paramnesias

Time perception disturbances

Forced Reminiscence

As pointed out in the quoted passage from Oliver Sacks's monograph Migraine, a major differential diagnosis to be considered in each patient complaining a history of dreamy states / forced reminiscence is psychomotor or temporal lobe epilepsy, now more commonly called complex partial seizure disorder, so that a neurological examination is obligatory in this case.

The following quotes illustrate this first type of "dreamy states" featuring forced reminiscence.

"Usually my symptoms are limited to scintillating scotoma & that 'forced reminiscence/dreamlike' state, sometimes followed by headache, but the past couple of days, I've had lower jaw/lip/ right hand & fingers numbness occur briefly. It 'travels' from the lip/mouth/jaw area down the arm to the fingers. I guess the clinical term is paresthesia. Anyone else experience that?"

(Maggie C., Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Anybody Here Get Numbness as a Side-Effect of Migraine?, January 16, 2002)

"In Sacks's book, he talks a lot about forced reminiscence / uprush of long-forgotten memories or dreams as a 'common' classical migraine symptom. However, there is not much information about this elsewhere, and not many people's case studies talk to it... Does anyone else here get this? I've come across only two other people, but would like to hear others' stories if they do -- has it always been there? how frequent? how long does it last? do you get it with every mig, etc.?"

(S. Marwood, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Forced Reminiscence, March 6, 2004)

"I just wanted to let you know that i have had this sort of perception quite often. A certain street corner. A certain woman's face. They come on without warning and then they are gone. Not every migraine brings them, but they are so much 'the same' each time that i have always assumed they consisted of specific memory-points being stimulated. New ones have been added through the years, some of them relating to particularly intense migraines, for instance, a time that a man tried to drum on my head to calm the migraine. I barely remember him, but BANG! there he is, drumming on my head, and i can even smell the peculiarly unpleasant mildew smell in his house. I've learned to ignore these flashes unless they are pleasant or nostalgic. They do seem seizure-like, but i have no other seizure-like affects. They seem to be the memory counterparts of intense cortical-visual auras, which are more frequent for me, and take the form of stunningly intricate orange-and-black, ever-shifting Op-art 'quilt blocks' that completely obscure my field of vision."

(Catherine Yronwode, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Forced Reminiscence, March 6, 2004)

"But I'd also like know what explains the episodes of deja vu that come sailing in from nowhere from time to time? Sometimes they are brief flashes of things having happened before [i.e. forced reminiscence] and a sudden sense of fear. Other times it's like a dream from long ago plays out before me and I get a sense of 'need to change something happening' but I never can figure out what that is... Ya, ya, is all questions zis Raven's wing? Well, yes, but they are questions that bother me, even though I try to ignore them. I don't expect answers, and yes, I have read that they can all be part and parcel to mig. But I still think it bizarre."

(RavensWings, Brain Talk Communities, Juny 19, 2004; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

"I wanted to comment though because i read Pete's description of his migraine auras that involve 'several deja-vus happening all at once'. This happened to me in May and it was one of the most frightening experiences in my life! I have a three year old son that almost ran into a parkinglot when this was happening to me. thank god my husband was there. It was like dreaming and being awake at the same time. Like being in two realities at once. i felt that i had lost my mind! and then after about a half hour it started to subside although it took a month for me to feel more clear headed."

(gl, Edith Frost's Website, July 12, 2005)

"I completely understand what you mean about dream attacks [i.e. forced reminiscences]. I didn't think to consider that separate from déjà vu episodes. I get the dream sequences, also, exactly as you described. Both déjà vu and the dream attacks are followed by a metallic taste and sense of smell on exhalation. I am also completely aware when this is going on and can easily have a conversation, but still feel 'zoned'. I haven't had either in about a year (knock on wood), just the migraine headaches, which seem to be fairly under control since I started taking trazadone...

The first time I had a déjà vu experience I was driving on the expressway. Of course I didn't know what was happening and was scared to death. They continued periodically throughout the day and over then next couple of days. Then I got the migraine. Of course I didn't associate the two. A few weeks later they started up again. I literally thought I was going crazy and was scared to tell anyone... [My GP] told me these were auras! and precursors to migraines. I did not get the déjà vu and then the dream attack as you describe. It would generally be one or the other, but the familiarity of having experienced the situations was profound.

Anything could trigger the déjà vu to come on. A song on the radio, a red car that I would pass at a certain point on the street.... these things will trigger a string of pre-experienced memories which can last anywhere from a few seconds to maybe a minute, hard to tell. I don't recall ever having anything trigger the dream attacks; they just happen out of the blue but are so similar to the déjà vu because I know I've dreamt the scenario before. (I am a very vivid dreamer and can usually recall dreams when I wake up; they are sleep's biggest perk!!!) I have had multiple episodes of both in the same day, but do not recall them occurring in a particular pattern.

I did learn though that the sooner I forced the deep 'metallic exhale' the sooner the the episode would end. I forgot to mention that along with the episodes I get a tingling feeling all over, almost like what I would imagine an 'extremely mild' electric shock would feel like. Definitely something weird going on...

When these occur, I do not always get the headache. And when I have had the headache, it was always after the episodes, never before. After the episodes occur, I feel spacey for a few minutes and a little shaken up.

One last thing to include: I did have an open MRI of the head, while having migraine (not recommended as the noise from the machine is so loud and almost unbearable during headache.) My MRI was also normal."

(lmg, Email to Simon J. Marwood, July 13, 2005)

"I was in a strange headspace yesterday, partly migraine and the rest impossible to describe except to mention that I suddenly had a very clear memory of my brother's apartment in Washington D.C. I could see it all very clearly. I was four years old when I saw that apartment and don't think I've thought about it since then. The mind is a mystery - is everything stored in our memory, waiting to be reawakened, remembered, decades later for no apparent reason? I'll have to finish reading Palaces of Memory: How We Build the Worlds Inside Our Heads [Johnson, 1991] which I put down last Spring."

(Dirk Hine, personal website, February 2002; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

"I found that your are interested in the déjà vu type auras, well I think I have that or just am crazy as a hoot owl... In 1996 I started having these 'episodes'. I would sometimes all of a sudden have this déjà vu episode that seemed to correspond with a dream/nightmare I had had the night before. I would go into a trance like state almost as if I was a bystander from the outside looking in. I get real weak, never have fallen but have caught myself. Then the nausea hits and I vomit. Once I have one of these episodes I usually have them the rest of the day until I have a full nights rest. The episode itself only lasts no more than a minute. I never had a migraine headache afterwards? until two weeks ago. And it was a biggie! I also had not had migraines until this last March and that very first one lasted 3-4 days. I have had CTs done and have a neurologist. ... I would like to figure out why this happens. I had never mentioned it to any of my dr.'s until this last one. I just thought I was out of my mind! I do believe stress is my biggest trigger to these."

(Shaylene, Email to Klaus Podoll, July 25, 2005)

"Ok let me try to explain. Maybe if I explain one of the experiences it may become clearer on what I do: It didn't hit me in the morning (they rarely do), but I was at a store and checking out, while paying I did have this 'wow this was in my dream last night' thought [i.e. déjà vu] and as soon as that thought hit me my stomach started turning and it was almost as if my eyes went blurry because I was trying to focus too much on what made me feel this way. At the same time I felt my legs get weak, and my heart start to race. The 'wow been here before' feeling hit me, but when going into that trance like state or 'dream' [i.e. forced reminiscence], the store, the actions etc were NOT from the 'dream', but something there had 'triggered' it. I can't remember what the 'dream' was. But the dream itself seems to be very familiar. It feels like the second playing of a dream I had had before. It is not like a 'daydream'. The events in the world around me were NOT the events in my dream. But something in the world around me triggered the episode.

I seem to know which is the reality and which is the 'dream' but I can never during that day explain to someone about what I see or else the episode just starts over again. (I found that if I continue and try to remember it sends me into what I call another episode. It may be just the coincidence of trying to remember and having the 'episode' happen again. When I have had them happen up to 10 times during the day.) I can later but then it's only in bits and pieces. I seem to be able to remember the physical and psychological feelings (nausea, vomiting, weakness, heart pounding and an overwhelming feeling of doom almost like a panic attack), but never the 'dream' in full context, only in bits and pieces.

This last time, I woke up with the 'feeling'. Yet even though it was just less than two weeks ago, I cannot for the life of me tell you what my 'visions/dreams' were! But it was the same physical reactions as I have had before.

A different time, I believe it was my first episode, I had the same physical reactions but I can remember some of the 'dream'. I can tell you in bits and pieces of what that 'dream' was about. It had to do with my past but a past I never had. I was in high school again and there was a prom dance but everyone was dressed up like a masquerade ball, and there were statues but the statues were believe it or not the drama class participants standing still. When this hit? my reality was putting my 2 yr old into his car seat at a gas station!

I have had this experience since 1996 but only about 7 times.

The migraine history: I have only recently been diagnosed with migraines. Back in March I came down with a beauty of one. I was cross stitching and my left eye started to blur on me. Then a headache gradually began. I went to bed and the next day it was only worse than the night before. I then started having numbing and tingling sensations along the left side of my face. I went to ER immediately and that when they did the CT scan and found no bleeding or anything of concern.

I have been on and off different medications since, trying to prevent anymore. My neurologist diagnosed me as 'status migrainous' I think.

With these episodes I had never had headaches or such until this last time. So I don't have a good history if the two are related."

(Shaylene, Email to Klaus Podoll, July 25, 2005; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

References

Johnson G. In the Palaces of Memory: How We Build the Worlds Inside Our Heads. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1991.
Sacks OW. Migraine. Revised and expanded. University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford 1992.

Author: Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Tuesday January 03. 2006

Paramnesias

Time perception disturbances

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