Have you ever fainted?

[velvetpage]

I'm going to sound a bit loony when I say this, but I don't mind fainting the way I seem to do it.

I mean, it's disorienting, I dislike what it does to the people who are worried about me and trying to get me to a spot where I won't hurt myself, and I intensely dislike being helpless. But the actual loss of consciousness part is interesting. I start to spiral from this world into the one that exists only in my own brain. My left brain seems to shut down entirely, leaving - music. Whatever song was on constant replay in my head gets magnified to symphonic proportions, driving every care before it.

The first time I fainted was in a gym at McMaster University around 1997. The song at the time was a techno mix that had been bugging me for days, so I didn't get the full joy of it that time. (It also didn't help that, not knowing what was happening, I wasn't prepared - so I fell off the exercise bike and broke my glasses on my forehead. Ow.) The second time was the following summer. Some cousins from England were visiting, and we were doing the tourist thing in Niagara on the Lake, followed by climbing Brock's Monument - a huge tower with many steps, commanding a magnificent view of the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Niagara Gorge. In a café an hour before, I'd heard the Flower Duet, and it was replaying through my head. Fainting at the top of a few hundred stairs isn't fun, but I had enough warning this time to position myself with my feet dangling between two railings and my head leaning against the same, so I wasn't in danger of doing the domino effect on the tourists coming up behind us. And that rush of Flower Duet as I lost consciousness is on my list of most pleasant memories of that day.

This time, the song was Sure on this Shining Night, which I linked to last week and have been listening to off and on since then. It was another excellent choice for a fainting song. My brain went through about half of it, beginning to wake up shortly after the high A. I didn't think about the high A, as I have every other time I've listened to the song - I have to sing that A in choir, after all. No, I was just feeling my spirit soar over the landscape at night, weeping for wonder. It was glorious.

It was a decided letdown to return to consciousness, a worried Piet hovering over me and a nurse pressing a juice cup into my hand.

I'm not seeking out opportunities to faint, of course, but when they come I don't mind them much. They feel bad before and after, but the "during" makes up for both.

Comments

[used_songs]

I wonder why your brain hangs onto music like that. I wonder if others who have fainted also grasp onto music or if there is some other stimulus they hold onto.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

According to WebMD, not a lot of people present exactly like that. I don't think I've ever heard of someone feeling like this when they faint. But then, fainting usually involves dreaming, and I don't see most people talking about their dreams while unconscious, either.

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

I've never fully fainted but I have come close 2-3 times. Plus I have a tendency towards dizzy spells where I can't see anything. That hasn't happen as much in the past few years unless I get overheated while exercising or during the summer or if I move too quickly. It seems to be a combination of my hearing problem and possible orthostatic hypotension. It started when I was 11 yrs old.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

I tend to hear rather random music before falling asleep, just on the cusp of losing consciousness. I wonder if it's a similar mechanism at work.

Glad you're surviving, btw. :)

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

I've never out and out fainted - i.e. lost consciousness, but i've come close a couple of times. Once i was in the shower and could it coming on - so i had the prescience to sit down in the tub and turn the water on to cold only. The other time was sort of funny - i had gone to a salon to get my eye brows waxed on my lunch hour, before eating. I knew my blood sugar was low, and as the esthetician was doing my brows, i broke out into a cold sweat and knew i was close to fainting, so i asked if they could get me some water or juice or something. The poor esthetician thought it was because of the pain from the waxing - had nothing to do with that! It was just me being stupid since i tend to get hypo-glycemic if i'm not careful about regular food intake.

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

I have never fainted, nor even came close.

I've really wanted to a couple times, though, just to escape.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Have you seen where that tune is quoted in the side arc "Lullaby" in JACK?

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

JACK is www.pholph.com but be warned it's M(ature) content and definitly NSFW...

http://www.pholph.com/side_arcs.php?Strip=30 and then "next strip" until gone.

JACK is pretty strong meat but despite it's fondness for harsh situations teaches a pretty moral outlook on life. Just remember. Hell is not a pleasant place and the folks that go there did so for a reason....

[wyldraven.livejournal.com]

Have you ever been tested for epilepsy? Because it doesn't always include the violent seizures, and that description sounds decidedly neurological to me. IANAMD, of course.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Considering I've fainted a total of four times in the last ten years and always with a physiological reason, if it is epilepsy, I see no reason to do anything about it.

[professormass.livejournal.com]

Epilepsy can have physiological triggers. My wife's epilepsy manifested as fainting spells until she was in her early 20s, and then it shifted (as epilepsy can) for a few years to tonic clonic seizures, and hasn't made so much as a peep in three years.

Point being -- when her epilepsy decided to get nasty, she was injured by the results. You might consider seeing a neurologist, just to be on the safe side.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but - four times in ten years? I'm afraid I have much bigger problems to worry about, like the ones that caused the recent hospital visits in the first place.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I get static. It's like when you're driving and start losing the radio station you're listening to -- only faster.

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Me too. Although I've never out and out fainted, I've come awfully close. My vision starts to tunnel and then blacks over, my knees buckle on me, and my hearing fades... everything sounds like it's coming through very heavy earplugs, then all I can hear is muted static. Oh, and I can't feel people holding me/touching me, or even the floor as I hit it.

I'd imagine the actual loss of consciousness for me would be a complete and total loss of connection to the world outside my body.

Mine's a little different, possibly, as it deals with low blood pressure and my body's tendency to dislike getting up suddenly.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

The one thing I've noticed is that when I'm sleep-deprived, my brain will attach itself to one phrase of a song that's in my head and just loop it over and over. It's annoying, but it's also a good way for me to know that my body needs more sleep.

I don't know that I've ever fainted, exactly, though I've come close after donating blood. Your description of it is quite lovely and surreal.

[lovmelovmycats.livejournal.com]

I fainted once after giving blood, and I didn't have any experience during it that I remember. I felt so bad after regaining consciousness, that I decided fainting is decidedly unromantic, unlike in the stories. :)
Your experiences sound really neat- during, only, of course. You are such a musical person, and you seem to have lovely songs in your head.

At this point, I don't remember...

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

...if it was before or after giving birth. I don't remember hearing anything - I think everything suddenly "flew" away from me - sound and vision quickly receded, and then there was chronovius, being all concerned and ready to call an ambulance.

I had just stood up from bed (a slightly raised futon), and fell backwards, across the foot of the bed, so there was no injury to anyone.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

To my knowledge, I fainted once ... but I didn't remember the moments before the fainting.

I woke up on my back, on my bathroom floor. Yes, I'd dropped trou. Yes, I know folks are supposed to fall forwards when they faint, so I'm just as surprised.