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The Big & Dandy Brain Zaps / Brain Shivers Thread

I've had these for years, even prior to drug use, they normally come in tandem with the sleep paralysis that started around the same time. Really fucking unpleasant.
 
Yep, I experience these too with moderate MDMA use. Usually come two days after I've dropped and they suck. Exactly how its been described here, an electrical like "ZAP" thats real fast, scary as shit. I noticed it happens a lot more if I close my eyes and look left to right real fast they'll happen almost every time (after the drug use). They usually stop after day or two.
 
i get a zapping sensation where i black out then almost get restarted every morning if i'm up before 9AM. Dont know what it is, cant pinpoint when it started but it is very annoying
 
co.1nspire said:
I've had these a few time while falling asleep. The instant I'm slipping into a deeper state of sleep after just consciously laying there very relaxed I'll be shocked out of it and awake again by a buzzing zap. Its like sound is being stretched out in the matter of a moment to slap me back to awareness.
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There was a period of time, a few months ago, when this happened to me. These "brain explosions" began to happen to me before my first experimentation with nitrous oxide, my first recreational dabbling in drugs of any sort, so I can't attribute them to that. They were quite startling and uncomfortable. There was a point in my life where I was almost afraid to close my eyes and try to go to sleep, for fear of being startled by this flash of light, loud explosive noise, and body spasm.

For awhile I believed that they might have to do with a decongestant that I was prescribed awhile back, for my allergies. Awhile after I had been taking this medication daily, I starting feeling very very strange and disconnected from reality, like I was watching my life go by on a TV show, and I couldn't even control myself. I stopped using the decongestant, and these feelings instantly vanished. I believe that it was around this time that my "brain explosions" started happening.

I looked it up on the internet, and found a website that had an interesting theory on brain zaps occuring during sleep. I don't know exactly where I read it, but the theory was that sometimes brain zaps were an innate utility the brain has to wake itself up in an emergency. Our ancestors that slept in trees depended on these brain zaps to quickly and forcefully awaken them if they began to fall out of their tree. So the website theorized that a brain zap could be caused by a dream in which you begin to fall.

In any case, I have learned to avoid them, strangely enough, by sleeping on my side instead of on my back. I don't know if the position of my head relative to gravity is what causes the explosions to occur or not to occur, but I'm glad that I can fall asleep most nights without the explosions.
 
There are two types of "Brain Zaps" I have. One happens when I am withdrawing off of Tramadol, and has a certain SSRI character (but not entirely, in fact, WD from oxycontin produces these too, but more mild and a bit different). The other happens (typically if I am over tired), at the threshold between awake, and just falling asleep. It means that, instead of going from awake to Stage 1 (as is normal), I go directly from awake to REM (which is abnormal), the brain zap, or (more aptly described by me as "shock" or "jolt"), is like two high voltage carbon poles coming together. There are many small zaps which don't quite make it, but as soon as I go REM, that is the big zap. So it is basically from conscious state to REM sleep, and it can be scary. But I am used to it now. Some call it Astral Projection. Some call the vivid dreams during this REM period "hypnagogic hallucination". But I call it going directly from waking state to REM sleep, and the huge contrast between the two is a very horrifying thing to experience the 1st time. Your whole body is motionless, and you are unable to move a muscle. You are like wide awake dreaming, maybe feeling like you are tumbling through space. You may feel as if you are thrashing about the bed violently, only to wake from the REM to see your M8 peacefully asleep (apparently not disturbed by you). It was all in your head.
 
Brain "zaps" on shrooms

Okay, the last couple of times I did shrooms, this weird shit would happen.

It's almost like, I thought of something that I just couldnt answer, or I was looking at something and could perceive it properly.

For instance, when I watch TV on shrooms, I seem to have a more "in-depth" perception. Almost as if I can see more of the set, more "3d" as some would say.

This was quite entertaining, until a show like the simpsons was put on. As it is a cartoon, I started thinking that this is just a piece of paper, therefore it is 2d. But my mind was still trying to see it as 3d. Whenever there was a 2d scene (homer walks left to right), I was okay. However, whenever the cartoon added depth, as in walking down a hallway, or something like that (fuck i can't even explain it properly), my brain would tingle, very hard - like a zap. Almost as if I was trying to do something my brain couldn't handle or didnt know how to do.

Very weird shit, does anyone else experience this?
 
I have experienced the same thing with 2D and 3D thing and how I can interprit certain things. Although I have never had brain zaps, which if I hear correctly are somehow linked to seritonin, which is obviously what most psychedlics effect.
 
I'd get zaps during the come up just from random things. Usually when I'd have an unexpected thought or perception, my head and spine would tense up as if being shocked. I remember it happening when I looked at a baby picture of myself and thought... so that's me, but it's not, so it's a different person? wtf!? ZAP

also the very first time I tried them I began feeling it while playing World of Warcraft and started getting mad laughter accompanied by zaps at little things in the game.
 
Were you smoking weed with the mushrooms or had you recently been smoking a lot of weed? Sometimes weed changes my perception of depth. Never had that with mushrooms though. Also what I get from weed isn't exactly the same, it mostly just destroys my depth perception and makes everything appear 2d (like when looking out one eye). this only happens in periods of my life when i'm smoking a lot.
 
I suppose there are many types of brain 'glitches'. Something like this has happened to me when I've been cognitively overwhelmed somehow. It's almost like being suddenly scared by some thoughts, but it doesn't really feel like tingling, more like blacking out with a 'buzzing' after-effect.
I think I sort of understand this, but it's funny that it's triggered by visual perception like that.
 
Krowsnose said:
I'd get zaps during the come up just from random things. Usually when I'd have an unexpected thought or perception, my head and spine would tense up as if being shocked. I remember it happening when I looked at a baby picture of myself and thought... so that's me, but it's not, so it's a different person? wtf!? ZAP

also the very first time I tried them I began feeling it while playing World of Warcraft and started getting mad laughter accompanied by zaps at little things in the game.
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yeah on one of my first times i was in the bathroom trying to take a piss, but all this cosmic clarity kept pounding into my head and i was laughing like a madman and my brain felt like it was being shocked with a thousand volts

also weird things caused the zaps for me too, like unexpected thoughts/perceptions
 
demons said:
Were you smoking weed with the mushrooms or had you recently been smoking a lot of weed? Sometimes weed changes my perception of depth. Never had that with mushrooms though. Also what I get from weed isn't exactly the same, it mostly just destroys my depth perception and makes everything appear 2d (like when looking out one eye). this only happens in periods of my life when i'm smoking a lot.
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i get this from pot too, and i can control which '2d surfaces' (collections of objects that are the same distance from the eye) appear in front and which in back

so i can make the 2d tree closest to me look like it's behind the 2d tree farthest away

plus all the leaves changing from purple to green to brown, and the mindfuck, i hate people who say weed isn't a psychedelic
 
My friend used to get them ALL the time when he was being fed 'head meds' by his mom as an adolescent (antidepressants/SSRIs/SNRIs/Who Knows).

You know how sometimes when you stand up too fast, you get dizzy/vertigo and lose your balance? Well, sometimes when I'm on mushrooms, I stand up too fast and it feels like I am actually going to pass out. A friend of mine once passed out/blacked out a few times while shrooming.

I'm not sure why this happened, but it only happened once with a certain batch of shrooms.
 
"Brain zaps" theory

I believe the cause of the brain zaps or shocks at occurrence is directly related to the activity of the brain's own DMT. I've always experienced these without the use of any drugs. I noticed them every time I have come from a lucid dream (this would make sense that DMT has influence over visual dreaming.) Noticed them when I thought about something in a different light because I did not like the current emotion towards a single thought. Heavily noticed when I smoked DMT. Noticed when I was really tired and started drifting off into sleep, I would get shocked back awake.

The sensation feels like an electrical current (usually accompanied by random muscle twitch), you hear an internal buzzing, but there is no pain.
 
I think there is no base for your theory, there are a lot of neurotransmitters at work doing all kinds of complex things. People get brain zaps from SSRI discontinuation, perhaps that is the most common cause... Don't see DMT fitting in there whatsoever???
 
yea i've only ever gotten zaps after i stopped prozac. the zaps were actually quite painful and disturbing; like zaps of electric current running up my spinal cord to my head followed by a brief numbing/tingling effect through my extremities and slight confusion as to what had just happened

definitely not psychedelic and definitely not something i want to ever experience again :|

peace
 
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