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The Big & Dandy Seizures & Blackouts on Psychedelics Thread

I don't think it's anything to do with psychedelics "lowering the seizure threshold". In most cases it will just be panic attacks brought on by stress at being unable to cope with the trip.

The following are some examples of Non-Epileptic Seizures with a psychological cause.

Panic attacks
Panic attacks can occur in frightening situations or when remembering previous frightening experiences. They can also happen in situations that are expected to be distressing. Panic attacks can be very upsetting for the person having them. They may feel very anxious or frightened as the panic attack starts.

The physical effects of these attacks may include having difficulty breathing, sweating, palpitations (being able to feel your heartbeat) and trembling. The person may also lose consciousness and may have convulsions.

Over time panic attacks may happen even if the person is not in a frightening situation.

Cut off or avoidance attacks
This type of attack happens when a person finds it difficult to cope in a very stressful or emotionally difficult situation. This is more likely to happen when a person does not feel able to say they are finding it hard to cope. As with panic attacks, over time this might even happen in situations that are not stressful.
 
^A panic attack is more an external seizure if you wanted to go so far as to call it that Antigone. BTW, most of that info on panic attacks is nonsense- the losing conciousness bit and convulsions; nuh-uh. I've got panic disorder, and while a sever panic attack certainly has outward manifestation- twitching, facial numbness/spasms, sweating, delerium/mild hallucinatons, you do not have convulsions OR lose conciousness- that would be a mercy.

Anything that increase glutaminergic activity in the brain would surely lead to rapid excitation of neurons, translating into movement. Thats why GABAergic drugs can treat epilepsy. A rapid change in brainwave patterns can cause a seizure; I would also suggest that, as a lot of hallucinations seem to be created by sensory feedback loops, why wouldn't bodily perceptions also go through some sort of 'feedback' cycle where they are amplified and repeated- indeed a panic attack is just that; one becomes afraid, a physical symptoms occurrs in response (shaking) that generates more fear and more symptoms. With mushrooms, they are notorious (for me at least) for getting me stuck in thought loops, and I've intuited at times if I didn't 'break' thenloop I would have seized.
 
^A panic attack is more an external seizure if you wanted to go so far as to call it that Antigone. BTW, most of that info on panic attacks is nonsense- the losing conciousness bit and convulsions; nuh-uh. I've got panic disorder, and while a sever panic attack certainly has outward manifestation- twitching, facial numbness/spasms, sweating, delerium/mild hallucinatons, you do not have convulsions OR lose conciousness- that would be a mercy.

Anything that increase glutaminergic activity in the brain would surely lead to rapid excitation of neurons, translating into movement. Thats why GABAergic drugs can treat epilepsy. A rapid change in brainwave patterns can cause a seizure; I would also suggest that, as a lot of hallucinations seem to be created by sensory feedback loops, why wouldn't bodily perceptions also go through some sort of 'feedback' cycle where they are amplified and repeated- indeed a panic attack is just that; one becomes afraid, a physical symptoms occurrs in response (shaking) that generates more fear and more symptoms. With mushrooms, they are notorious (for me at least) for getting me stuck in thought loops, and I've intuited at times if I didn't 'break' thenloop I would have seized.
 
i've read about people who were having a good trip and then suddenly had a seizure. so the panic attack explanation can definitely be ruled out. also, marijuana commonly causes severe panic attacks and yet you never read about people having seizures from marijuana. if it was just panic attacks, then marijuana would cause seizures as well. ive read about these seizures both here, on erowid and the shroomery and its happened with both lsd and mushrooms. i dont know if psychedelics lower the seizure threshold but for whatever reason, they seem to cause some people to have seizures. does anyone have any studies/actual scientific information on this? because i can never seem to find any. just a bunch of trip reports where someone had a seizure.
 
i've read about people who were having a good trip and then suddenly had a seizure. so the panic attack explanation can definitely be ruled out. also, marijuana commonly causes severe panic attacks and yet you never read about people having seizures from marijuana. if it was just panic attacks, then marijuana would cause seizures as well. ive read about these seizures both here, on erowid and the shroomery and its happened with both lsd and mushrooms. i dont know if psychedelics lower the seizure threshold but for whatever reason, they seem to cause some people to have seizures. does anyone have any studies/actual scientific information on this? because i can never seem to find any. just a bunch of trip reports where someone had a seizure.
 
Do mushrooms have penicillin in them?
That could explain people on mushrooms having seizures if they have penicillin allergies.
 
If I take a lot of LSD my hands will most likely shake. Or at least they look like they're shaking, shifting and melting. :)

I've never had any seizures or anything like that but shit you should have seen my hands when i was trying to get that damn balloon on the n2o cracker while tripping hard. :X :!
they'd shake pretty bad and be all sweaty and nasty but there was no way in hell i wasn't gonna do another balloon.

edit: then again i think thats kinda normal. I've noticed lots of my friends hands shake while trying to do something slightly complicated while on LSD.
 
Delsyd said:
Do mushrooms have penicillin in them?
That could explain people on mushrooms having seizures if they have penicillin allergies.
Click to expand...

Just curious, why would psilocybe mushrooms contain penicilin? I've not heard something like that...

I'd say that it is the increase in glutaminergic/excitatory transmissions in the brain; most psychedelics increase that activity (afaik) and that would lower the seizure.

But heres an interesting tidbit from Terence McKenna in his final days:

Asked if he had cut back on drugs:

Terence: At first I cut back on Cannabis, because it seemed to trigger the seizures. But then I easily got that corrected. Now I'm smoking as much dope as I ever did. I haven't been taking ayahuasca, because the vomiting reflex is too scary in terms of the brain seizure reflex. They're really closely related. So I've been taking psilocybin. We happen to have some actual pure psilocybin, not mushrooms. And it's great. So I guess the answer is no. I want to probe into it, I want to understand it. I mean obviously, death is a very big deal.
Click to expand...

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v10n2/10206mck.html
 
for me it seems to be related to being right on the border of a dream state and then being shocked back into reality, like the brain is glitching on that precipice.

i associate the spazzing and blackouts (maybe not a full seizure, idk) with EHS. feels the same to me. it's not euphoric/dysphoric or brought on by panic, just like a shocking jolt from the headspace back into physical reality. as if there's a plane flying in right over my head, my body buckles into embryo position, and i'll go out for a second.

with a lot of psychs there's stimulation, and yet there's simultaneously extreme fatigue especially mental if you're not fully prepared. it's a weird feeling, kind of like sleep deprivation .

i get it most from shrooms and LSA (out of the stuff i've tried). but i've seen spazzing on phens too as well as weed.

not very scientific, but that's my intuitive understanding of it.
 
for me it seems to be related to being right on the border of a dream state and then being shocked back into reality, like the brain is glitching on that precipice.

i associate the spazzing and blackouts (maybe not a full seizure, idk) with EHS. feels the same to me. it's not euphoric/dysphoric or brought on by panic, just like a shocking jolt from the headspace back into physical reality. as if there's a plane flying in right over my head, my body buckles into embryo position, and i'll go out for a second.

with a lot of psychs there's stimulation, and yet there's simultaneously extreme fatigue especially mental if you're not fully prepared. it's a weird feeling, kind of like sleep deprivation .

i get it most from shrooms and LSA (out of the stuff i've tried). but i've seen spazzing on phens too as well as weed.

not very scientific, but that's my intuitive understanding of it.
 
burn out said:
i've read about people who were having a good trip and then suddenly had a seizure. so the panic attack explanation can definitely be ruled out. .
Click to expand...

No, as the article points out panic attacks can happen even when the person isn't in a frightening situation.

Secondly, it's notoriously difficult for even seasoned medical professionals to accurately diagnose seizures. So we need more reliable information than teenagers claiming "My mate says he had a seizure dude". I'd bet 99 out of every 100 claimed "seizures" on pyschedelics are nothing more than excited 14 year olds fantasising and exaggerating for effect. Like if your mate breaks wind on LSD the next day the story going round school will be "He shit himself on LSD and we all had to clean it up".

Lets face it, "My mate had a seizure dude" is a better story than "my mate felt a bit light-headed and fell over, then he got up and was fine dude" - you say one and people take notice of you, you say the other and they ignore you.
 
ismene i think you have a very good point, and i think that is why i with held from actually posting the full information of it... because i know most people rubbish reports of fits especially when peoples (MINE EVEN) beloved psychedelics are involved.

I love psychedelics and i wouldnt rubbish them, but they are also just a drug like anything else and if used irresponsibly then you will get kicked in the arse.
 
I am being a little light-hearted with it bare head, I'm sure psychedelics can cause some people to have a seizure if they're vulnerable to having seizures.
 
A close friend of mine has had blackouts towards the end of both an LSD and a mushroom trip. I put that down to either over-stimulation or low blood pressure. Not the same as seizures, but fairly similar I suppose.
 
IDK bout it being the lowered seizure threshold. I am epileptic (not too badly) and even when I don't take my med and Ive tripped I've never had a seizure...but that's just me. I've seen many a person pass out from head rush or dehydration and convulse a little...not even close to full on seizure type convulsions.
 
A friend of my boyfriends had a seizure once on mushrooms. Not a pretty sight :\
 
Ismene said:
No, as the article points out panic attacks can happen even when the person isn't in a frightening situation.
Click to expand...

Ah, but panic attacks are described as 'sub-epiletiform' by SOME reasearchers- you do not have convulsions and pass out from a panic attack. I know for I have been the unwitting student of this 'reasearch'.

Secondly, it's notoriously difficult for even seasoned medical professionals to accurately diagnose seizures. So we need more reliable information than teenagers claiming "My mate says he had a seizure dude". I'd bet 99 out of every 100 claimed "seizures" on pyschedelics are nothing more than excited 14 year olds fantasising and exaggerating for effect. Like if your mate breaks wind on LSD the next day the story going round school will be "He shit himself on LSD and we all had to clean it up".

Lets face it, "My mate had a seizure dude" is a better story than "my mate felt a bit light-headed and fell over, then he got up and was fine dude" - you say one and people take notice of you, you say the other and they ignore you.
Click to expand...

You must know some weird people antigone....I don't know anyone who would brag about shitting themselves or having a seizure. Why would you assume that people would think those aspets of tripping are exciting and 'brag-worthy'?
 
swilow said:
You must know some weird people antigone....I don't know anyone who would brag about shitting themselves or having a seizure. Why would you assume that people would think those aspets of tripping are exciting and 'brag-worthy'?
Click to expand...

You don't find people tend to exaggerate what happened to them/people they know on trips to make it sound more interesting or dramatic?

You've never heard anyone mention the guy they know who believes he's a glass of orange juice for example? And that he will "spill" if he sits down? Or the "E-tard" they know? Or the "blind guy who stared at the sun so long it burned his eyes out?" or "the guy who took too much acid in th e 60's - that's why he's like he is now, it's true dude..."?
 
This is pretty interesting. In fact i was just thinking about this a couple weeks ago the last time i had some shrooms. I've had seizures before - not from psychedelics - and when i was tripping i noticed the same feeling like i was about to start convulsing, in certain limbs. Mostly in the legs and shoulders, for me anyway. But I've only noticed while I was feeling "the cold" and i was wondering to myself what that cold feeling comes from. That feeling of pre-convulsion did NOT resemble just a trembling. It feels like I'm starting to lose control of that limb, and a kind of really unpleasant tensing&buzzing. I get worried that I'll begin to seizure, but I haven't yet.

But I do wonder what that cold is from and whether that might have something to do with it.
 
This is pretty interesting. In fact i was just thinking about this a couple weeks ago the last time i had some shrooms. I've had seizures before - not from psychedelics - and when i was tripping i noticed the same feeling like i was about to start convulsing, in certain limbs. Mostly in the legs and shoulders, for me anyway. But I've only noticed while I was feeling "the cold" and i was wondering to myself what that cold feeling comes from. That feeling of pre-convulsion did NOT resemble just a trembling. It feels like I'm starting to lose control of that limb, and a kind of really unpleasant tensing&buzzing. I get worried that I'll begin to seizure, but I haven't yet.

But I do wonder what that cold is from and whether that might have something to do with it.
 
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