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The Big & Dandy Brain Zaps / Brain Shivers Thread

Hmm. Those of you that get it while tripping, is this often? My only experience was during a trip, and i havent dared to trip again since, at first because i was afraid of the zaps but later on it seemed i developed minor panic attacks from the experience. I would really like to eat some psychs again soon, though.
I suppose i should buy fish oil? Or is that only for the SSRI peeps? Should i eat them daily?

Also, regarding Si Ingwe's post - my zaps were maybe five or six rapidly triggerd spikes, which also involved palm clenching. Do you think this could be some seizure-ish thing instead? Most of you only report single spikes at a time.
I can also add i felt it mostly in my head, but also neck, arms, and legs... maybe also spine? But as i was also tripping i might have just made that up. It still felt very real.

Yoyo, have a good day
 
I believe zaps are highly isolated partial seizures, which is to say they're sudden intense bursts of atypical bio-electrical activity. The reason they are experienced differently between occurrences within the same individual and between individuals is just that they manifest in different parts of the brain affiliated with different types of processing. They very likely result from a number of different causes -- e.g. I've experienced them after serotonergics but also trying to go to sleep on hydrocodone, which isn't really associated with serotonin in any direct sense. My one experience with a drug-induced partial seizure involved hearing electrical "snaps" in conjunction with the spasms in my right arm and leg, and in my head it felt much like a series of brain zaps, just of a far greater magnitude. If a seizure is a storm raging across the brain then zaps are isolated lightning strikes.
 
Lyrae, I have tripped on shrooms twice, I got them once. I have gotten them nearly everytime I've tripped on HBWR. I've tripped on HBWR last week (they were the strongest brain zaps I ever had and this may be because I had also taken alprazolam), and now I have mild ones when I wake up in the middle of the night, but I don't know if they were there before but were unnoticed, or if it's because I've tripped recently. Also last time I had uncontrolled "rolling eyes" but not as the same time as the brain zaps.

I've had a succession of two zaps, only once.

About the fish oil, I don't really know... someone would have to try I guess, tripping on a psychedelic alone and again but with fish oil added.

Psood0nym, interesting information, thanks!
 
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Slightly off-topicl but benzos like alprazolam reduce the effects of psychedelics, they don't increase them.
 
Xorkoth said:
Slightly off-topicl but benzos like alprazolam reduce the effects of psychedelics, they don't increase them.
Click to expand...

I've heard that, but according to some the use of benzos while tripping make the brain-zaps worse. :)
 
Oh, you didn't mean the HBWR was the strongest you've had, you meant the brain zaps from them. Got it.
 
Xorkoth said:
Oh, you didn't mean the HBWR was the strongest you've had, you meant the brain zaps from them. Got it.
Click to expand...

Yup! :) Actually I woke up at 2 am (took the HBWR at 9 pm) and no hallucinations at all, only feeling really bad. I made myself vomit because I had to go to work in the morning and I felt that it kept going like that I wouldn't be able to.

I corrected my post, it was indeed confusing.
 
I've just noticed I'm getting brain zaps from taking yohimbe . Has anyone else had this?
 
lyrae said:
I suppose i should buy fish oil? Or is that only for the SSRI peeps? Should i eat them daily?

Also, regarding Si Ingwe's post - my zaps were maybe five or six rapidly triggerd spikes, which also involved palm clenching. Do you think this could be some seizure-ish thing instead? Most of you only report single spikes at a time.
I can also add i felt it mostly in my head, but also neck, arms, and legs... maybe also spine?
Click to expand...

The fish oils help regardless of the cause of the Zaps.

At the height of my problems I was having multiple, entire body Zaps simply from turning over in bed.

What you describe with the clenched palms, that sounds very much like a petite mal seizure & helps support my thesis that Brain Zaps are similar to minor events suffered by those with very mild epilepsy.

And to whomever asked about "hearing" Brain Zaps, absolutely, there's an annoying BZZZZZZT noise in my head when I get the Zap(s).
 
Si Ingwe said:
And to whomever asked about "hearing" Brain Zaps, absolutely, there's an annoying BZZZZZZT noise in my head when I get the Zap(s).
Click to expand...

For it's not like I'm hearing them, it's more like they have a consequence on the eardrums: they make them "crackle" or "pop" like when you take the plane and suddenly they crackle.
 
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Im a bit worried, i got my zaps during a trip and it freaked me out to the degree i went to the hospital. Since then ive gotten these "attacks" where i get a feeling i recognize from the zap trip, like my fingers and tongue shrinking or coiling, a shock of derealization and some minor electric feeling in the head. Not the actual zap-feeling though. This goes on for only a split second but then my heartbeat is raised to the sky and i get extremely frightened, thinking my brain is done for. It takes up to an hour to calm down.

They begun about a month after the trip, and i got maybe 2 a week at the beginning but after maybe three months they were gone. Sounds like some coping mechanism/psychic reaction to me. Though today, two months after the last one, i got another. This has made me a bit freaked out.

What would you make of these things? Id say some kind of panic attacks or PTSD? It feels like a zap but without the zap, if you know what i mean, and i DO believe its not zaps because that would not make any sense?

Im not on any medication besides coffee, the occacional cigarette or some weed (once a week maybe). No trips since the hospital.
 
I've only experienced them, after taking mdat (and far too much - In the sense of way too much!), felt like I had terrible flu for 12 hours, slept for even longer.

Then came the brain zaps for about a week after. The first day or two they were crippling, every couple of minutes, it felt like a jolt through my brain and down my spine, it felt like my vision dulled briefly too when they occurred.

By day 3 they were starting to subside in severity, and becoming more infrequent.

Towards the end of the week, they had pretty much gone, I suffered some random isolated ones over the next couple of months, but never experienced them again.

It put me off drugs for a while, and pretty much killed my love for stimulants. I'm actually quite thankful for the experience.

I have never experienced them from any other drugs.

I'm curious as to whether the brain zaps are the same from different classes, for example do psych zaps feel different from benzo withdrawal, or even SSRI discontinuation syndrome? I mean these are different mechanisms at play, but are they ending at the same result. Is there more than one criteria for brain zaps?

Also what about chronic drug intake (for example an SSRI) vs. acute intake (for example an MDMA roll).
 
I get savage brain zaps from extended benzo use. In fact, even when I take them now (even after a long abstinence) I get brain zaps while I'm still actually high which never used to happen. Can't be a good thing IMO!
 
I used to get zaps coming off long meth binges. I occasionally get them during an ayahusca or shroom session, but they're not unpleasant then. I got them for the first time 10 years ago when I quit taking Effexor.
Also, I noticed that I'd get a zap whenever I'd have a thought, or situation, that'd normally give me an adrenaline response. Instead of an adrenaline rush i'll get a zap...so I have come to the conclusion that there is some "malfunction",seemingly temporary, in my adrenaline system... many SSRI's, Effexor for instance, effect adrenaline receptors as well as serotonin.
 
it tolls for thee said:
I get savage brain zaps from extended benzo use. In fact, even when I take them now (even after a long abstinence) I get brain zaps while I'm still actually high which never used to happen. Can't be a good thing IMO!
Click to expand...

Benzo use, to fight the anxiety caused by the drug that gave me the brain zaps in the first place, makes my zaps return & makes them worse :( The zaps almost always appear in the early hours of the morning, often about a day 24 hours after the dose. This gives me the impression that the withdrawal from the benzo is what's causing the zaps, & this ties in, again, with siezures, as the risks of these is associated with abrupt benzo withdrawal.
 
This will probably sound kind of weird lol. Recently I've noticed that when I wake up in the middle of the night (principal cause being nightmares), if I move my eyes, I get a feeling that reminds me of the brain zaps I get while on tryptamines / ergolines (it's also interesting noting that I got the brain zaps on psychedelics only while falling asleep, in states of deep relaxation, and also once while drawing). It's the same sudden feeling, same lenght (a split second), but less intense. And I'm pretty sure it's caused by my eyes movement. One large eye movement = one brain zap. It's more intense if I move my eyes suddenly and strongly on purpose.

Also, I think all of my zaps can be described as "low frequency" "sounds". Maybe what makes me feel them this way is that they make my ear dums "crackle" in a similar way as the crackle you feel when yawning (it's not very intense but it's definitely there. Maybe I just imagine that my ear drums crackle because the feeling from the brain zap ressembles it). I think I could describe my zaps as a big "SWOOOSH" sound. I'm saying this because the word "zap" makes me think about a high-frequency sound, such as the zap from a tazer. My zaps do not feel like that. And they feel like falling down or like bad fever.

At first I even thought that maybe they were caused by a sudden blood flow, which could cause the ear crackling. Anyone else got that "ear crackling"?
 
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