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The Big & Dandy Brain Zaps / Brain Shivers Thread

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Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
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ever since my first drug experience (cannabis) i've always run into harsh brain zaps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_shiver) . i find with a high dose of certain psychedelics (mainly tryptamines it seems), when i feel overwhelmed or at the brink of ego loss, or on the edge of sleep in a lucid dream, a zap will slap me back into reality. this sucks obviously, ruining the flow of the trip and being a little painful at times.

i was on effexor for a year and the withdrawal from that exasperated the problem. but the issue was there to begin with.

anyone else have a similar problem/solution? is this indicative of something serious i should take note of?
 
I get those badly after MDMA and very occasionally at other times, but not really during psychedelic experiences. I never got a single one, ever, until I did MDMA one time last year and found it had totally changed for me from a euphoric, empathic substance into a demon. For two weeks after that experience I was very depressed and anxious to the point of crying in despair daily, and I was literally getting at least one "brain zap" every minute, all day, every day. It was so bad sometimes that I would feel like I was falling through reality or something. Sometimes they would happen many in a row, where it was a constant wave of "zapping" for several seconds. It was very frightening. Since then I've associated those "zaps" with something being wrong.

But that's just from personal experience. The zaps for me seemed to be entirely caused by that experience, since I never had one before it, and the frequency of them has gone down steadily since, to the point where I haven't had one in months.

I imagine yours are hard to explain, and so are mine. We may be talking about somewhat different feelings here.

Additionally, people report these zaps very commonly from withdrawal of SSRIs. This and my own experience leads me to believe they have something to do with serotonin, although that's not based on any sort of scientific evidence.
 
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i think i know what your talking about.. a few times when i took 2ce, i would just feel fine and having thoughts, then all of a sudden i would like almost hear a loud electronic sound in my brain. i could feel it too. it was like i was kind of being electrocuted or something. very weird, kinda scary. only happened a few times while i was tripping tho. if it happened outside of the trips, i would really have second thoughts about whether or not i wanted to continue doing the drug in question. anyone have any more info about this and why it happens?
 
I would certainly say they have something to do with seratonin.

I come to this hypothesis as alot of people say they get this after MDMA, or SSRI withdrawl as Xorkoth mentioned, and I seem to get them when I am coming off Prednisone (corticosteroids), and these drugs cause me (and many others I suspect) to have VERY strange things happen to serotonin levels at time when I am decreasing the dose.
 
That happened to me all the time from paxil
 
I get these on 75% of MDMA experiences.

Usually when im trying to sleep. Quite uncomfortable if you ask me...
 
I'll get these the next day after MDMA use. It's one of those things that I thought was just me, until I realized other people got them too and there was a name for it! To me, it kinda feels like my eyes go cross-eyed for a second (even though they don't) and I get a weird sensation that almost feels like I hit my funny bone, but in my head. It's a very mild sensation but it can be extremely annoying, especially when I'm trying to sleep.
 
Experienced a few months of zaps each 10-15 seconds when stopping zoloft. Gradually went away. a few years later, they were telltale signs that SWIM was an hour late for efexor dose.
 
Brain Zaps sucks.

But I figure it's my brain trying to repair itself :)
 
I too get them when missing a dose of efexor. The first time I was on it I stopped getting them for some reason and I was able to stop it in a very half arsed way.

I'd forgotten about the ones in bed that wake you up, those are stronger and have sound and with me have been random and not connected to any substances.
 
thats never bhappened to me, but man thats lame to have happen, sounds unpleasant
 
I've had this or something a bit like it a few times in my life. Specifically after drug use... after excessive MDMA use. It's like a few moments of not actually existing just before I am off to sleep... I kinda fall asleep and then there's this explosion and I wake up again. Freaky, yes. I also got this occasionally when i used 5-meO-DMT or a high dose of DMT, just after taking the drug.

But it's nothing comapred to the general horror of SSRI withdrawal, where I felt uncomfortable all over and irritable and unwell and not realyl myself andconstantly bothered by, well, everything. Worse than depression itself, come to think of it.
 
hellraiser666 said:
i got them from zoloft withdrawl id be lying in bed and theyd just be like almost an explosion in my head and my whole body would jolt and itd scare the shit outa me lol
do you elso get that "white flash" when your in bed with closed eyes?
 
or on the edge of sleep in a lucid dream, a zap will slap me back into reality

Hm, this has happened to me on oral DMT (*huasca) - twice! I've been relaxing, going into a vision, almost like falling asleep, when I'd get a quick "bzzzt" and snap out of it. Normally I don't get this, though. I've never had any medication, but I do live quite unhealthily.
 
I'd forgotten about the ones in bed that wake you up, those are stronger and have sound and with me have been random and not connected to any substances.

You mean when you're about to fall asleep and it suddenly feels like the world fell out from under you and you jump awake in terror?

I've gotten those all my life here and there, but the brain zaps are much different if you ask me. The brain zaps feel extremely wrong and worrying to me. They're actually at least 50% of the reason I won't use MDMA anymore (the rest is because additionally it makes me horrendously depressed for at least a week afterwards).

And I agree, it does feel sort of like hitting your funny bone, but in your head, and it only lasts momentarily.
 
Yeah I used to get those when I was going through opiate withdrawl, such an odd sensation...
 
Xorkoth said:
You mean when you're about to fall asleep and it suddenly feels like the world fell out from under you and you jump awake in terror?

No, not the "falling" thing. These are just in the head but only when I've been in bed, maybe not completely asleep but at least with my eyes closed. I don't know if there's any light but there's definitely sound. They feel different to the efexor withdrawal ones, which have never had sound and usually been connected to some kind of eye movement.
 
I've gotten these even before my drug use, pretty much i just deal with it.
 
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