What's the strangest thing to ever happen to your body/mind?

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Easily it was my traumatic brain injury I suffered in a motorcycle accident.

The best way to put it is you stop feeling the same way about stuff.

Would it be an overreach to say that at the event of a TBI one person dies and another person is born?

Depends on the extent of the injuries? Given that for 12 months afterwards I was still doing rehab to walk, to talk without slurring my words, and I lost half of my memories and could no longer connect with people I knew my entire life then I'd say so ... you have to reorganise your own relations and rethink your approach to things in a brand new way.

So yes?

That is a subject of philosophy. Google ship of Theseus.

Or watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI

Less ship of Theseus. Ship of Theseus assumes a ship is still a ship ... whereas with a bad enough TBI a ship no longer looks like a ship, and you can't quite remember what a ship looks like, either.

You just woke up on it ... and it will never feel like the same ship regardless, so why bother pretending it will ever be the same or a similar ship anyways? Just treat it as a brand new thing and you'll eventually adapt.

 

[wings012]

I was afflicted with the with some strain of the coxsackie virus as a kid. Apparently there was a people murdering one floating around at the time which freaked me out when the doctor mentioned the name, but it was a less deadly strain I got.

It generally made me feel like arse and vomitty and I had a bunch of weird meds. When I came out of it, I discovered I could burp on command. It's just swallowing air and expelling it a certain way but it was something I couldn't do before.

And well, wearing glasses awakened some facial muscles which allowed me to do that ear twitching thing. Which came from trying to adjust my glasses without my hands. I was like 10 and it felt cool cause only one other dude in class could do it. But now I can!

I got way drunk once and started having spasms in my friend's car. I'd just momentarily freeze up, start twitching like mad and then relax again. Also did a funny dance to get him to stop the car so I could puke out the side. I puked all over my arm, the arm that held the door open.

Pretty mundane shit all in all.

 

[iwinatlife]

I had my first ever general anaesthetic last week. Nothing really trippy. Just you know unsettling... Anaesthetist makes joke about swearing at his registrar and suddenly I'm in a bed, disinhibitedly scolding the recovery nurse for eating at a giant tourist trap when he visited my home town.

Why do they ask you to count down from 10? It seems kind of cruel. I never managed to get past 2, but challenge accepted. Do they ask you to repeat if you get down to 0? I'm kind of terrified of the idea that once you get to '0' it will be accompanied with an "Ah crap..."

I personally don't mind GA. You feel like crap afterwards, but at the same time it feels like the only time you've really ever slept... It's like magic. Suddenly you're unconscious. No tossing, no turning, no indefineable itches in the back of your brain. It's like having a proper reboot.

The one time I remember being on GA I got to 7 then the next thing I knew I was in a different building and had no wisdom teeth.

 

[Dismal purple]

Well there was this one time in high school where I was walking across one of the fields to my car. Now, I had a tendency to look at the ground about 5 or 6 feet in front of me as I walked, so I was rarely particularly aware of my surroundings. Things were always a bit chaotic at that time, but there was this weird moment where everything just seemed to go quiet. Confused by this, I looked up and saw a mechanical pencil flying at my head at what seemed to be...I don't know, a third of the speed it should have. Still confused, I moved my head to the side and watched it fly by, at which point everything went back to normal. Took me about 5 seconds after that to realize that that could have hit my eye.

What I've read about similar phenomena suggests that it's a trick of the memory, but the part that weirds me out is that I distinctly remember my confusion about everything suddenly feeling 'off' as what made me look up and see the pencil in the first place. Granted, that too could be a trick of the memory. At any rate, that's the weirdest thing I can think of off the top of my head.

That might be tachypsychia.

 

[LetalisK]

Easily it was my traumatic brain injury I suffered in a motorcycle accident.

The best way to put it is you stop feeling the same way about stuff.

Would it be an overreach to say that at the event of a TBI one person dies and another person is born?

Depends on the extent of the injuries? Given that for 12 months afterwards I was still doing rehab to walk, to talk without slurring my words, and I lost half of my memories and could no longer connect with people I knew my entire life then I'd say so ... you have to reorganise your own relations and rethink your approach to things in a brand new way.

So yes?

Follow up question: you mention you couldn't connect with people you previously had and lost interest in things you had previously been interested in. Did the reverse happen? Did you start associating with people that others thought would have been bad matches previously? Did you gain an interest in things you previously didn't? Besides psychology.

 

[Necrozius]

Dropping acid.

The week before I had been doing a lot of painting. While I was high as a kite, everything looked like paint and I could manipulate it.

At least, that was the good part. Most of the night was a horrific introspective nightmare with the occasional vision, such as seeing the face of a girl I liked become a pale, pore-infested zombie mask. Even weeks later she still kind of freaked me out.

Never touched the stuff again, nor any other kind of drug.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Follow up question: you mention you couldn't connect with people you previously had and lost interest in things you had previously been interested in. Did the reverse happen? Did you start associating with people that others thought would have been bad matches previously? Did you gain an interest in things you previously didn't? Besides psychology.

How can I answer the question how other people felt? It wasn't exactly a pleasant time for me or them, and frankly I think that's normal. Memories were jumbled up, lost, or otherwise untrustworthy... and due to fairly extensive frontal lobe damage it's safe to say there was behavioural changes. Took a fair degree of therapy to recognise I was hurting people by seeming callous and not correctly reading body language and facial expressions but I was only really aware of that when I started talking to therapists.

It's hard to explain. I know I became more easily frustrated, but at the same time I actively modified my behaviour through cognitive therapy, and better organising my existence to reduce unwanted stimuli. But it's hard to put a limiter between what I did and what I thought, and how I was before. My life chsnged, how I felt about people and how I reacted to them changed, and I just relearnt my new normal.

As part of my therapy to 'repair' or at least adequately counteract the loss of various faculties of engaging with others I refocussed my efforts in training my brain to accommodate. I still have a risk prone personality that I indulge in with moderation. Drugs, gambling and with people... I find you can't just ignore impulses when you have them, but with focus you can at least alter their potential damages.

 

[pookie101]

i have schitzoaffective disorder which is a really fun combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia so things getting pretty kooky from hearing, seeing and smelling things that arent there, not to mention delusions, doing stupid shit, spending stupid amounts of money plus it screws up my cognitive functions badly and screws up my ability to read, write and speak.

 

[Padwolf]

Well I had the flu last year (no, not a COLD, but the actual full out FLU) And there's one night I can't remember at all, my boyfriend told me I just kept getting up and going form living room to bedroom, sleeping on sofa and bed. It was pretty strange. The Flu is a horrible thing and I really wish people would stop saying they have it when they have a cold. Drives me up the sodding wall because it undermines everything people go through when they have the flu.

There was one time at Uni where I had an essay due and my laptop wiped it full clean the night before it had to go in. So I had to stay up all night writing it out again. My vision went full on pink for a few minutes around 5am. That was pretty weird.

 

[Schadrach]

For me, it?d have to be sleep paralysis. At the deepest levels of sleep (REM sleep,) the part of your brain that controls motor functions like your arms and legs shuts down and prevents you from moving in your sleep. Sleep paralysis occurs when you wake up and are conscious before that part of your brain turns back on fully; you?re wide awake, as awake as you are now reading this text, but aren?t able to move.

I have the opposite problem -- somnambulism, where that part of your brain doesn't bother to shut off, at least not all the way. I once woke up sitting in my car, apparently having tried to dress for work (I'm not good with buttons while unconscious), with the keys lying on the floor board. I've also been told I talk a lot in my sleep.

It runs in the men on my mom's side of the family. Along with night terrors (imagine having what appears to be terrible nightmares that no one can wake you from, and when you snap out of it your are soaked in sweat, loaded with adrenaline, heart pounding, scared out of your fucking mind, and with no memory as to why you are in that state whatsoever).

Combined, you literally lay down to go to sleep all cozy in your bed and the next thing you are aware of you are coming out of a panic attack in a different place entirely. Sometimes it takes a moment before you realize that other place is familiar, which makes it worse.

On the upside, it seems to get less frequent with age. It was probably the worst for me around 14 or so, nowadays it's once or twice a year.

 

[happyninja42]

When taking acid for the first time, I drop a tab with my friends, and we waited for things to kick in. I wasn't feeling anything, after about 3 hours or so, so I took a 2nd tab, just as they were starting to peak. About 5 minutes later, my first tab kicked in, and the 2nd was a few hours away from joining the party.

Short version, I had a very long, very manic night. I saw a poster of Libra by Susan Sedon Boulet warp and shift like crazy, which included a little squirrel under the poster woman's blindfold. The squirrel peeked out to look at me as if to say "Yep, you are officially tripping balls now." And then scurried back under her blindfold. The wall that the post was on, was pulsing in and out like it was a chest that was breathing, and it was in time with my oscillating fan on my desk. Light from outside, was coming into my room in visible waves, like I could literally see the rippling pattern the light made. It was winter, and I had to go to the 24 hour store for stuff, and I had to defrost my windshield. The melting pattern, backlit by the amber lights of the school parking lot, melted out to spell "Mushroom-arama" on my windshield. Let's see, what else.

I could see new stars exploding into existence in the night sky, and spent hours stargazing as a result. I also kept feeling like I was flying whenever I went up a flight of stairs, so I started running up and down the stairwell in my dorm multiple times...all 7 floors. A bunch of other things, that ended with me imagining one of my friends at that time in a car accident after she dropped me off, because she was tripping too. The only way I could distract myself from the bad trip at the end, was to read The Fellowship of the Ring. And while tripping, I was FINALLY able to sit through that boring fucking book, and finish it. For years prior, I could never finish the book, because it was just so damn dull. But, with the help of a brain full of LSD, I was able to lose myself in Middle Earth and finish the book. By the time I finished the book, the drugs had worn off and I was able to sleep.

That's probably the strangest single thing overall, though there were other drug related events that had some significant things to them, but were less intense from start to finish.

 

[Zen Bard]

Ingested some psychedelic 'shrooms immediately after smoking a joint in college.

We were listening to Jimi Hendrix "Axis Bold as Love" and I discovered I could "see" sound. Prismatic rainbows flowed out of the speakers. Same thing when someone spoke.

I reached for my guitar to jam along with the few songs I knew, but it had turned into this intricate device made of rods of light that became so complicated, I couldn't play it.

Later that night, I had a dream that Jimi taught me how to play "Castles Made of Sand".

The next morning...I could play correctly it note for note.

 

[Voidrunner]

Probably have to be vasculitis for me, I still have no idea what caused it but it wasn't pleasant. First I saw of it was a rash on my legs so I went to the doctor and got diagnosed with Foliculitis which I thought was wrong because I hadn't been in a hot tub or shared anyone's towel. But I just went with it and took the anti-biotics he gave me until it was clear they weren't doing anything at all. The rash was spreading down my arms and up my back, even my hands were getting these red marks. Finally woke up in the middle of the night to find I could barely move my legs and my ankle had swollen up and gone bright red. I had to be carried to the lounge and wait on the couch for the doctor to do a house visit, since I couldn't get there. He took some of my blood for testing and gave me some painkillers so I could walk on the ankle.

Results came back as vasculitis, which is apparently when the immune system attacks your blood vessels, causing them to rupture and create a red rash. It also attacked my organs, which they noticed when there was blood in my urine after kidney damage. Scrapped the anti-biotics and gave me immunosuppressants instead which fixed it. Rash mostly faded, no blood in my urine and my legs didn't go dead again. All I've got left are the scars on my arms, stomach and thighs that refuse to go away. Strange as hell because it came out of nowhere. Best answer I can give is stress.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I haven't had too many strange happenings with myself, thankfully. There was one time where I had a waking dream (I think?) where I was in bed, awake and able to move, but I was dreaming, or maybe more like hallucinating, that there was a giant snake crawling through my mattress and if I moved too much it would burst out and kill me. It was a really surreal experience, especially when I pressed my hand into the mattress and FELT THE SNAKE'S NOSE PRESSING INTO MY PALM. Eventually after a few minutes of pure fear paralysis, I was able to rationalize myself back to reality and calm down. I've never had anything like that happen before or since.

Also, recently I had a cold and couldn't ejaculate for a while. That's never happened before. I was mildly concerned but I googled it and apparently it can happen, so eh.

 

[The Jovian]

Ingested some psychedelic 'shrooms immediately after smoking a joint in college.

We were listening to Jimi Hendrix "Axis Bold as Love" and I discovered I could "see" sound. Prismatic rainbows flowed out of the speakers. Same thing when someone spoke.

I reached for my guitar to jam along with the few songs I knew, but it had turned into this intricate device made of rods of light that became so complicated, I couldn't play it.

Later that night, I had a dream that Jimi taught me how to play "Castles Made of Sand".

The next morning...I could play correctly it note for note.

Okay it's official, shrooms make you able to talk to dead people. It's the only logical explanation.

Personally the weirdest thing to happen to me (and it's probably a testament to how boring my life has been so far) is that I remember I was once as a kid sick with some mean strain of cold and I began to hallucinate that gravity had shifted by about 30 degrees, as in my sense of up and down was thrown off. Since I was sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed I was scared I'd fall over if the gravity shifted any further.

 

[Laughing Man]

Hypoglycemia has caused some of the weirdest things for me to ever encounter. I am talking about some seriously fucking trippy nonsense right through to full physical issues.

Some of the trippy nonsense would be lucid dreaming about the Universe then zooming in on a spec in that Universe that would become a Galaxy, then keep zooming in until it becomes something like a rubber on the tip of a pencil before zooming back in to show another Universe... that one also works with a travel through time thing dream starting with cells then working your way through to a whole Universe, seriously the stuff is seriously fucking mental sometimes.

I've encountered a situation where during a hypo I started off down the stairs of my house to get something to eat, and I could swear I was walking down the stairs of a house I used to live in 3 years prior. The front door, the position and type of the phone all of them are different in the new house but I could have sworn that I was walking down the stairs of my old house.

Anyone got a VW car? You know the car key that you push a small button on the side and the ignition key flips out? How about sitting not having a clue how the fuck that works.

When I was younger I had one occasion where my parents thought I was having a stroke, lost full motor control down one side (can't remember which side) turns out it was a bad hypo.

Last year, had my tea, went upstairs to relax, watch some Youtube videos and just mess about, around 7pm, get shook awake by my partner at around 10.30pm to find two paramedics in the bedroom with me, really bad hypo, the first for nearly 25 years that required anyone else to help me.

 

[Ayame Murasaki]

Hypoglycemia has caused some of the weirdest things for me to ever encounter. I am talking about some seriously fucking trippy nonsense right through to full physical issues.

Some of the trippy nonsense would be lucid dreaming about the Universe then zooming in on a spec in that Universe that would become a Galaxy, then keep zooming in until it becomes something like a rubber on the tip of a pencil before zooming back in to show another Universe... that one also works with a travel through time thing dream starting with cells then working your way through to a whole Universe, seriously the stuff is seriously fucking mental sometimes.

I've encountered a situation where during a hypo I started off down the stairs of my house to get something to eat, and I could swear I was walking down the stairs of a house I used to live in 3 years prior. The front door, the position and type of the phone all of them are different in the new house but I could have sworn that I was walking down the stairs of my old house.

Anyone got a VW car? You know the car key that you push a small button on the side and the ignition key flips out? How about sitting not having a clue how the fuck that works.

When I was younger I had one occasion where my parents thought I was having a stroke, lost full motor control down one side (can't remember which side) turns out it was a bad hypo.

Last year, had my tea, went upstairs to relax, watch some Youtube videos and just mess about, around 7pm, get shook awake by my partner at around 10.30pm to find two paramedics in the bedroom with me, really bad hypo, the first for nearly 25 years that required anyone else to help me.

Ah, hypoglycemia. What fuckery can't it perform on people's bodies and minds?
I'm diabetic myself, and sometimes when my blood sugar is really, really low--like 30 or below--I can still be walking around, talking coherently, feeling generally fine, but my entire field of vision goes this thick, opaque green for up to thirty seconds. That's when I know I need to EAT SOMETHING.

 

[WolfThomas]

Why do they ask you to count down from 10? It seems kind of cruel. I never managed to get past 2, but challenge accepted. Do they ask you to repeat if you get down to 0? I'm kind of terrified of the idea that once you get to '0' it will be accompanied with an "Ah crap..."

I personally don't mind GA. You feel like crap afterwards, but at the same time it feels like the only time you've really ever slept... It's like magic. Suddenly you're unconscious. No tossing, no turning, no indefineable itches in the back of your brain. It's like having a proper reboot.

I wasn't asked to count. Just told to swear at registrar. I was out before I could say anything. Mainly it's just a distraction I think.

I'm probably unusual in that I'm an amazing sleeper. My head hits the pillow most of the time and bam straight asleep. I even got myself investigated for sleep apnoa to make sure that wasn't the cause as I also snore. I didn't have it.

 

[Saulkar]

I have massive issue where I can either have an enormous abstract idea of what I want to say but cannot put any of it into words, specifically when talking to someone or have a clearly defined sentence in my head yet cannot get the first word out to begin. It drives me fricking crazy.

Some weird things that really only affected me when I was younger and thus have no problem sharing is that someone could tell me why I should or should not like something and my brain will instantly accept it. This was great for books, movies, games, and music that I would otherwise dislike but it has also caused me a pathological hatred of ads which has resulted in me actively despising everything in them lest I actively seek them out myself in the first place (this still somewhat affects me today but there actually needs to be a legitimate argument to be made before I consider it).

This had the unfortunate side effect of someone straight up telling me I am wrong about something and my brain will instantly assume that they are right, even if I know beyond a reasonable doubt that I was right and that they are completely clueless about what I am taking about. Say that I tell someone that I do 3D animation and the person interjects with "Oh, so you have the computer do it all for you with a push of the button?" and I will tell them that is not the case but as long as they could say it with conviction my brain would accept it as legitimately true. Still, asking them to justify their statement they could retort with "I know what I am talking about and I do not need to justify to anyone!" and my brain would accept that as the truth.

A weird glitch in my brain that I thankfully grew out of.

A few times in my life I've had the feeling of, at least what I imagine is, non-existence. The first time was when I was 10 and I proceeded to run to my parents room and cry like a baby. The other times over the years have at least just left me very unnerved and shaken.

Holy shit, I do this almost every fricking moment before bed since this August during one of my nightly existential crises. It has really fucked with my ability to have a consistent night wake cycle when I can spend several hours suddenly experiencing what you just described. It seems to be more of a habit than any real psychological issue like say you are going to bed right? You remember what happened when you went to bed the night before, right? Well let us do it all over again!

 

[CaitSeith]

Having a brief episode of amnesia after an epileptic seizure. The best part is that I remember very little of what happened. It was like my conscious and unconscious traded places, and everything was like a dream where I watched people talking. It was when I heard one of the persons say something wrong about me that I corrected them. Shortly I woke up, not in my bed, but on the couch, surrounded by the concerned faces of my family. They told me that I had a seizure and that when I woke up, I recognized no one and remembered nothing. They told me that it was when the paramedic was taking notes on my personal info from my parents that I corrected them on the spot (for relief to everybody)

After that, epilepsy crept on me, with most episodes being mindnumbing. Literally, my mind sometimes got so numbed that I couldn't keep track of my train of thought. Trying to form scentences in my head was impossible. It took lot of effort to think on the first word, and by the time I got the second, I had forgotten the first one already. So frustrating. Thankfully, daily meds keep that at bay.