seizures

[evangel]

Has anyone here heard of having seizures while sleeping? I'm wondering how they would affect lucidity. In other words you have seizures, but are not aware having them... Any LDers out there have epilepsy? Or heard of anything related to sleep seizures, etc.?

[Seeker]

I've never heard of them before. I have had some medical training and see no reason why sleeping would be any different than being awake when it comes to seizures, especially during REM. Now, the thing is...how would you know someone was having a seizure unless they were hooked to an EEG, since they are in sleep paralysis. I take it you didn't just ask this question at random. Something going on?

[evangel]

I'm just curious, mostly... Occasionally, I have the most intense and curious LDs where I go through what I can only describe as "tests of concentration" or mental exercises. These contain and include flying while analyzing and creating/recreating complex and intricate geometrical designs (3-D with bright colors) and executing strange acrobatic maneuvers some what like moving very quickly through an obstacle course of some sort. Kinda like a VR video game, but including intense physical sensations. Anyway during certain points in these dreams, I experience "blackouts" I think as a result of my extreme concentration efforts. I am often aware of my breathing and intense heart-rate and think that I may be hyperventilating or something. I also have a strange and repulsive sensation like there is something slithering through the gray matter of my brain like a worm in a maze or something and this is sometimes heralded by minor electric shocks in my head and down my spine. Anyway, these type dreams are usually followed by headaches. I guess I'm a little concerned about what may be happening physically as a side-effect of LDing. Maybe I should get an MRI or something. Even if there is something wrong, it probably has nothing to do with seizures, but I'm trying to find as much info about possible physiological effects of LDing. This is what sparked the seizure question: I have a friend who recently had a baby and he and his wife mentioned that the baby often has what they call "small seizures" which they claim the doctor says is normal in infants since their brains are still developing (neurons firing and whatnot). Your probably wondering what the heck that has to do with my experience. Don't know, but the headaches and the blackout thing seems to be causing me some anxiety.

[Dream Seal]

My older brother has seizures while sleeping. It started happening to him about 6-7 years ago, and since then I think it may have happened to him maybe 10 times, but I don't really feel comfortable talking to him about it. At first the doctors said he couldn't drive for 6 months after a seizure, but the more it happened the more it was apparent that it only happened while he was sleeping. So now they let him drive straight away again. I have been wanting to ask him about what his dreams were like at the time, what he can remember from the experience, whether there was anything he had been doing leading up to it, whether he can remember any dreams leading up to it, but I feel quite uncomfortable bringing it up. Maybe I can start by talking about deja vu and lucid dreaming and all that sort of thing at first and see if he brings it up himself. I have heard that people with epilepsy tend to have deja vu quite a lot, and that when they do, it lasts for a lot longer than it would for someone that doesn't have epilepsy. I'm not sure what sort of relationship my brother's sleep seizures have to epilepsy, but I have often wondered whether he has deja vu a lot. It wouldn't surprise me if he did.

[evangel]

Interesting. I looked on a couple online epilepsy forums and haven't found anything directly related to Lucid Dreaming, but did find some interesting stuff about dreaming in general.