Rudy Schmidt

"I am not a migraineur myself, but I'm researching a novel in which one of the characters suffers from migraines, and I want to be accurate. I need to know more about auras, specifically the range of things that people see when they hallucinate. From what I've read, I gather that most often people see abstract patterns and visual distortions. But do they ever have 'realistic' hallucinations of recognizable objects? For instance, a chair or a sword or a dog or Jesus Christ? If so, how common is this among migraineurs? Thanks for any help."

(Rudy Schmidt, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: What form do auras take?, June 26, 2005)

"Thanks for the list of links, some of which I hadn't seen before. Alas, I found no answer to my question among them, namely, do auras ever take the form of recognizable objects rather than abstract shapes and visual distortions? Going through my old notes, I found this snippet: 'Rarely very complex and even surrealistic apparitions may occur. One migraineur I know reported seeing either the painting Blue Boy or four red roses from a whiskey ad as her aura.' I didn't note where this came from, but no doubt off the web somewhere. So far, that's all the evidence I have. In any event, it seems to be pretty uncommon.

BTW, my novel will not be about chairs, swords, dogs, and Jesus Christ -- or not necessarily. I just used those as random examples. It will be about a medieval (about a century after Hildegard von Bingen's time) knight who happens to have migraines. I am working on the assumption that a medieval migraineur would be likely to interpret his auras as supernatural phenomena, and I'd like to know what I could realistically cause him to see. For instance, might his aura take the form of a cross? Frank Vertosick in his book Why We Hurt wrote that his own aura took the form of a 'candy-cane'. Or for that matter might he see Jesus himself before every migraine?"

(Rudy Schmidt, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: What form do auras take?, June 26, 2005)

References

Vertosick FT. Why We Hurt: The Natural History of Pain. Harvest Books, New York 2001

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