Time perception disturbances

The scarce literature on disturbances of time-sense in migraine aura includes case reports documenting the subjective experience of an abnormal tempo to events - manifesting as either slowing of time or "the rushes" (Dooley et al., 1990), i.e. the so-called time-lapse phenomenon or Zeitrafferphänomen -, the phenomenon of reduplication of time (Painter, 1909/10) or the experience of a disordered sense of the passage of on-going time (Ebersbach and Poewe, 1996). If systematically investigated in the interval between attacks, however, no disturbances of time perception could be demonstrated in migraineurs, except for a subgroup of migraine sufferers with a depressive disorder who showed a marked speeding up of their internal timekeeping mechanisms, pointing to depression as an important covariable in time perception (Anagnostou and Mitsikostas, 2005).

A migraine sufferer quoted in a thread of a Usenet newsgroups compares the time perception disturbances occuring as pre-migraine aura or as migraine aura without headache to the psychedelic experiences following LSD intoxication:

"I suffer from migraine headaches. The feelings of a pre-migraine aura are definitely one of 'otherness', with both temporal, aural and visual disturbances. These can be quite intruiging and enjoyable during the half hour or so before the pain starts. Very occasionally I get pre-migraine auras and don't get the headache. This can be a very pleasant experience, sort of warm and fuzzy, a bit like taking drugs."

(Anonymous, rec.drugs.psychedelic, Subject: ALERT TO ALL PARENTS!, August 11, 1996)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

Slowing of time

"I found your email address at migraine-aura.org and have been reading the section on time perception disturbances and this is the first time I have found something even slightly similar to my experiences that have frequently scared me, and my GP has been unable to offer any clue as to what is wrong.

I am a migraine sufferer and have had them since I was a very young boy (I'm 23 years old now). When I was younger I would have an attack as regularly as twice a week, but never more than 2 weeks apart. This calmed down a lot as I got older but when I do have an attack they are severe with vomiting.

Unlike the other experiences documented on the Time Perception Disturbance section, I have had the sense of time slowing down. This I have never found out why. Sometimes it happens without any migraine, whilst I'm going about normal life, everything feels 'out of sync' I get this feeling of things 'being slower' than they are happening, then speeding up with intensity. This is sometimes accompanied by some white noise/tinnitus (although more suggested than severe) This feeling can make me quite panicky and is normally passed in less than half an hour, sometimes then no other symptoms.

I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me if this fits in to the migraine aura category and if you have ever experienced anything like this? I'm sorry I couldn't be more specific - it's more of a sensation than anything tangible and is very disturbing."

(JB, Email to Klaus Podoll, March 16, 2008)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

The rushes

The following report cited from a post to the Alice in Wonderland syndrome forum provides a vivid account of "the rushes" (Dooley et al., 1990), akin to a special effect of the film The Matrix, following the awakening from a dream reminiscent of a visual migraine aura with the experience of shrinking visual fields.

"When I was a little younger, I would have a dream where two very, very large shapes would be squishing into me from either side. The point in the dream where they would finally squish me, I would wake up in a panic. Then my life would be in fastforward - literally. If I would get out of bed, it would feel like my body was goin fifty times the speed it would normally go. (If you've ever seen the Matrix [I had these symptoms before the movie], it was like when Neo can move very fast) I would try and slow myself down, and move my hands/feet very slowly, but nothing would work. It felt like I was on speed. Is that a symptom? Did I explain it well? Anyone help me?"

(Sickfizz, Alice in Wonderland syndrome forum, June 1, 2005)

"I have been experiencing migraine auras since I was seven years old. The distorted time perception starts normally, and I feel a buzz in my ears. I then suddenly feel as if everything around me has been in fast forward. Speech, movement and even thoughts are extremely fast. But I did not actually start experiencing migraines until I was eleven years old. I went to see a neurologist and I got a CT scan. My migraines, on a scale from one to ten, are rated a ten. The severity and intensity of the migraines are unbearable. I try to take medication, but nothing seems to help. But I have not experienced migraine auras since I was seventeen. I am twenty now, and only on occasion do I feel a slight distorted time perception, which lasts approximately two minutes. But when I was younger, I would experience it for almost three hours. I am curious, since I was not able to find it on the site, why these distortions, or experiences occur, and what is their correlation between the migraines one experiences. My neurologist told me they were harmless, and I will stop experiencing them at around sixteen. But during times of great stress, or after a severe trauma (as one I experienced when I was eighteen) I experience these distortions, for only a short amount of time. I thank you for the site you have helped create, as it has shed some light on the symptoms I receive."

(Nadia, Email to Klaus Podoll, February 20, 2008)

"I have suffered from severe migraines since I was 11 years old, I am now 21. About 2 years ago I started getting them everyday. They were so debilitating that I almost couldn't drag myself out of bed. I had the classic symptoms of nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and pain not only located above my eye but also at the back of my head right above my neck. I had been to many doctors but all they gave me was different medications to take when I got the migraines and none of the prescriptions worked on me. Finally I saw a nuerologist and she prescribed a preventative medication for me: Topomax. Well this has been working wonderfully for me, I still get a migraine about once every week and a half, but anything is better than every day.

The weird thing is I still get migraine auras. I never knew what they were till I found your site, in fact I thought I was going insane, but it is most definitely what I get. It can be at any time of the day and it does not matter what activity I am doing but all of the sudden I hear a buzzing sound in my head then everything starts going in fast forward. My television, music, people around me talking, peoples motions, my own motions, even my own thoughts! It has been happening to me since I was about 4 or 5 and happens about once a week, but never around a migraine. Everyone else who has spoken about their auras says it happens right before the onset of a migraine. Why would that not be in my case? Also I do not know if this could be an aura or not since I have not been able to find anything on it but sometimes I get very weird feelings out of nowhere. They are hard to describe, but it would be like I feel homesick or like I miss someone or something but I do not know who. It is also like déjà vu at the same time though. When I get them I become very sad but I do not want to be comforted, almost like I like the feeling, even though I don't, and I can't stand to be around people. None of the doctors I've gone to knows anything about this and I think they just think I'm a little nutty. Thank you for your website... it's made me realize I'm not."

(Laura, Email to Klaus Podoll, March 23, 2008)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

Experience of a disordered sense of the passage of on-going time

"I case may be different, but a migraine can really wipe me out. I recently had to work 10 days away from home. Airport, hotel room, the whole bit. 3-4 days in I suffered a migraine and then flu. By the time I returned, it felt like I had been gone for months. It was really a peculiar feeling."

(Erik, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Time perception disturbances, November 12, 2005)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

Time shifts

"When I was four years old... One morning, I was all dressed and was in the closet... when everything just shifted, slightly. The best was to describe it is that I went ahead in Time a few seconds, but nothing else had really caught up with me. There felt like there was an extra layer of darkness (like a camera filter) over everything, and my dad, who was shaving had sort of slowed down. I was about to ask him what was wrong, when through the coats, dresses, shirts and pants in the closet, a man's hand shot out, grabbed my by the arm and yanked me so hard that when I connected with the wall of the closet, my shoulder had bruised... When I got older, the reality/time shifts began to be preceded by ringing in my ears... The time shifting isn't déjà vu, although I have had that sort of feeling before. What I mean by stepping forward... the best way to describe it is to think of it as though time is a series of movie frames and everything around us is a set stage. While you and everyone else are still in the present on Frame 1, I've gone ahead, by myself, to Frame 5. Stephen King wrote a novella (which was made into a movie) that was based on this phenomena called The Langoliers [1990]. The sensation is broken as soon as something, like my dogs or my cats, move."

(Jayne d'Arcy, Emails to Klaus Podoll, June 6-7, 2004; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

Transient setting ahead of the body's seasonal clock

"Strange things happen to migraineurs. A year or so ago, I had set my alarm clock, awoke at the designated time. Was reading a little before I got up to start the morning -- all of a sudden a 'feeling' came over me that it was Spring (in the sense that if I looked outside tulips and trees would be blooming -- it was November!). I remember that it felt like one part of my mind was telling me it was Spring, but a rational part of my mind was telling me 'no, it is almost winter'. It is so hard to explain the feeling, but it was somewhat frightening too -- my 'rational mind' in a way talked to me -- not so much in absolute words, but I knew if I remained calm and waited this out that things (my feelings of being out of season) would return to normal in a few minutes. The 'Spring feeling' faded off after a about 2-3 minutes (it seemed longer but it was probably only a few minutes actual time)."

(Kathryn Hamilton, Email to Klaus Podoll, April 22, 2006)

Scientists discover what makes the body's seasonal clock tick

Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists in Scotland have discovered what makes the body's seasonal clock, which affects mood, appetite and energy levels, tick. The finding, published in Current Biology, will help scientists understand how the onset of winter's long evenings drives people to put on weight and become SAD.

By studying a wild-type breed of Scottish sheep from the Outer Hebrides which has highly seasonal reproduction, scientists from the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit working with colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, discovered that the body's seasonal clockwork is dependent on processes occurring inside individual cells in the brain. It is driven by the way certain genes interact with each other, and this is affected by day length.

Scientists already knew that these genes, called clock genes and clock controlled genes, act as the body's daily time-keepers, and that the timing of when they switch on and off determines, for example, when we wake up, when we feel tired and when we are hungry.

It has now been discovered that the timing of this gene interaction is altered according to the number of hours of darkness. As the nights get longer the time between clock genes peaks is stretched out, and as they get shorter again, with the coming of spring, the interval is squeezed back together. Because our actions and the way we feel is determined by the way genes interact with each other, this gives rise to seasonal cycles in appetite, body weight and behaviour.

Night length affects the timing of the clock genes through the production of a hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is produced when it is dark by the pineal gland in the brain. Long nocturnal melatonin signals register as winter, changing the interval between clock genes.

Lead scientist, Dr Gerald Lincoln, of the MRC's Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, said: "Because our moods, appetites and energy levels are affected by the seasons, unravelling at a molecular level what makes our seasonal clocks tick is important for understanding and treating seasonal and lifestyle related illnesses and diseases."

Dr David Hazlerigg, Senior Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, who was involved in the study, added: "Our mechanistic understanding of how treatments involving light or melatonin alleviate mood or sleep disorders is rather poor. We hope that our research will help fill this knowledge gap."

Seasonal clocks are widespread in nature, ensuring that cycles in reproduction, moulting, migration, hibernation and other familiar events occur at the appropriate season.

(University of Aberdeen, Media Release, February 16, 2004)

Are you acquainted with similar phenomena associated with your migraine attacks? Please contact Dr Klaus Podoll if you wish to share and discuss your experiences.

References

Anagnostou E, Mitsikostas DD. Time perception in migraine sufferers: an experimental matched-pairs study. Cephalalgia 2005; 25: 60-67.
Dooley J, Gordon K, Camfield P. "The rushes." A migraine variant with hallucinations of time. Clin Pediatr (Phila) 1990; 29: 536-538.
Ebersbach G, Poewe W. Disturbance of time perception in left hemispheric migraine aura. J Neurol 1996; 243: 611.
Painter FU. Some peculiar mental phenomena in hemicrania. Texas State J Med 1909/10; 5: 383-384.