The "fast feeling"

originally posted by: Retikx
While i was in my kitchen cooking today a very strange and unsettling thing happened to me that hasn't happened since i was a small boy. The feeling that everything around me is moving at an extremely fast pace and sounds and movements are amplified and exaggerated, this coupled with the sensation of hearing shouting in my head but not being able to discern what is being shouted. This is accompanied by a very bizarre feeling of objects being very distant and the sensation of either feeling paper thin or extremely thick and bloated.. It is incredibly hard to describe properly.

I have never looked into the problem before because like i said it hasn't happened in a very long time, and i truly thought it was something specific to me but when i searched the symptoms i came up with some forum boards and posts where people have described the same feeling. This description of the symptoms i found describes perfectly what it feels like.

"Not sure what this is. For as long as I can remember I get this strange feeling coming over me every now and again where everything around me and myself is moving extremely fast, a bit like watching a video tape in fast forward, even slight movements seem fast and anything I hear seems fast as well. I don't know if my breathing becomes fast or not but it seems like it to me. I have to sit or lie still without moving and keep my eyes shut and concentrate on my breathing (slowing it down whether it is fast or not) until it passes. It can last for anywhere between 1 to 10 minutes and can happen anytime, anywhere for no apparent reason. I could be in a busy crowded street or lying peacefully in my bed just resting. It used to happen maybe only 2-3 times in a year maximum but it has happened several times in the last few months. There's also another strange feeling that comes along with it which is difficult to describe. It's like distances and objects are warped (nothing to do with my sight as I can see it is normal) but it "feels" like an object or thing can be both up very close to me almost touching and yet miles away from me at the same time and my body can "feel" like it is huge and bloated and also small and paper thin. In a way like one of those optical illusions like the old woman and young woman or the duck and the rabbit where at one point you see the duck and then suddenly with barely a shift you see the rabbit only it's not optical, it's a "feeling". I spoke to my therapist first about it but she told me to speak to my doctor, but then my doctor thinks it's in my mind???? The same doctors that told me my headaches and dizzy spells were in my mind when I actually had high blood pressure causing them!!!! Took them 3 years to figure that one out. Has anyone experienced these same feelings or have any idea what it is?"
forums.psychcentral.com...

I also found a post here on ats from 2007 describing the same thing :
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Does anyone have any more info on this phenomenon?

My god I've suffered with this my whole life, since I was 5 I think (long time ago) and tried telling people about it various times throughout my life, always got the same reaction, like I was mad, even tried telling my doctor and he shrugged his shoulders. At least now I know I am not the only one, it is not a constant feeling but something that comes on out of the blue. OP is you find any information regarding this would you please pass it on

Could it be simply a relaxed meditative state that was experienced in innocence ( childhood ) ...

Re-experienced - through sight, sound, smell, or an emotion ... ?

The childhood ref. lead me to this , 2cents worth ...

Hope you can make heads or tails of it !!

originally posted by: CJCrawley
It sounds like a seizure of some sort. Not sure if it is epileptic or not (all kinds of things can cause seizures) but it sounds like a simple partial seizure.

In simple partial seizures, you don't lose consciousness and can experience strange sensations.

This. I have had epilepsy since I was a teenager and am 40 now. There are lots of different kinds of seizures and the symptoms can take many forms. But usually, once a person starts having them, they are almost always the same from one episode to the next. I have two types. The kind that used to be called grand mal (I think they call them tonic-clonic these days) and another kind that I have never really had diagnosed where I feel this extreme sense of terror for a few seconds and gasp or something. I also get a weird feeling in my stomach like I'm falling.

Anyway. All kinds of weird things can go on during a seizure and if you don't recognize it as a seizure, it can be very confusing. I remember when I first started having them as a teen. I started dropping things and falling in the shower in the mornings. I had no clue what it was.

a reply to: BrianFlanders


Thats what I was thinking.. seizure. I had a head injury several years ago and kept complaining about this to my Dr. Went to a Neuro and didnt find much other than an older healing subdural. I was in the middle of having one of these episodes and went to the ER.. I had to have them catch it while it was happening and do the EEG to see it before anyone would take me seriously! Ugh... doctors.
Funny thing is that I dont have them anymore.

a reply to: Retikx

unconscious self-hypnosis. It happens more than you think. When you watch a very good movie for example, time seems to go faster or . When you are fascinated with something be it a visual or a sound or whatever stimuli, you can enter into hypnotic states and weird things might happen, like time slowing down or the opposite.

MIght be something else tho. But hypnosis is something to look upon.

originally posted by: Advantage
a reply to: BrianFlanders


Thats what I was thinking.. seizure. I had a head injury several years ago and kept complaining about this to my Dr. Went to a Neuro and didnt find much other than an older healing subdural. I was in the middle of having one of these episodes and went to the ER.. I had to have them catch it while it was happening and do the EEG to see it before anyone would take me seriously! Ugh... doctors.
Funny thing is that I dont have them anymore.

The thing about seizures is they're so unpredictable. You want to hear something crazy? I haven't had one in months (at least not a tonic-clonic). Right after I wrote that earlier post, I went to bed and woke up a few hours later to find that I'd had one in my sleep. I had a severe headache and a swollen tongue (from biting it) as usual. I also had to wash all my clothes and sheets as I had lost control of my bladder. Doesn't happen every time but it's embarrassing when it does.

Anyway, people who don't have them have no idea what this does to your life. You can't drive. It's difficult to work. You can't get disability for it unless it's really bad. It has to be a lot worse to qualify for disability than it does to be denied a driver's license. They don't trust you to drive but they have no problem with you doing jobs where you could possibly fall down stairs or through a window or just about anything that's dangerous.

It also interferes with your ability to think in certain ways. This is something that's very difficult to describe and obviously, since you appear perfectly normal to other people, they have no idea.