Incapacitating Migraines can be Odd.

 Dear Reader,

I now understand the theory that Hildegarde von Bingen had ocular migraines and this was the root of her visions. I have ocular migraines. The aura symptoms for me include pain, food cravings, and my vision going blurry/foggy in my right eye. I usually have to take my medicine and go lay down in a dark room for a few hours. This time the migraine lasted three days. With my eyes closed, I saw colors and wavy lines. It was odd.

When sleep finally came, my dreams were vivid in color and realistic in action. Alas, they were nightmares of past trauma. As I woke up, on day two of this fun-fest, I heard a quiet voice telling me that I am strong enough to thole this as I have other pains. Thole is an interesting word from Anglo-Saxon. It means the ability to endure suffering and continue to act. (I am slowly learning Anglo-Saxon. I don't think I'll ever have a comprehensive grasp on it. I started too late and teachers are few.)

I don't know if Hildegarde's visions came during her migraines. I know that mine do not. But sometimes, the symptoms leading up to the migraine include elements that I had seen before in dreams. It's usually right before a pretty bad migraine. Precognitive dreams are funky. You see something happen and you see yourself acting, but it is all as if it is a movie, you have no control over anything despite the hyper realism of the dream. The hyper realism thing usually happens in lucid dreams, which you can control stuff and do things like fly.

My visions hit me like my flashbacks to trauma do. I get a cold sensation in the pit of my gut and suddenly I'm not here anymore. Flashbacks, I can't act or say anything. I can only relive the trauma in full color and all the sensory awfulness that happened. Visions, I can act and I can speak. They last a minute at most, though they were longer when I was younger and not on psychoactive medication to control my flashbacks. But, given Einstein's law of General Relativity, time is relative to the frame of action. Thus that one minute can feel like an hour. And a lot can happen in an hour.