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Bizarre thing happening in lectures

Fibonacci Squid

I am experiencing a weird phenomenon in lectures which I'm really hoping someone on here may have some ideas about because everyone I have spoken to so far is just confused and hasn't heard about anything like it before.

In every single lecture I am going through some of the steps of this process:

1. being distracted by ever tiny sound and turning my concentration fully away from my lecturer (very normal for me)

2. Develop a headache principally focused in a band across the top of my head

3. Start feeling the prickly cold feeling you get when you're in a cold place all over my body (my lecture theatre is not cold in the slightest)

4. Start getting distorted vision and very watery eyes. Also double vision which I usually only get when I'm extremely exhausted

5. Being unable to stay awake. Does not matter whether I'm writing, really interested in what is happening, full body stimming waylays it for a little bit but I still get stuck in the asleep, jerk awake, asleep, jerk awake thing for 10s of minutes.

This is not connected in any way to what I have eaten that morning, or if I have not eaten. I always get over seven hours sleep and usually over eight. It is extremely lecture localised, once I leave the theatre it resets completely. It's not an issue when independently studying or in practicals or small teaching groups. 

The experience I can most relate it to is what I refer to as 'exhaustion type shut downs'. These usually come at the end of a taxing project (e.g. 5 hours farmers market shift, day long orchid show) where I have been doing quite high social and sensory demand with no ability to take a break for a long period of time. And they have caused me to fall asleep in places like on the kitchen floor before. However, if it was this, many things about the cause are different. It appears to be entirely auditory sensory induced (maybe a little bit of light sensory too) and is on a way faster timescale. I can get to step 5 in 20mins.

I have a disability mentor and a study skills supporter who I am in progress discussing it with and my parents are keen for me to speak to the college nurse about it. I'm just trying to find a way to deal with this because it is predictably having an impact on my learning and there are logistical difficulties to me switching to fully online lectures and I don't think I'd learn as well with them as I do in in person lectures (when I'm awake anyway).

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has any idea what might be going on or what I might be able to do to try and minimise/get rid of it?

Thanks for any help

Parents

  • Clearly something about that environment is seriously triggering you. It sounds like the stress response of freeze. Are you feeling stressed about your studies in general? Is the lecture hall too bright or too loud or has a bad echo or is the lighting particularly bad. Is it possible for you to go there when it is empty and just sit awhile and see if you feel any different to when the lecture is in progress? Are all your lectures in the same hall?

    If other sounds are bothering you is it possible for you to listen to the lecture through headphones which would block out the other sounds? Presumably it is going to speakers so it might be possible to hook into that system, possibly using something like the deaf loop? I don't know if that is technically possible but it could be worth looking into.

    Can you look at reducing your sensory overload in other ways?

    If you are falling asleep every time then I do not think it can be true that you are learning better than from online lectures. Maybe you would even learn better just from reading the lecture notes? Do you generally take info in well from an auditory source or better from written? Lectures are not actually the best way for everybody to learn, it is not a one size fits all thing although it is presented as such.

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  • Clearly something about that environment is seriously triggering you. It sounds like the stress response of freeze. Are you feeling stressed about your studies in general? Is the lecture hall too bright or too loud or has a bad echo or is the lighting particularly bad. Is it possible for you to go there when it is empty and just sit awhile and see if you feel any different to when the lecture is in progress? Are all your lectures in the same hall?

    If other sounds are bothering you is it possible for you to listen to the lecture through headphones which would block out the other sounds? Presumably it is going to speakers so it might be possible to hook into that system, possibly using something like the deaf loop? I don't know if that is technically possible but it could be worth looking into.

    Can you look at reducing your sensory overload in other ways?

    If you are falling asleep every time then I do not think it can be true that you are learning better than from online lectures. Maybe you would even learn better just from reading the lecture notes? Do you generally take info in well from an auditory source or better from written? Lectures are not actually the best way for everybody to learn, it is not a one size fits all thing although it is presented as such.

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