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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

  • This sounds like a stress headache. 

    Stressors, when left unresolved, will simply pile up and at a certain point the body will have had it's threshold. A band like head ache is a sign the biology needs paying attention to as it's now beyond its limit. 

    The only thing I've found which helps is changing my environment socially and practically. Practicalities involve replacing unnatural lighting, buying ear plugs, and being somewhere with fresh air (I've also had issues with ventilation systems). If you can step outside after class for a few minutes it may be a temporary fix, but if there's no natural light, it may be best to ask to watch via zoom. See if you can meet in person once a week to go through any questions. Or maybe attend a few days per week. Socially, it's important to not tax yourself if this is overwhelming. 

    If you really want to find out what you're affected by, see if there's a department with tools to calculate the environment you can borrow. A Spectrometer to take light readings, someone studying to be an acoustician in the physics and/or music department, someone with a reader for VOCs and formaldehyde in chemical engineering or environmental studies who can survey the air. Oddly, it could even be someones perfume!

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  • This sounds like a stress headache. 

    Stressors, when left unresolved, will simply pile up and at a certain point the body will have had it's threshold. A band like head ache is a sign the biology needs paying attention to as it's now beyond its limit. 

    The only thing I've found which helps is changing my environment socially and practically. Practicalities involve replacing unnatural lighting, buying ear plugs, and being somewhere with fresh air (I've also had issues with ventilation systems). If you can step outside after class for a few minutes it may be a temporary fix, but if there's no natural light, it may be best to ask to watch via zoom. See if you can meet in person once a week to go through any questions. Or maybe attend a few days per week. Socially, it's important to not tax yourself if this is overwhelming. 

    If you really want to find out what you're affected by, see if there's a department with tools to calculate the environment you can borrow. A Spectrometer to take light readings, someone studying to be an acoustician in the physics and/or music department, someone with a reader for VOCs and formaldehyde in chemical engineering or environmental studies who can survey the air. Oddly, it could even be someones perfume!

Children
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