TheOtherDave comments on How is your mind different from everyone else's? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 05 December 2011 08:38AM

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Comment author: Kingreaper 13 December 2011 04:07:48PM 0 points [-]

I suffer from a form of depression, which comes along with a symptom I call "brain-ache": it essentially consists of a sharp pain that feels as though it's internal to my brain (unlike headaches, which I also commonly get, which are focused in my skull).

Brain-ache is worsened by deliberate conscious thinking, and trying to focus on things, and it is generally accompanied by a "mental fog" which makes it hard for me to see my own thoughts, and therefore hard to think about anything complex.

I have a few other pecularities [photic sneeze reflex, I used to cough instead of crying (that was a conditioned reflex due to abuse) and occasional verbal tics] but most are relatively minor.

Oh, yes, I can have full conversations in my sleep, that I don't remember in the morning. This includes answering the phone. This is a recent symptom, probably due to my current medication.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 13 December 2011 04:25:49PM 2 points [-]

Incidentally, the symptoms you describe as brain-ache are something I suffered rather severely during the first couple of months after my stroke, and in my case seemed to correlate pretty closely to dips in my blood pressure. (I was taking a whole lot of medication at the time to lower my blood pressure, often to the point of greying out.)

Comment author: Kingreaper 13 December 2011 06:16:15PM -1 points [-]

Thanks for the information, I might ask my GP about that possibility, and whether there are any options for finding out whether I'm having low-blood-pressure issues.