Some epileptic seizures are blissful. Understanding why might shed light on religious awakenings, joy, and the sense of self
IT WAS one of the most profound experiences of Fyodor Dostoevsky's life. "A happiness unthinkable in the normal state and unimaginable for anyone who hasn't experienced it... I am then in perfect harmony with myself and the entire universe," he told his friend, Russian philosopher Nikolai Strakhov. What lay behind such feelings? The description might suggest a religious awakening – but Dostoevsky was instead describing the moments before a full-blown epileptic seizure.
Those sensations seem to have informed the character of Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's novel, The Idiot. "I would give my whole life for this one instant," the prince says of the brief moment at the start of his epileptic fit – a moment "overflowing with unbounded joy and rapture, ecstatic devotion, and completest life".
For a long time, the novelist was thought to be exercising his artistic licence and exaggerating this "ecstatic aura", rather than accurately representing a real phenomenon. Most epileptic attacks are terrifying, after all, and many people with epilepsy would give a lot not to experience another. But as more and more people with the condition have come forward reporting the same feelings, there has been a renewed interest in this "Dostoevsky syndrome" – and neuroscientists are now on the hunt for the cause.
Besides explaining those feelings of bliss experienced by Dostoevsky and other people with "ecstatic epilepsy", their investigations could also open a window on self-awareness more generally. The question is, are there safe ways we could all be transported to similar states of being?
Read more about the outer limits of neuropsychology: "Altered states: When brains trip out of this world"
Epileptic seizures are broadly divided into two groups: generalised and focal. In generalised seizures, electrical discharges overwhelm the outer layer of the brain, the cortex, and often lead to loss of consciousness. Ecstatic seizures seem to be of the second kind. In focal or partial epilepsy the electrical storm is confined to a small region of the brain and the person usually remains conscious. This type of seizure can turn into a generalised one if the errant electrical signals spread.
Despite Dostoevsky's famous accounts, records of ecstatic feelings among other people with epilepsy have been scarce – perhaps because this kind of seizure is rare, but also because people are reluctant to divulge such personal feelings. "I think that they are probably underestimated," says Fabienne Picard, a neurologist at the University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. "Because the emotions are so strong and strange, maybe they feel embarrassed to speak about them; maybe they think the doctor will find them mad."
Picard's interest in the subject was piqued when she came across Dostoevsky's writings while making the film Art & Epilepsy . She soon realised that some of her patients were having very similar experiences. "When they really explained their feelings, it was incredible," says Picard. "It was very close to Dostoevsky's descriptions."
Unbelievable harmony
As Picard cajoled her patients to speak up about their ecstatic seizures, she found that their sensations could be characterised using three broad categories of feelings (Epilepsy & Behaviour , vol 16, p 539). The first was heightened self-awareness. For example, a 53-year-old female teacher told Picard: "During the seizure it is as if I were very, very conscious, more aware, and the sensations, everything seems bigger, overwhelming me." The second was a sense of physical well-being. A 37-year-old man described it as "a sensation of velvet, as if I were sheltered from anything negative". The third was intense positive emotions, best articulated by a 64-year-old woman: "The immense joy that fills me is above physical sensations. It is a feeling of total presence, an absolute integration of myself, a feeling of unbelievable harmony of my whole body and myself with life, with the world, with the 'All'," she said.
When I met another one of Picard's patients, a 41-year-old Spanish architect, she talked of that same connectedness. "You are just feeling energy and all your senses," she said. "You take in everything that is around, you get a fusion."
As Picard began looking for the neurological origin of the disorder, such descriptions pointed her towards the insula – a region of the cortex that is of growing interest to scientists studying consciousness. It is buried inside the fissure dividing the frontal and parietal lobes from the temporal lobe, and its main function seems to be to integrate "interoceptive" signals from inside the body, such as the heartbeat, with "exteroceptive" signals such as the sensation of touch.
There is also evidence that the processing of these signals gets progressively more sophisticated looking from the back of the insula to the front. The portion of the insula closest to the back of the head deals with objective properties, such as body temperature, and the front portion, or anterior insula, produces subjective feelings of body states and emotions, both good and bad. In other words, the anterior insula is responsible for how we feel about our body and ourselves, helping to create a conscious feeling of "being". This led Bud Craig at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, to argue that this part of the brain is the key to "the ultimate representation of all of one's feelings – that is, the sentient self".
- New Scientist
- Not just a website!
- Subscribe to New Scientist and get:
- New Scientist magazine delivered every week
- Unlimited online access to articles from over 500 back issues
- Subscribe Now and Save
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
