Anyone ever have the sensation of a disconnect from reality?
Happening to me this morning.
Started at home when I started smelling a funny, yet oddly familiar odor that nobody else smelled. Then my head was swimming and I felt like I might pass out. Now, for the last hour and a half, it's like I've been living in a waking dream.
Everything is off.

That sounds like a mild depersonalization or fugue state, which is caused by an electrical phenomenon in the brain, probably deep temporal lobe. Does that happen often?

I have farts like that sometimes, too.

When I was a kid I used to have regular episodes of spatial displacement, where my body parts would feel gigantic. That faded as I got older, but because of allergies, bruxism, sleep difficulties, etc, I still have regular morning times of disconnect, likely related to improper oxygen flow.

Also, if I were to eat a piece of cake right now, things'd get really "interesting."

As for your situation, here's the standard "Todd, you might want to have that looked at."

I think I'd see a doctor rather than posting on a message board. I played high school sports with a guy who had epilepsy, and this sounds similar, though not completely the same as the aura he would experience before a seizure.

I think he smelled almonds. At the same time though, I doubt he would be able to tell you his last name right before an event, much less post on a message board.

This is the second time that I can remember -- the first was back in September or so. And it makes sense that it's a temporal lobe phenomenon, as my surgery last year was in my right temporal lobe.

I'm getting on the horn to my neurologist about this today.
Y'all are right about calling him.

EDIT: Just left a message with the answering service.

Holy crap, I had that too.
It was combined with a sort of partially out of body experience where my view would pan out and things would seem further away then thay were.

i felt like this for a few months at a time, for a few days at a time in random intervals within the months it occured.
i felt disassociated and like i was living in a dream and nothing was really happening and i couldn't really feel anything.

every moment within my day on those particular days it occured would happen in intervals... i can't explain it, but i'll try.
it was like i would forget what happened the moment before, lose my train of thought, forget what i was talking about if i was talking.
i don't know. it was weird. and it sucked, but it hasn't happened in a few months.

i don't smell things, though. just feel really out of it.

Exactly. It might have a common cause, but I never knew what.

That's a good plan, Todd. It might be nothing to be concerned about at all, given that's the locus of your surgery, but it's best to check with the neurologist to be on the safe side.

Oh, and I would also have my hands and feet feel swollen and numb. It happened mostly at night. I could make it all stop if I sort of 'snapped myself out of it'.

I used to have that as well, occasionally it comes back. The 'increasing distance' sensation, most vividly. The tv would feel seem like it was miles away.

Resistol

You on any seizure meds, Todd? Dilantin, etc? Might be time to get a level checked. Dilantin toxicity can do this.

The last time this happened I was either on Dinaltin, or had just tapered off it. Haven't been on since late Aug./early Sept.

I thought I had mono once; turns out i was just really lazy.

Wasn't he one of the bad guys from He-Man?

Just happened again.
Just got back from the Employee Health Center here, where I took a little break.
Might be some anxiety involved, too.

The anxiety might be you reacting to the odd sensations, however, as the feeling of anxiety is generated by some of the structures within the deep temporal lobe it could be just a by-product of the overall phenomenon. As ridiculous as this advice is, try your best to not reinforce the anxiety by focusing on it and direct your attentions to something else.

Todd,

I did a post-doc in a neurology department and I can say, the only advice you should listen to is from your neurologist.

Olfactory hallucinations are not uncommon, and it may mean nothing, but depending on the locus of your surgery - it may be some sort of indicator.

Hope everything is ok

True, but if you wake up in the Matrix, don't tell me about it, okay?

I'm at my parent's house now.
Had to get away from work and the fluorexcent lights.

stop posting and go lay down.

Do you get migraines, Todd? Or have epilepsy? I ask because I'm familiar with the former, and just had a hell of a bad migraine this past weekend. About 15 hours before it hit, I had a strong, pungent, sickly-sweet smell in my nose that my wife couldn't smell. I kept smelling it in my pillow when I woke up that morning, and I made my wife smell both my pillow and the side of my face that had been laying on it because I kept smelling it. She didn't. Woke up at about 1 am that night with a migraine. I guess migraines and epilepsy share some common traits or something, from what I've been reading. Kind of scary.

After years of suffering these things, and a pretty sharp increase in the frequency of them (and an alarming number of visual migraines) I'm finally seeing my doctor about them tomorrow. I know he can't cure them, but hopefully there's something effective to take when I get one or something to help prevent them.