Seizures and the Sight of God

I believe in the physical laws which govern how the reality I live in operates.Our five senses communicate to our brain what is actually there.Two or more sane people can identify that a chair is there.So can an animal or a machine.The ability to believe in something our senses do not directly convey makes us more the sum of our parts.I'm not talking about words in a book.Religion is Man attempting to understand and quantify a being which by its very definition 'supernatural'.To KNOW something negates the need for faith.It religates wonder and awe into chemistry.Faith makes us More than,not less.Besides,if the exsistence of God can neither be proven nor Disproven,athiests have faith.I just know I don't need miracles.I don't need the rules to change to prove anything.The only real reason to believe is because you want to.Optomism in it's purest form.So the light and sudden understanding are felt by others as well.I do admit it was pure rapture.But I don't think we're built to live in that state of being any more one of a continuous physical orgasm.It's to intense for this plane of exsistence.My meds may stop my seizures, but that means nothing to my faith.My faith was never built upon religion however,so I don't need to look elsewhere for God.I don't need proof.Creation is good enough.

I was so releived when diagnosed with TLE. All of my life I was the one who was different.(At least that was what I believed) Mental illness runs strongly on my mothers side of the family.My childhood was chaotic to put it nicely. Having no idea why she did the things she did, my conclusion was she was pure evil.To admit to being "crazy" wasn't the same as having diabetis or muscular dystrophy.It was never disscussed. It was and still is considered by many to be weakness or a lie to rationalize behavior.I was in and out of Psychiactric hospitals starting in my twenties.When I was sent for my first EEG I thought it would be just one more thing to alienate me.Having something which was actually visable on a test however, something quantifiable, gave me a sense of vindication, or at least that I was one of you.Human I mean.What I realized is that I do not need to be saved from anyone, especially from my very creator.I understand the fear of not KNOWING God exsists.Our five senses prove to us what is 'real'.Two sane people can agree on a table or a tree.Animals and machines can also do this.To be able to believe in something more does not simply denote a"fear of the dark" if you will.Faith allows us awe.Wonder.To be more than the sum of our parts.I have had the experience of seeing those answers click into place like a huge puzzle coming together or the tumblers in a lock all clicking into place.Then it was as if a light engulfed me and lifted me up.I have never known such rapture.It was unlike any joy I had ever felt, but the human body is not built to sustain such a level of being.An orgasm is wonderful, but not one that doesn't end.Afterwards I panicked because it slipped away and I began to lose that understanding.I do not believe we are separated from God by sin.We are exactly the way He made us,like Him.But to point to words in a book isn't faith.To know something negates the need for true faith.I am no more a beloved child of God than any other one of His children.How could I ever be so shallow? I don't need proof.I choose to believe in God because I'm an optimist.The Universe operates according to physical laws that don't have to change just for me to feel safer. I don't need miracles.I see how beautiful reality is and am filled with to much love for fear.This from the guy who hated God for most of his life.An athiest has just as much faith as the most devout Christian or Buddhist.After all, you can't prove a supernatural doesn't exsist so hey buddy,welcome to the world of belief.I think we're all coming to the point when one human won't have to think everybody else has to be wrong so they can be right.And if there is no God and I have no soul that's just as good to me.We'll never know. We'll just wink out as our brain stops.So what?It's just what it's supposed to be,the way it is.Either way, as I see it,fear is just a waste of time.Unless you enjoy it,of course.And if that be the case then by all means, indulge yourself.For how we spend our time is the only true choice we have.

It is most likely, after a pretty extensive study of the Hebrew scriptures, that the soul does reside in the brain.

I'm so glad that this page exists! My experiences are similar yet my religious views are quite different, yet relevant. Sorry this is going to be quite long I swear I'm not usually this obsessed with myself.

I've had tle my whole life but I didn't know until just last year, I am 21 now. My whole life I've had sudden overwhelming moments where I've felt extremely peaceful, detached from reality, body-less, and all knowing. Those moments would be accompanied by hallucinations, deja vu, blacking out, feeling frozen, bright light, problems with depth perception and having everything look 2D, and afterwards a feeling of adrenaline. When I'm about to have one of these episodes my vision often becomes filled with static, which from there will separate into something else (light, hallucinations, etc.) A few times I've had the static turn into intricate geometric patterns and grid-like networks that seemed mathematical, I've always had a very hard time with math. During my seizures, like most other people who have posted here, feel that I gain a great deal of knowledge but cannot always grasp it afterwards. As a child I must have taken more away from them because I started to come up with my own set ideas of what reality was at a very early age and I still feel the same. To go along with that, I have very early memories as well, I have memories of being in cribs and being weighed in the the weird baby scale at the doctors, so this goes pretty far back.
So as a child my first memories related to this subject are from the age of about three, maybe two. I remember being in my parents bed because I was afraid (I also had terrible nightmares my whole childhood) and I could see the static and I remember thinking something like "oh thats what air is made of" but then it formed into what looked like a crowd of people standing before me, not life size, but small.
Around the age of six I recall standing at the bottom of my stairwell and it occurred to me that whether or not I went upstairs at that moment would change the rest of my life, and I started to think about free will and all of the sudden I saw the static coming on and I got frozen there in front of the stairs. I don't know how long it lasted but that was when I became very interested in the idea of time and space. At this point I still was assuming that everybody saw static and that it was just the air, as I usually see it all the time just very faintly.
Around age 8 I watched a documentary on PBS about time and space and it covered the strings theory. The fabric of time and space was obviously what the static was, and I thought that was cool and told my mom that the static (assuming she also saw it) was in fact the fabric of time and space. She was taken aback by this, and told me that it was invisible and that there was no static. The only thing that stemmed from this was getting my eyes checked.
After realizing that other people could not see static, I realized that I was simply blessed and that I could see things that others could not. This was reinforced by premonitions I'd have fairly often. Mostly just little things, the phone about to ring and who was calling, when we'd have fire drills at school, something a kid would say on the bus, etc. But there were a few that were just too weird. For example, I had gotten my ears pierced when I was 10 or 11 and one of my earrings fell out and I was really worried that the hole would close up. I looked everywhere for the earring with no luck. That night I had a dream that it was stuck between the padding of my cats paw. I checked in the morning and it was there.
My mother and sister also have ESP and have had detailed premonitions as well.
As I grew up I continued to be interested in science and also art (I am in art school currently) and generally believed the same things, however the seizures were getting worse in that I was hallucinating ridiculous things and was having trouble telling reality from dreams or just my imagination. I started seeing a therapist because I was also depressed and thought I was maybe a little crazy. I went through a couple before I found somebody who I felt comfortable with and she thought it must be something psychological but couldn't quite figure out what.
When I moved out at 19 the hallucinations got even worse. I couldn't tell what day it was, I had trouble recognizing people and would say hello to strangers, I was always just confused in some way or another, and I started getting olfactory hallucinations that made me insane. I also was blacking out more often and finding myself doing tasks that didn't make sense, like I came-to in the bathroom putting all the dishes from the kitchen on the counter in there. So my therapist was really concerned because she said I had all the symptoms of psychosis or something except for that I didn't believe these things were actually happening, and being rational is a total contradiction of psychosis. So she sent me to see a specialist.
The specialist suggested I get tested for TLE, although she didn't think it was likely.
So.... it was TLE!

Going on medication has helped with the confusion and I don't feel that I've lost out on my extra-sensory benefits. If I were to confidently say what I believe in, I wouldn't do a good job because I'm still in wonder. I believe that I can tap into four dimensional knowledge at times, I have felt that essence of god but I don't believe there is one solid god, more that there is a presence of something planned. I'm still searching for answers but I'm trying to find them all for myself and not look to any other religion so I do not bias myself. Sorry for this long post but I just wanted to get it all out there!

I woke up after a day in ITU a few years ago and since I have never felt so sure in my belief of Krishna and my holistic approach to the world :) I suppose the better way to say that is that I have strengthened my consciousness of Krishna - aka Krishna Conscious

Read Julian Jayne's book about the birth of conscience....it is amazing and it has a good theory of why we believe in gods and other supernatural beings. It is the primate brain and it's awakening. It also could explain schizophrenia-and why some people hear things and see things that aren't there.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

while I don't suffer from tle, I find this topic quite interesting and wanted to thank all of you for sharing your experiences. I was wondering if what you guys see and feel during the seizures are actually communications coming from higher powers or simply what us non-suffers experience in dream- experiences our mind creates while we are asleep. Thank you all for sharing.

PS

My obsession with God has resulted in a formula which I think proves it's existence. Check it out at my website:

bless your heart. hopefully you will do more research next time.

one comment requests finding kids who see visions of "god" i don't believe in a christian god. in all honestly i'm actually pagan. I had seizures as a kid and always saw my "goddess" and had her talk to me, or calm me down, comfort me. actually numerous times before a seizure i'd be so worked up i'd call for her to help me. i can vividly remember my sister making fun of me for this. growing up, i actually starting controlling my seizures. I used them to "slip over into another world" so i could visit the gods myself. i'm twenty, i've been playing with this since i was 8, and this is the first time i've ever heard of religion in tle.
when i first heard it on a video i was watching, i got an extreme headache and started to cry.
like someone was telling me scientifically i was wrong. then my brain immediately compensated and explained why i was right. is this just more defect?

Hi all.

I'm trying to find a documentary that must be around 10 years old. I think its was by Dr Sarah Greene. It covered religosity and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

Does anyone know the documentary I'm talking about?

Thanks.

Anthony.

It`s interesting because in Islam,
Allah says that ''I`m closer to my worshiper that the ''great vein'' or sthg like that

so if this really is the God spot,it `s closer that the jugular you know

and he also said '' The closest A worshiper can be to me is during Sojood so do it longer''

Sojood is when you see muslims on Tv with their heads,hands. and knees on the floor and backs up.
which you know is a positions that induces blood flow into the brain!

Im a TLE who has these experiences, Ive met god in seizures but am otherwise an atheist.
A few points to make
1) a neurology of religious experience doesn't negate God, all our experience of the worlds stimuli has a distinct neurological correlate. Studying the pathology of these correlates doesn't mean the stimulus (e.g an apple) doesn't exist, does it? Merely, in this case God is the stimulus.
2) There is not a "god module" a specific part of the brain for experiencing "god", there is however a correlated particular activity and interaction involving the temporal lobes and amygdala. There is not a distinct part marked "god".
3) Entropy reduction of the perceptual system is the likely cause, This results in less distinction of the senses and in turn a higher amplitude of activity (thus seizures are associated).
When trying to find a meaning for the environmental stimulus
Here I would argue just the room the epileptic was in (i.e no god stimuli)
Sum of all color frequencies = white (the white light of god)
Sum of all memories = de javu (i know this)
Sum of past present and the future = eternity
Our perception is actually us observing ourselves (consciousness relating lower level sub conscious perceptions).In this self relative but finite system of bits in which to encode experience, the brain, the lower entropy functioning temporal lobes essentially assign stimuli to all degrees of experience. all colours all memories all time and space is experienced as near to one, "god".
As these lower level perceptions are actually within ourselves, and our experience in general is an observation of a mirror of our perception, when a seizures strikes the communication between these two levels becomes slightly out of phase. We (our observer level, our consciousness) mistake our lower level perception (our self) for a distinct being, we have telepathic experience with ourselves. We see the rocks are alive...for it is our observation of our perception of rocks.. which is alive, if not the rocks themselves. Thus everywhere we look we see god, for everywhere we look we see our perception, our selves. In everything there is a meaning, for in this lower entropy state every perception is more likely switched "on" and thus each perception less distinct.
The white light of God is The white light of Ourself

I have had TLE since childhood (I knew I was having seizures when I was in 2nd grade although I had no idea what they were---I just thought I was crazy. I was finally diagnosed in 1983 when I was 38 years old).
I am not "obssessed" with religion. However, I am more highly religious than almost anyone I know---thoroughly Christian and very main-stream orthodox in my theology. However, if you read my blog (http://sumnonrabidus.wordpress.com/) you will soon discover that I consider my seizures, in fact, to be a means of reaching greater spiritual depth and awareness. My blog today, for example, is a mixture of an homage to Hildegard von Bingen and discussion of an article by two astrophysicists discussing the probability of the beginning of life in the universe. My understanding is not quite fixed yet, but I do know that all of this is heightened by and comes in conjunction with my seizures---which no longer frighten me but cause me great spiritual joy.

I have chronic temporal lobe epilepsy (hippocampal sclerosis) and have skim read various pieces on temporal lobe personality.

Mmmm, I've never kept a diary and have no interest in God. The only out-of-body experiences are during the fits themselves: deja vu, memory loss, hallucinations that are clear at the time but that I cannot recall afterwards.

I'm also supposed to have aggressive outbursts. Errr, no. Yes, I've felt thoroughly fed up at times due to people's attitudes towards my epilepsy and day-to-day memory problems. But in many ways I come out stronger - or does that make me aggressive... I stand up for my rights but I don't shout and I don't swear, for example.

I presume that personality can be determined by numerous factors. And, no, I'm not getting all philosophical. I have to lead a fairly boring lifestyle but that is for practical reasons (especially as I am now pregnant) - not to do with "personality".

I wish people with temporal lobe epilepsy all the best. It can be an absolute nuisance to live with but I guess things could be worse. I try and concentrate on the positive things in my life. Errr, does that make me egocentric?