Could Some Ball Lightning Observations be Optical Hallucinations Caused by Epileptic Seizures?
نویسندگان
چکیده
The great difficulty of encompassing all observed features of ball lightning into a single theory makes it highly probable that many observations and experiences which have no connection to ball lightning are also categorized as ball lightning experiences. In this note we compare the eyewitness reports of ball lightning and the symptoms of epileptic seizures of the occipital lobe as described in the medical literature and show that a person experiencing such a seizure for the first time may believe that he has witnessed a ball lightning event. Since many of the ball lightning reports are associated with nearby lightning strikes, the possibility that the rapidly changing magnetic field of a close lightning strike could trigger an epileptic seizure is analyzed. The results show that the time derivative of the magnetic field in the vicinity of an intense lightning flash is strong enough to stimulate neurons in the brain. This strengthens the possibility of inducing seizures in the occipital lobe of a person located in the vicinity of lightning strikes.
منابع مشابه
Elementary visual hallucinations in migraine and epilepsy.
A comparison of the elementary visual hallucinations of 50 patients with migraine and 20 patients with occipital epileptic seizures showed that epileptic seizures are predominantly multi-coloured with circular or spherical patterns as opposed to the predominantly black and white linear patterns of migraine. This simple clinical symptom of the elementary visual hallucinations may be helpful in d...
متن کاملDevelopment of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in response to auditory hallucinations
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures can co-exist with epileptic seizures. Differentiating between the two is central to appropriate management. We report the case of a patient with established focal epilepsy who developed psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in direct response to second-person auditory hallucinations. To our knowledge, this is the first description of such an occurrence. These non...
متن کاملIctal visual hallucinations due to frontal lobe epilepsy in a patient with bipolar disorder☆
In ictal psychosis with complex visual hallucinations (VHs), widespread functional changes of cortical networks have been suggested. We describe the clinical and EEG findings of a patient with bipolar disorder who manifested complex VHs associated with intense emotional symptoms caused by frontal epileptic seizures. This description highlights the challenges of diagnosing the epileptic nature o...
متن کاملRelation of photosensitivity to epileptic syndromes.
Photosensitivity is the most common mode of seizure precipitation. It is age-related, more frequent in females, and most often found in generalised epilepsies. Little is known about its relation to individual epileptic syndromes. This study on 1062 epileptic patients who had 4007 split screen video EEG investigations revealed that the relation to generalised epilepsy is even more close than gen...
متن کاملVHF Lightning Observations by Digital Interferometry from ISS / JEM-GLIMS
Global Lightning and sprIte MeasurementS (GLIMS) mission is now ongoing on Exposed Facility of Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EF) of the International Space Station (ISS). This paper focuses on an electromagnetic (EM) payload of JEM-GLIMS mission, very high frequency (VHF) broadband digital InTerFerometer (VITF). JEM-GLIMS mission is designed to conduct comprehensive observations with both EM ...
متن کامل