Have you Ever Heard of Something like This?

[INRM]

I was reading a book and a person said they got hit in the head by a baseball and for awhile they felt "as if their own head wasn't their's"

Have you ever heard of something like that? What would cause such a sensation as if their head was not theirs?

Tony L

[yairhol]

My guess is that your friend had some nerves hit by the ball and for a while didn't have a sensation around parts of his head. It's like when your arm or leg falls asleep. That's just a guess.

Regards,
Yair

[DRBUZZ0]

I was reading a book and a person said they got hit in the head by a baseball and for awhile they felt "as if their own head wasn't their's"

Have you ever heard of something like that? What would cause such a sensation as if their head was not theirs?

Tony L

That is very very vague so I really have no idea what they mean other than their head felt weird. Being hit in the head with a baseball can obviously be both a shock and cause some damage. Concussion would be obvious, but possibly also temporary loss of hearing, diziness if it affected the inner ear... and with a concussion you may be unconcious or just tired/dizzy/groggy.

It's not hard to imagine that they would feel in pain, shocked, dizzy, weezy... possibly even get a weird "out of body" or "floating" or "slowed down" sensation of some sort.


Given the lack of detail it's hard to really know what they mean..

[strathmeyer]

You mean, like, if your limb is "asleep", or if you press your arms laterally outwards against a doorway and then move away with your arms out?

[casebro]

Hmmm, the theory is that you have a psychological black out before the ball hits you, or your head hits the ground in a motorcycle collision, or your nose breaks when it hits the steering wheel in an auto accident, or the other guys helmet hits you head while you are sitting on your dirt bike without a helmet. All of which have happened to me. I don't remember any of the actual impacts. And I did see them acoming. Anyhow, if I was psychologocally absent, who is to say how long it might last, or if it would manifest itself as a feeeling of disconnection?

Anyhow, I have been back for 20 years, and it didn't hurt me none. errrk didn't hurt me none. errrk n't hurt me none. errrk urt me none. errrk

[kerikiwi]

You were reading a book and a person said ...
Do you mean you were reading a novel in which a character said...?
The author was making it up. Don't get too excited.

[INRM]

No it wasn't a fiction. It was a biography of a family.

[INRM]

Here's the exact quote from "The Family" by Kitty Kelly, Page 5

"A baseball flying with terrific force, having been batted 50 or 75 feet away, struck me just over the left eye. I dropped + was dazed but soon came to my sense -- Prescott was white as a sheet + others helping me up-- I was able to walk over + then had applications + things done -- but I have had a horrid day -- as I am lame everywhere + my poor head feels as though it was not mine. Excepting that it hurts. It is turning a hideous green + blue."

[qayak]

I had a nasty fall when I was 13 years old. I remember the pain of the impact and coming to a little later. I remember walking up the hill and sitting with a friend who was laughing at me.

But I was not able to interact with my surroundings. My eyes and ears were taking in stimuli but I could not process it and make appropriate responses. For instance, when my friend got up to leave, he stepped on my finger and I remember looking down seeing my finger under his foot, feeling the pain but I could not decide what I should do about it or even if I should do something about it. It was like I was watching a movie where I got all the input but had no way of utilizing it.

Apparently I walked the mile or so home and went to bed. I don't remember any of that but I do remember the eery feeling while sitting. I can see it being described as being "as if my head wasn't my own."

I did learn one thing. I never again hung around with that friend. Anyone who would leave a friend in that condition wasn't someone I wanted watching my back.

[roger]

This isn't the same thing, but I went through a period several years ago when it suddenly felt that parts of my body wasn't my own, but my father's. I don't know how to explain it, other than say I put food in my mouth, and as I do it suddenly feels like it's not my lips that are feeling it, but my father's. Or I make a gesture but it is his arm that is making the gesture.

It makes no sense, other than we have similar bodies and gestures, so perhaps my mind unconsciously recognizes me doing something like he would and it interprets it at a conscious level as my father is doing that action. I dunno. It's weird, but an entirely 'real' feeling. Meaning, I have no woo belief that I am somehow 'connected' with him at that moment. However, the feeling is exactly as real to me as hearing someone speak and you recognize their voice. For a split second I recognize my hand (for example) is actually my father's. Of course it is not objectively true, but while the feeling exists it feels as real as anything objectively true.

I wonder if this is how a lot of psychics got their start. Perhaps there is something in some people's brain that makes them feel connected to somebody else. As a materialist, I just chalk it up to the brain misinterpreting things, but if I believed in psychics I could easily see how I would be convinced I had some special 'connection' to my father. How short would the slippery slope be before I was offering readings at the local mall for $25?

[hubbub2]

Sometimes my head feels as though it isn't mine.

Of course it usually involves certain quanities of vodka.:bgrin:

[Zep]

Concussion. Your brain has taken a shock, so it reacts eratically.

[Mosquito]

Hmmm, the theory is that you have a psychological black out before the ball hits you, or your head hits the ground in a motorcycle collision, or your nose breaks when it hits the steering wheel in an auto accident, or the other guys helmet hits you head while you are sitting on your dirt bike without a helmet. All of which have happened to me. I don't remember any of the actual impacts. And I did see them acoming. Anyhow, if I was psychologocally absent, who is to say how long it might last, or if it would manifest itself as a feeeling of disconnection?

Anyhow, I have been back for 20 years, and it didn't hurt me none. errrk didn't hurt me none. errrk n't hurt me none. errrk urt me none. errrk

Isn't this a result of the brain being some half a second or so behind real events?

This then leads to a situation where a heavy knock on the head temporarily disables the brain's ability to store the last half second to memory, thus it has no recollection of it happening?

Mosquito - Think I read that somewhere, but got a bump on my head and can't recall

[toddjh]

There's something called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) which causes the sufferer to have an intense desire to modify his general body structure, usually by amputating healthy limbs. I've seen interviews with some BIID patients in which they explain their compulsion by saying that those limbs "feel wrong" or "aren't mine," which makes me wonder if this is similar.

Some people think BIID is the result of a problem with the cerebral cortex which messes with their sense of proprioception (the sense we have of our own body's structure and the relative positions of our body parts). I wonder if this is similar to that somehow; maybe a conk to the noggin can have the same effect, temporarily.

[Bikewer]

NPR's Fresh Air show has been airing segments from it's first year of broadcasting. Included was an interview with Oliver Sacks, the author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat." ( a book of strange neuro-psychiatric disorders)
He spoke of the BIID phenomenon, telling of an individual who began to think of her leg as "not hers" and in addition, totally loathsome and horrid.
After a scan showed a small tumor, she was successfully treated and went back to an entirely normal perception of her limb.

[patnray]

I'm not an expert, but I have heard of conditions where, following injury to a part of the brain, patients feel that parts of their bodies are not theirs. Apparently there is a feedback mechanism in the nervous system that identifies our body parts as part of ourselves. When that part of the body is poked they feel the contact. And they can move that part of the body, but they still believe it is not part of their body. I've also heard that this feedback system is missing from cat's tails, which is why they sometimes chase their tails.

So perhaps the knock on the head caused a temporary disruption to this part of the brain.

[Piscivore]

No it wasn't a fiction. It was a biography of a family.

Here's the exact quote from "The Family" by Kitty Kelly,

I'm not sure that is sufficient to remove it from the "fiction" category, actually.

Did she really write this with all the little "plus" marks as punctuation? Eris preserve us. How can you even stand to read it?

[tracer]

Clearly, every human sensory preception is a 100% accurate picture of the real world, and your senses never ever ever lie to you and cen never be tricked, so the only logical conclusion is that this person had an out-of-body experience.

Similarly, photographs taken with cameras never ever have double exposures or light leaks or out-of-focus items in-frame, so therefore all weird looking pictures are pictures of real ghosts and light sabers really exist.