It feels exactly how you describe it.I get the black whirling and also a sparkly glowing around my peripheral vision.Somatic pain like you described all over my head and face and body.The drugged hypnotized dizzy feelings and trance like states.As you move further along in recovery I'll tell you the truth is stranger and weirder than fiction when it comes to these things.

ummm and this is supposed to be a good thing? The missing time is a drag, and the disconnected feeling sucks, but this sounds just terrible.

My vision goes miopic, like looking through binoculars, with some of that black and sparkly glowing around the edges. Stabbing forehead pain and trance-like state, and the room kind of spins. It happened in therapy yesturday and the therapist decided to try EMDR to relieve the headache. It was amazing, it went away within minutes and I felt back to "normal" like I had just woken up. Although I was really lethargic and out of it on the drive home.

When it happens for me, I just feel like I'm not driving the engine. One of the alters will do something, and I will be like, "what the fuck is going on?!?!?" Internally, it's like a war. I am watching myself act, but it is not me. My vision isn't odd, nor do I have a headache. It's just not me.

I don't have all that other blurry stuff, or somatic things unless im remembering something. but i'm just like a basket case xoxo

LOL Stephanie at first these symptoms can be scary and disconcerting but once you get use to it it gets better.There are weird things like this that happen but there are also amazing things like Schims describes where you can use techniques like EMDR to alleviate migraines caused by parts and suppressed memories.I have suffered migraines my entire life.Excruciating ones that are debilitating and to be able to use techniques that like to alleviate the pain is a miracle.The power of the human mind is truly amazing.

i get scared. the eyes see like in a tunnel and the ears dont hear stuff right. then lots of times we switch out with somebody. like right now its me talking but stphanie writing. i dont like it. i want to write for myself. i m missy

I mostly just get the multiple-hour-long-throbbing-headache. My vision does get weird sometimes, as someone else described, "tunnel vision". Everything looks a bit like low resolution video except for the very center, but at the time, I always assume I'm just tired. Same with the headaches, "I just cried", or "my head just hurts from having this expression constantly on my face" (from crying for a long time). I do get the drugless high thing going on, but it's hard to tell what that is since I'm bipolar. I assume this is related.

Really, when it comes to all of this, I'm still quite clueless. At night, sometimes I break out into this mood where everything is hilarious, like what it feels like to be on nitrous oxide (A LOT of it). I find that I can almost will myself into this state, which makes me doubt that it's really the bipolar thing.

I get the tunnel vision and the "someone else is driving the bus" feeling, too. It's like I can see and hear what is happening but I am inside, screaming, "STOP!!!" (usually with my protector). Other times I am not copresent and I don't remember anything.

Yes, I recognize these feelings.I can tell when the cortisol starts entering my brain and get this numb, trance like syndrom.
I used to have excruciating head aches, distorting my whole face, as memories were trying to emerge.
it takes time for the mind to be solid again and safe enough so that the memories and fragment pieces reveal themselves.
It can be scary but by staying firmly grounded to the here now and accepting my parts to emerge and express themselves, in their own voices,I am growing and benefit from what they are telling me.
I found it took me an incredible time(60 years) to be able to hear those voices and take them seriously.I have survived, like all of us, incredible life threatening trauma, and these coping mecanisms have saved my life.
I am now in a position to to feel safer, therefore they manifest, sometimes in many weird ways, because i was so distressed when the memories have been stored.One of my parts has a vey deformed face, because of the terror and adrenaline twisting my perceptions.
With time, eveything makes sense and becomes lucid.
Big hugs.I am with you.

@ rojigo...I am just figuring out whose emotions are whose, it seems that how I feel is based on who's "pushing" on me.

Most of the time they don't come out enough to talk, it's when they do that I get the funky side effects.
Although one of my alters-the funny guy, will just sort of spit things out...Often to great effect, some times to "AAACK!" and like the others, I don't know what he's going to say until he says it.

He does not give me the pains in the head or the trippy visuals...but he's been active the whole time feeding me one-liners and greasing social skids.

Thanks for all the replies. More confirmation I'm not just playing weird games with myself.

It is-most people are not going to "get" us.
Although having figured out who Fisher is now, I sort of like to give him credit too, he's an awesome kid...

Warning...he adores the joke about "John Wayne toilet paper"...
(Rough, tough, doesn't take crap off of anybody...)

it depends on which alter is coming out. Sometimes I become very tired (sleepy), groggy or just a feeling of being out of it; other times I feel a huge headache coming on or my eyes will feel like they are looking through coke bottles with respect to weird vision as well as feeling distant. I have also had times when I feel a great deal of pain. So as I said it varies. If I was to explaint this to anyone else but you I would appear crazy.

hylie!!! lol. I never heard that before!