"Every once in a while, I had a powerful internal sensation of being pulled upward, as if my head were rising, even though I knew my feet hadn’t left the ground. This lift was accompanied by what can only be called awe — a feeling of transcendence."
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
AWEful Migraines
Being that we discussed how Hildegard's visions could have been migraine induced hallucinations, I thought this article might interest all of you. Siri Hustvedt describes her migraines below:
"I variously interpreted these elevations as divine (God was calling) or as an amazed connection to things in the world. Everything appeared strange and wondrous."
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I think the migraine vs divine intervention discussion that we had in class the other day was pretty intriguing. Reading this article leads me to believe that it really is possible that Hildegard's visions were just migraine headaches. My mom suffers with severe migraines from time to time, and she always describes the sensation as seeing "twinkling fuzzy white lights." I certainly see where the mistake of divinity could be made.
ReplyDeleteOne of my best friends from home has suffered from migraines for as long as we've known each other. He never had them bad enough that he would hallucinate, but he did say something about a lifting feeling, because of the pressure in his head. It seems plausible that Hildegard's visions could've been a side effect of a migraine, but I don't remember him writing about pain being associated with the visions.
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