I inadvertently turned the lights off near the start, maybe when I was getting Mind Alive’s DAVID Delight Pro device to memorize my intensity settings for the SMR/Gamma session, but for maybe about 5 minutes. Audio down to lowest setting and did same for lights when realized what I’d done. Still, woozy at start — when lights on first minute or so and when turned back on again. I calmed within 5 minutes. Heat rose up into back of my head after I turned the lights back on. The heat stayed but not nearly as extensive and uncomfortable as yesterday, and it dissipated after about 20 minutes after end of session. It’s kind of not surprising it was at the back of my head, if anywhere, as that’s where visual signals are recorded, so to speak, processed and passed on to other parts of the brain.
Again experienced happy gamma but not as strongly as yesterday, and it’s like it’s flickering on and off, maybe because of my turning lights off for a few minutes. Really got to watch what I’m doing!
Relaxation effect the same. After the calm, my muscles began to relax. Deeper and deeper until I couldn’t move and had to wait a couple minutes at the end of the session until my body ready to take off my eyesets and grab my mug for some water.
Weird thing though. I’ve been having hyperarousal of my leg muscles for at least a week, maybe because of the vigilance being heightened by the SARSCoV2 coronavirus pandemic. In the last few minutes, my leg muscles were both relaxed yet on the surface pockets of muscle cells began flickering into hyperarousal until my nerves felt like ribbons switched to “on” and trying to move my legs but my big muscles were too relaxed to move. Go figure.
I’m tired. I thought I might be getting sleepy — another not so great sleep last night. But nope, my eyes are wide open. And my perception is clearer and wider, like yesterday. After about a half hour, widely aware, ready to pop up, though physically still tired.
My vigilance didn’t really ratchet back up after my first session, so not a dramatic change like yesterday. I’ll have to see how this works out. Right now, not much desire to read Twitter or COVID19 news. Yet not completely off like yesterday. My anxiety is down again. Not worried about my how-to-get-groceries situation.
I did this session earlier in the day because I felt doing it late in the afternoon yesterday may have affected my sleep. It certainly made me intolerant of my night-time CES Sleep (100Hz), that’s part of my hypothalamus fix, after awhile. I had to stop it. It’s true, I don’t need it in the summer, but it’s kind of early to stop needing it, and I don’t usually have that sense of intolerance hit me. I also want to see if this will help my afternoon reading.
I’m working with my neurodoc to study how this affects me, by setting short term and long term markers and then monitoring them. I have to work out what those physiological and functional markers are.
Update 3:55pm: No change in reading at first. But then able to read chapter by chapter with minimal break. And two hours after the session, my verbalizing improved back to where it had been before exhaustion and coronavirus. Sure, externals still distracted me, but distractions didn’t grab me long enough to hold my attention and take my focus away from the story. Also, I went deeper into verbalizing, following thoughts, thinking more about what the characters had done, checking up on a forgotten detail. I wasn’t doing the minimal possible as I have been. Nice to finish the book that way. And I’m still not anxious about COVID-19. I am tired (was this morning, in case that wasn’t clear) but weirdly not desperate for a rest. Pretty calm, actually.
Update 5:20pm: Effects have worn off. Pretty tired, too. Probably did too much, but I needed to finish my ebook before the library took it back.
