Babies, pain, hallucinations, night terrors and more...

[Dara]

This may sound weird, but please give it a chance. I happen to believe that babies hallucinate more than we know and that the reason they do so is because of the speed in which their body is growing. How can a brain almost double in size and not be painful and not cause some type of mental distortion? And we rarely remember how we felt as a baby. Do you believe that's purposeful?

Just an FYI, I'm coming to you as a Surgical Technologist and a Medical Transcriptionist. I just want you to know that I do understand that the physicality of growth has been taken into consideration in the development of the child.

I guess I'm concern that perhaps many people block out what has happened to them as a baby because of how painful it is, since that's generally why we block things out. However, I also know there are people who claim to remember being born and being an infant. How would someone explain what was going on in their heads. Wouldn't everything seem like an hallucination?

As I watch my son grow up, I wondered how he was managing to not cry all the time and wondered how he saw things and why certain patterns and colors appealed to him and others didn't.

People who I've asked this question of speak of the nervous system going a bit out of control. And sometimes babies do look as if they are in a lot of pain. I just assumed that it was because of such quick growing and hadn't really thought too much about the feelings they were experiencing aside from pain, you know the feelings they would have simply from being in the air/oxygen and not just fluid anymore.

You know, any other time growth spurts hurt, even if it's just a little bit. I would hate to think that there wasn't a way to control the pain of getting used to a nervous system and being outside of the mother and the spreading of the skull and enlargement of the brain. And I do realize that some babies seem unaffected, which was why I feel that they have to be dealing with the pain in another way, which is why I assumed hallucinations. Sometimes you look into a baby's eyes and they are just moving wildly like in R.E.M. sleep. Sometimes their eyes look a bit off or wonky.

I know that if what is happening to children was happening to us as adults, there would probably be pain involved. I know that sometimes people involuntarily hallucinate to distract from the pain or input they are receiving. I guess I just assumed that's what might be happening. I mean, something has to give.

When I get a migraine, it's just little vessels in my head dilating and contracting and it feels like my head is going to explode. I can't imagine what it would be like for the brain and vessels to be growing and developing quickly in a few years.

Also, children do have pain when they are growing, I don't know if this causes hallucinations or night terrors, but it just seems to be reasonable to believe that the stretching and growing of the skull would be a tad bit painful. I know my assumptions are wild, but I'm just throwing the thought out there. So please forgive my musing, but the more I think about this subject, the more physical feelings, hints of remembering being young and strange thoughts I get. I had blocked out much of my childhood, but am now cognitively and medicinally remembering some of my past. I am having behaviors that I had when I was a child the more I remember. It's really weird and I might discuss it more later, but there is a reason to my madness. lol Rest assured.

Feel free to just jump in and call me a looney. I won't be offended if you don't agree with me or call me names. I just want a conversation about this if anyone wants to chat about it.

......wanders off in contemplation.......

[Moon_Stone]

Ooh, this is a really cool thought. I so have ideas to add on this... though I don't currently have time to get to it.

I will though, soon. This is entirely a very obscure thought, but really quite poignant. (Also makes one wonder just how those "regressionists" are taking the person through the "birth canal" again through meditative states.... the mind really is open to a lot of suggestion.)

Bright Blessings and thanks for the brain food! :28:

~Moonstone

[Dara]

I really am looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this. It's just running through my head and I know there are things that I haven't thought about. So I'm anxious to hear others thoughts on this subject.

I too have been thinking about rebirthing and what that entails and how people feel during and after. That would be something interesting to explore.

[Moon_Stone]

Aw nuts- how does time slip by so quickly?

I'm sorry Dara, I did really want to get to this today, but I have an appointment I have to get to at 1:45 across town (I'm already running late- then again, "late" is my middle name)

Ok... Friday then. :28:

Have a wonderful New Years!


Brightest Blessings to you.

~Moonstone

[Moon_Stone]

Hmm... let me preface this by saying it's pretty darn late at the moment and I'm probably going to be typing in that strange, non-linear fashion in which I think... so bear with me if the thoughts jump all around....
K, that said, here I go:

(Newborns): My first thought was on the pain aspect in general- first of all, I believe when a baby is born, it has very little to no understanding at all of what is taking place; where it is; what it is and even what pain might be; or feelings for that matter. Some cognitive function is required to process a feeling. There are autonomic responses taking place, but not any comprehension involved. This is a very instinctual, primitive state. If a newborn were in constant, excruciating pain, I don't think it would know. If the ever-present state of that life was a state of constant pain, then more pain beyond the baseline would be required for that baby to know something hurt. Though even then, it wouldn't know it "hurt." Its highly more plausible that after the alleviation of that pain, "pain" in general would be felt, but on the other hand, overall the responses don't much differ if the baby is one minute old or one month.

If comparing a newborn to a baby head of lettuce, they are both, at that stage, very simple organisms. (Overall, I don't mean on a cellular level.) If the lettuce has had a brick on it since it rose from the dirt, that would have undoubtedly not felt very good, but the lettuce wouldn't know any different. All it has ever known was the way life felt under the brick. Only when more "pain" is introduced by uprooting it from the ground, would it react to that stimuli. Then the lettuce's being free from the ground would cause it to receive another stimuli. (I'm not nuts, there is scientific evidence that vegetables respond to painful stimuli. My husband looked this up to further torture me for being a vegetarian... lol) Now, given that thought, compare a baby born healthy versus a baby born with its internal organs exposed. They're both screaming just the same but what they're feeling must be drastically different. I'm contradicting myself again because if they do feel at birth, that implies they cognitively process what's occurring... but I was just saying that I don't think they process anything at that stage. Obviously there is a change of sensation, going from uterine fluids into cold air... then onto that cold scale as well.... and they're letting us know they don't like it either. As my daughter was being born, only her head yet had emerged from my body and she began to cry. Why? That would seem to indicate there's an excruciating amount of pain in the process, that's for sure. Or maybe it's the air. Imagine taking a really hot bath then going outside in the winter time, still wet and naked. The way a baby cries in comparison to even a toddler is very different, there's a shriek, a panic that emanates from almost every note they utter. Where, exactly, and why... I think will be a mystery. The new question is that at what stage in utero does a baby or mass of cells, even, begin having sensation?

You have some really good points about toddler/older baby development, nervous system development, brain growth, eye movement... hallucinations.... that I'm eager to address, too... but at 2:30 in the morning as it presently is, I need to give my, tired, screaming mind a rest. ...More later. :28:

~BB~

[WinterElf]

My oldest (now 9) did have quite a time with teething and growing pains. He also has had many night terrors and sleep wakings. These have always been at about the same time he was going through growing spurts.
He has always told my hubby and I that before he was born that he had a talk with God and that God asked him if he was ready. And that he chose us as his family.
Regarding the pain the newborn may feel during birth. I too have wondered this. I firmly believe that the mental and spiritual (and physical) state of the mother greatly affects how the newborn feels. I practiced calm and focused births. With no medications and much relaxation during my 3 deliveries. Yes, my 3 little ones did cry. Although my first cried the most and his was the more difficult birth of the 3.
Great topic! I am going to think more on this one.

[Starwitch]

I had a period during the ages of 7-8 where I saw spirits and felt vibrations (like people get during astral projection) and weird stuff like that. Maybe it had to do with a growth spurt or something like that. I had never considered that before. Weird world.

Bright Blessings,

[WinterElf]

I think that most children are open to things that most adults are not in tune with. It is sad that often times society will see this as being different or even as a medical condition. Oftentimes, children are told that such visions or experiences are fantasy and to forget about them. So these gifted children are taught to tune out these feelings. I have known many little ones that see auras and have premonitions. It is the parents that need to nurture these gifts these children have and to allow them to grow with it.

[Dara]

Wow!! You all bring up really interesting perspectives and points. I had never thought about the night terrors being connect to growth spurts, but now it seems to make a bit of sense in a way.

MoonStone, I think you make some very good points when talking about a baby not being able to know that what they are actually experiencing is something that adults would consider painful. But does that mean they don't experience or that they are just experiencing something they have no reference (about) to? I hope that made sense.

They are still experiencing things, however, because we are intelligent beings, we seem to place our own experiences on something else. Which may be why I thought they'd be having hallucinations. Perhaps they're not hallucinating at all.

I've heard that cats have a mild natural hallucinogenic when they are kittens that makes them run, jump and play. Perhaps there are similarities.

[Moon_Stone]

Hi Dara- sorry it took so long to get to this (and of course I don't have a lot of time, so it's a really quick answer...) I don't think the babies aren't actually experiencing the pain and things I was mentioning, but rather, without a basis for understanding the stimulus they're feeling (because it's all they've ever known), they thereby aren't able to realize that what they are feeling at that moment is, in fact, "pain." (Yes, what you said makes total sense -- hopefully this does too!) :28:

K- more later. (again)

~BB~

[Dara]

I see, thanks for the clarification.