MLE Friends webinar: "Epilepsy and Ecstatic Experience" with Dr. Fabienne Picard

About the talk - Dr. Picard writers: "Epilepsy has always provided a unique opportunity to get a better understanding of complex cognitive functions. In focal types of epilepsies, the seizures may be inaugurated by symptoms only experienced by the patient and not discernible to external observers. Rare patients suffering from epilepsy present a form of epilepsy called ecstatic epilepsy. During their epileptic aura, they experience a state of blissful mental clarity and a sense of union with the All. This state is close to the “mystical experience” which has been defined by the American psychologist William James by an ineffability (the experience defies expression), a noetic quality with a state of “knowledge”, transiency and passivity. Thus, a disruption of some brain functions related to an epileptic discharge in the brain may give rise to a state of non-duality and a feeling of ultimate reality.
We could demonstrate the major involvement of a cerebral structure called insula in the genesis of this ecstatic aura. Among its functions, the insula mediates the reception of the signals coming from the inside of the body (interoception). As the brain has been shown to function as a predictive machine to decipher the outside world, it always anticipates all the (external and internal) incoming signals, with a certain level of uncertainty, and generates an update of the predictions when necessary (when there is a mismatch between the predictions and the real incoming signals, i.e. surprise).
I hypothesized that the ecstatic state is related to the extinction of the interoceptive surprise. The epileptic discharge within the insula could prevent it from comparing the interoceptive predictions and the real interoceptive signals and from generating interoceptive surprise. This mimicking of a perfectly predicted physiological state of the body would allow the ecstatic quality of the experience, with an internal and outside world seeming to be understood and perfect.
Thus, this “mystical-type” experience may occur unexpectedly through a morbid condition such as epilepsy. Such a state could also occur in some expert meditators through training in the acceptance of uncertainty. During this talk I will share with you my views on the ecstatic or mystical-type experience and its brain correlates.

[@unsteadyheady]

I've had two of these in my life, they are beyond anything conceivable. To cut things very short, I saw the virgin and felt through her a connection to the whole of humanity, another time I heard an angel, a voice simultaneously unfamiliar and the MOST familiar, both times I was left totally elated, but afterwards the beauty becomes emotional pain.

[@TLEawareness]

I’ve had a couple also. It almost had a feeling of omnipotence to it or something. It’s like I could feel tons of energy pumping though my body and I was learning the meaning of the universe and why im here. All to black out and forget 99.9% of the experience. It’s hard to put into words on BOTH ends of the spectrum. The fear is indescribable just as much as the elation.

[@judycarroll9971]

i experience these types of seizures and am hard-pressed to call them "disorders"....they are beautiful and life-affirming. After experiencing these spells at 77, i was diagnosed with epilepey and placed immediately on medication to stop these them. My experience has been an openess to the world and a feeling of being safe with everything, everyone...in love with the world. Why do i want to attenuate this? If you want a person for further studies of this phenomenon, i would participate.

[@integralstanley]

This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Could anyone please share sources of first person statements of persons blessed with estatic auras?

[@ShannonMcCarthy]

Hi there, Dr Picard published a beautiful article viewable online titled “Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures: A Glimpse Into the Multiple Roles of the Insula”, and in it there are many first person patient accounts.