Blackout. It’s not just the loss of lighting or communication but memory-related episodes as well. What happens when you blackout or lose consciousness? Where do you go? More importantly, where does your mind wander? So different from the patterns of sleep where dreams might drag you through the realities of the day or to incredible and incredulous fantasies. No, this is something remarkably different. It’s faster, more shocking, without memory and outside of the comfort of lying in bed.
Often seen as a weakness (at the sight of blood or hearing bad news) or part of slapstick comedy in the movies or cartoons, fainting is associated with a dramatic drop in blood pressure – meaning, of course, that the brain is not getting enough oxygen. The body reacts by collapsing and you experience a sudden loss of consciousness and ‘blackout’.
I saw my dad faint once. It was frightening and unexpected. We were on a camping trip to the centre of Australia. Back when ‘air-conditioning’ was opening the car windows at 100kmph and hot vinyl seats stuck to the back of young legs. When ‘sitting in the middle’ meant being in the front bench seat with your parents and the windscreen was forever at risk of being smashed by passing road trains flicking up stones in their wake. The axle broke on our camper trailer and we pulled over to the side of the road. Dad pushed and pulled the trailer in 45+ degree heat while we sat in the shade drawing shapes in the red dirt, too young to physically assist. I looked up just as it happened. Dad dropped to the ground. Quiet. Muscles gone. Mum went to his aid. The drinking water was warm. We watched in shock. I don’t think I knew the word ‘faint’ before then.
I’m a fainter too. Not often, but it has happened a few times. The setting the first time was again a country road. I got out of the car feeling nauseous and ‘car sick’. Dad had stopped so I could throw up outside the car, rather than into my brother’s lap. It was hot and dry. By the time he had come to check on me, I was lying in a pile of rocks near the car. Blackout.
After that time, fainting only occurred when I was really sick and about to vomit. I was usually alone when this happened. I would lower myself to the floor as I felt the light-headedness coming on and then as my mind returned, my cheek would feel the floor beneath it, and for a few seconds I remained a little unsure of where I was as sound and vision were processed. Those moments where I lost consciousness were gone. Nothing to be recalled. They just went. Somewhere.
Most recently, I had a witness to one of my episodes. My partner was wrapping my wrist in a bandage. The injury the result of climbing onto a chair to reach an upper shelf and then staggering and falling when I stepped down.
Crazy but true. Aren’t a lot of household accidents though?
I felt dizzy and nauseous and knew that I was about to faint. And I did. Blackout.
But just before my mind fully returned, it played music. It played but I didn’t hear it. Not through my ears anyway. The music was created by my brain. Then I came to, lying on the concrete floor. My partner provided details about the mysterious movements that occurred when I fainted, the colour change in my face, the limpness of my body, the nervous impulses. But where did my mind go? And where did it find that music? I’m sure that there are medical and scientific explanations for all of this – but I’d prefer to think about the more ephemeral. The phrase ‘lost in thoughts’ is completely about that. The mind not just closing down but wandering. Lost. Somewhere.
The body is a complex thing and the brain even more so. While I’m not afraid of the blackouts, I don’t really want to go there again. I’d prefer to have a daydream and have my mind return unscathed and inspired, not empty.
And, this might just have been the best piece of music I’ll never hear.
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