The after effects of a day at the theme park on the brain

September 15, 2005 11:29 AM

Brain weirdness: I, with some colleagues, spent the day at Thorpe Park last week and spent the day getting hurled around rides such as Nemesis and more.

When I went to bed that evening, as I was trying to get to get to sleep, my brain kept doing strange things; I kept feeling as though I was still being flung left, right, up, down and all over the place - almost like I was still on the rides. I didn't think too much of it until a couple of my colleagues said they experienced the same thing. So, is this after effect common? If so, does it have a name? What triggers it and why?

posted by TheDonF to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (19 answers total)

Definitely common -- I get the same thing after spending a lot of time on boats.
posted by occhiblu at 11:33 AM on September 15, 2005

mal de debarquement syndrome?
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:36 AM on September 15, 2005

It seems the sensation has to last for at least six months before they consider Mal de debarquement. The articles I've just been skimming say that feeling rocking or motion after long boat or airplane rides is just normal.
posted by occhiblu at 11:47 AM on September 15, 2005

Mmm, that could be it...
posted by TheDonF at 11:49 AM on September 15, 2005

Oh, maybe not - occhiblu obviously reads more thoroughly than I do.
posted by TheDonF at 11:50 AM on September 15, 2005

Arrr laddie, its just that you've got your "Sea Legs". I used to feel the same way after marathon waterslide sessions.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:54 AM on September 15, 2005

Heh. Or possibly not. It looks like there's a syndrome, which is the long-lasting bit, but many non-medical sites are using "mal de debarquement" to describe exactly what you're talking about -- the time it takes your body to adapt to stable land after being in a boat or something similar.
posted by occhiblu at 11:54 AM on September 15, 2005

I got the same thing when I first learned how to ski.
posted by driveler at 11:58 AM on September 15, 2005

Well, whatever it is (Ogre Lawelss - you used the same google search terms that I did, right =) ?) I'm sure it's temporary.

Maybe stare at your feet or focus on the horizon or just about anything to get a 'fix' on where you are if it gets annoying in the meanwhile.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:01 PM on September 15, 2005

It sounds to me like vertigo. Me and my sister used to experience the same thing after a day at the amusement park--it's so bad for each of us that we now avoid them, since the sensation of the floor dropping out as we try to sleep is too awful. Dehydration seemed to make it worse.

Here's a link to a very scary Russian article warning us that amusement parks may Ruin! Our! Lives! and that vertigo or sea-sickness result from tossing yourself through space. I'd heard that it had something to do with an inner-ear unbalancing, but I'm not sure.
posted by hamster at 12:01 PM on September 15, 2005

Oh yeah, it was temporary - it only lasted one night, but it was the first time I and, I think, my colleagues had experienced it and I was intrigued.
posted by TheDonF at 12:03 PM on September 15, 2005

It's a very common feeling. I get the same thing when I've done a long stretch of driving. That night it still feels like I'm in a moving car.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 12:03 PM on September 15, 2005

I occasionally get this while I'm fading off to sleep. Whenever it happens, I reassure myself that I'm completely safe -- and enjoy the ride.
posted by grateful at 12:03 PM on September 15, 2005

Thanks for the replies, all.
posted by TheDonF at 12:43 PM on September 15, 2005

I get this after boats, sometimes for two days or so! It goes away. I'm not sure it's your brain so much as your inner ear getting all wacky.
posted by Mid at 3:13 PM on September 15, 2005

TheDonF, do you know about the hypnagogic state? I suspect that's the condition you were experiencing when this happened. I had the same thing you describe happen several times as a child, particularly on days that were fairly long and highly stimulating (amusement parks or days at the beach or swimming pool). It was always a re-experiencing of the same feelings as I'd had during the day. I always figured that's why the idiom is 'falling' asleep.
posted by kimota at 3:29 PM on September 15, 2005

I used to get this all the time as a kid when I went roller skating. It happened again recently after driving cross country.
posted by Who_Am_I at 8:26 PM on September 15, 2005

The symptom described is true vertigo - the sensation that your surroundings are moving relative to your person when, in fact, they are not. This can take the form of rotary spinning feelings or the feeling that the floor is tilting or one is accelerating in a direction.

There are a couple reasons why this can happen after a day of rollercoastering or of ocean-going on a rocking boat. One is that the brain becomes adapted to the motions, and then when one is at rest (in bed) the absence of the adapted-to motion is felt as the opposite motion. In a similar demonstration of the brain's adaptive capacities, people who wear inverting lenses on their eyes all the time for a few weeks eventually experience a 'flip' and start perceiving things right-side up again. When they remove the lenses after a few days of this, everything is upside down again and can take a few more days to set right. This experiment induces severe nausea and vertigo, interestingly. Occhiblu points out that mal de debarquement is a failure of these normal adaptive mechanisms.

The other reason is that the inner ear is dependent on the fluid-buffered motions of little stones called 'otoliths', sensed by the ciliate cells in the bony labryinths of the inner ear. Sometimes little calcium deposits form in this fluid, adherent to the walls. But when they are dislodged by violent motions, these deposits act as false otoliths and give your vestibular sense organs inputs that do not correspond to true motions.

This is called 'benign peripheral positional vertigo', although it's not particularly benign.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:19 PM on September 15, 2005

Nice answers people and very interesting, many thanks.
posted by TheDonF at 11:50 PM on September 15, 2005