20230227: sense organs???

When I had my stroke and was able to understand anything coherently, I was told that my neurosurgeon (just after the procedure) had said that I will have hiccups and difficulty balancing because of where I suffered the stroke.

I knew what the hiccups meant - but I was not ready (mentally or physically) for what was really in store. I have written earlier about my bouts of hiccups which have festered for days. I still get them - they usually persist for a day but letting up every 1-2 hrs before restarting again.

The balance thingy I could not understand. These were the days I was a complete vegetable and could not communicate in any manner to ask what it meant. Nor was I able to get online to research and understand what it meant. Firstly, I needed to know what a stroke was to begin with 😂

All my schooling and adult understanding life. I have understood that the inner ears are what are responsible for balance. Here I was being told I had some stroke in the head and I will not have balance. I figured I had some thing wrong in the brain close to the inner ears. That was probably the issue. 

In fact, the 1-2 minutes I was conscious at the time of my stroke, I remember the room turning around and I was throwing up - the first moment I was conscious , I thought it was vertigo on account of some infection to the inner ears.

Boy, I was absolutely not ready for what was going to hit me . Balance is not losing balance when I stand or walk - anyway I was very very far from those tricks. I didn't have balance while lying in bed. I was constantly feeling like I was falling. Falling where? I don't know! 

I could think very clearly. I knew I can't move an inch - forget falling down. I also knew by then that I was in a hospital, on a hospital bed with safety rails on the sides. There was no way I could fall even if I could move. But I was falling. Very badly falling. I was not feeling giddy. I was not light headed, the room was not spinning around me but I was falling.

It is a feeling I can't express in words. The closest I can say was the feeling was when we had done bungy jumping many years ago. the few fractions of the second when I was unsupported and falling till i went to the bottom and started bouncing around.

For folks who have seen the movie "inception" it is the "kick" feeling they rely on to break out of the hallucination slumber. A sudden free fall feeling. Except, it was not a transient feeling for me, but a perpetual feeling of falling. Falling nowhere but falling all the time.

Which is why I am very proud and a very big achievement for me to stand for 30 counts with my eyes closed. It has nothing to do with the physical achievement. It is the inner mental feeling of falling I am proud to overcome!

Which brings me to the main point - what is the inner ear doing? What is its role in maintaining balance? Now I know for sure - my stroke was nowhere close to the inner ear. They are functioning perfectly all the time. Yet , it can do nothing about the balance. 

I can't feel touch everywhere in the same way. I can definitely feel the touch everywhere - but not similarly . Some places seems similar to earlier - before my stroke, some places it feels like touching a part which has fallen asleep, some places are very sensitive and invokes a kind of withdrawal reaction, etc. It is all one and the same sense organ - the skin. It has had no damages or physical deterioration anywhere. However they feel differently everywhere.

I am not able to hear in my right ear. Can hear some gibberish once in a while but mainly a continuous noise.

I can hear in my left ear. But it is not the same as everyone else is hearing. I hear the same things and words, sounds etc. But the amplitude (volume) keeps changing. I know this because I watch the same channels everyday on TV. Some days the same TV volume setting is ok , some days it sounds loud and other days soft. When someone walks in and complains that I am watching something loud, I know they are right. Its just not loud for me that day. Another sense organ, not physically damaged in any way.

 One plays with me and the other completely hides from me.

Same experiences with the other usual sence organs. They all play tricks with me.

In my opinion, ther are many many more senses which we don't have any specific organ per se . Ex, balance is a sense, knowing direction is a sense, knowing day-and-night (the circadian rhythm) is a sense , etc. These are senses we all experience but don't realise.

Folks who are doing sadhanas and speak about siddhis identify several more esoteric senses.

In all of this, I have realised the sense organs are simply glorified. I am not belittling their importance for us. They are very important in their own right. But they are not sense organs according to me. They are all simply organs that are slaves to the 1 and only sense organ - the brain.

I can have perfect eyes and see nothing. I can have perfect ears and hear nothing . Etc. Etc.

When we can't hear, we go to an ENT specialist who tests the ear for functioning. What if the problem is not the ear but a degeneration of brain affecting the interpretation of signals sent perfectly by the ears?

Are we looking for the problems in the right place always?...