Brain Buzz - Can we lock down a definition?

[Olfactory Nomad]

I have a feeling this is completely subjective to the individual but I wonder if there has to be some common elements to it or is it just a term that get's thrown around? Up unti just a few day's ago, I personally had not experienced what I thought a "brain buzz" to be. To quote @Mr.P directly here, " I 100% understand the experience of being powerfully transfixed by an evocative scent and when I'm closing my eyes and taking a deep whiff of a really good grandiflorum oil, it's like a kind of daydream almost, like my mind is transported into this rich 3 (4?) dimensional landscape of aroma. I guess I don't experience it as a buzz because I feel like it's a deep experience of reality itself and not a distortion of reality caused by some thing interfering with my nervous system's normal functioning." This I understand and can relate to, however, as mentioned, this changed for me the other day while listening to a new oil I had just received. Labelled as kinamic in the name of the oil, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. While inhaling the scent, I had the very distinct physical feeling of my conciousness fading into the background and almost an audible buzz taking over. I felt this sensation in my fingertips as well. I actually thought maybe I was about to faint as I've had a similar sensation from heat stroke. I had to put the bottle down as I wouldn't exactly say it was pleasant but I was not making it up. Does this make sense to anyone? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and maybe we can come to a consensus on the term.

 

[Mr.P]

I have a feeling this is completely subjective to the individual but I wonder if there has to be some common elements to it or is it just a term that get's thrown around? Up unti just a few day's ago, I personally had not experienced what I thought a "brain buzz" to be. To quote @Mr.P directly here, " I 100% understand the experience of being powerfully transfixed by an evocative scent and when I'm closing my eyes and taking a deep whiff of a really good grandiflorum oil, it's like a kind of daydream almost, like my mind is transported into this rich 3 (4?) dimensional landscape of aroma. I guess I don't experience it as a buzz because I feel like it's a deep experience of reality itself and not a distortion of reality caused by some thing interfering with my nervous system's normal functioning." This I understand and can relate to, however, as mentioned, this changed for me the other day while listening to a new oil I had just received. Labelled as kinamic in the name of the oil, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. While inhaling the scent, I had the very distinct physical feeling of my conciousness fading into the background and almost an audible buzz taking over. I felt this sensation in my fingertips as well. I actually thought maybe I was about to faint as I've had a similar sensation from heat stroke. I had to put the bottle down as I wouldn't exactly say it was pleasant but I was not making it up. Does this make sense to anyone? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and maybe we can come to a consensus on the term.

I've never experienced anything like that from an aroma but I take your report as credibly as if I had experienced it myself. That almost sounds like something we called a "head rush" back when I was in high school, sometimes you would get that after holding your breath for a long time or coughing after smoking weed.

I guess one possibility is that it's a literal head rush caused by some kind of pharmacological effect of the oil. I imagine there are some simple tests you could do to see if it affects you consistently and if it affects others in the same way etc. have you given anyone else a sniff and have they had a similar reaction?

Trying to think of what an alternative might be besides a psychoactive chemical in the oil… I know this is a stretch but I'm wondering if it's possible in a situation like this that a person is more or less hyperventilating without realizing it? That can cause strange feelings and tingling in the fingers and auditory hallucinations especially if blood gases get out of balance. Might breathing at an abnormal rate while entranced by the aroma have caused some kind of imbalance in oxygen/CO2? based on my experience changes in my breathing pattern can have a clear effect on my state of mind and hyper-ventilation or hypo- ventilation can cause lightheadedness like that.

 

[Mr.P]

I wonder if there's some physiological counterpoint to the sensations that we experience with extreme sensory deprivation… People go into those flotation tanks and have all kinds of strange drug like experiences. Perhaps saturating one. or more of our senses can also create dissociative states of its own kind?

i've heard walking into anechoic chambers can be extremely disorienting, that's basically just muting all ambient sound, so it seems like simply altering one of our senses can induce altered states. I know there are also these flashing light goggles that will produce all kinds of hallucinations simply by flashing specially tuned strobe lights.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

What you have suggested is certainly plausible. My only caveat to that is that I don't believe I was doing anything different to how I would normally go about inhaling scent. I can definitely try and repeat the experience. Maybe I was getting a bit more lost in the moment than usual? You're right though, it does sound like a head rush of some sort.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

I wonder if there's some physiological counterpoint to the sensations that we experience with extreme sensory deprivation… People go into those flotation tanks and have all kinds of strange drug like experiences. Perhaps saturating one. or more of our senses can also create dissociative states of its own kind?

i've heard walking into anechoic chambers can be extremely disorienting, that's basically just muting all ambient sound, so it seems like simply altering one of our senses can induce altered states. I know there are also these flashing light goggles that will produce all kinds of hallucinations simply by flashing speciay tuned strobe lights

This also makes sense. I was extremely focused on the scent. I've tried a floatation tank but didn't reach the state that people describe disappointingly. Those sound rooms could be a bit terrifying I reckon.

 

[Mr.P]

There's also the business of the olfactory system plugging directly into the limbic system which is different from the other senses (which are wired into different parts of the brain and whose stimuli are heavily processed before they can effect the limbic system.

I'm a little rusty on my human physiology so this will only be partially correct but the limbic system is the seat of these fundamental emotional states like fear, anger, satiety, alertness, etc. and some of these states are associated with changes in blood pressure and blood flow which if you look online you will see is very much associated with head rush sensations.

If it's something that only happened once or occasionally it could be that your limbic system has to be primed for it… Like some other experience prior to smelling the oil had your nervous system already in a state ready to fire when you took that first whiff and it triggered some deep emotion or something which changed your blood pressure.

 

[Mr.P]

The only vaguely comparable experience now that I've been thinking back is one time when I put a little too much baieido green kyara on a coal that was a little too hot. I thought this slightly oversized piece was going to barely simmer over the course of a period of meditation, but the coal was hotter than I realized and the whole piece went up quickly while I was sitting there. Of course instantly burning up a piece of kyara triggers a sort of adrenaline response which might explain the sensation I had… I also inhaled the smoke in one whiff and there was like this sudden quieting of my mind - a brief cessation of background chatter.

It was kind of startling, maybe like walking into an anechoic chamber would be. I don't know if it was the effect of this startled moment when I realized I'd f-d up the burn or the alignment of my meditative practice and the magical effects of Green kyara but it was definitely remarkable and something I've only experienced once.