I recently asked my 6 yr. old ADD son what he was thinking when he was cutting up at a library function. He proceeded to give a very unexpected explaination that went like this: he said that sometimes he sees a dot/circle in his brain. Often it starts in/around his eye. The outside of the dot has a colored ring around it (he saw a picture of a virus under a microscope at the doctor's office the other week-he says the dot in his brain looks like that). Well, he went on to say that the dot appears and starts moving around in a circle in his brain and that it moves fast. Then it will all of a sudden "pop". When it "pops" he says that his brain then, at that moment, tells him to do the various rule breaking behaviors that he does. (for example, shouting out or interrupting, bad language, etc.) I asked him how it tells him and he said it's not like a voice in his head (he informed me that that was just a silly idea - your brain can't talk to you). He says he can't explain how it tells him, but it just does when the dot pops. He also says that he gets a feeling like a bee buzzing in his brain and that it will sometimes feel like it "stings his brain inside with just the tip of it's stinger". He says the sting is in the middle of his brain, the same place that the dot pops. He has also been having headaches lately and they are getting more frequent. He describes them as feeling like a bee sting or a "sharp grasshopper jumping in his brain". The headaches are very sudden and last only a few seconds with no other symptoms. Has anyone else ever heard of this kind of thing? It was a little unnerving to hear him describing in such great detail things going on his brain like this.
bounce

I've had those circle things before. I don't remember what causes them but they never made me do bad things or hurt me.

I used to get those all the time when I was younger, I just assumed it happened with everyone.
It's very rare these days.

any chance he ever says he has a headache? oops. I just read you said he does get headaches.

Sounds like he's experiencing the "aura" before a migraine.

Now, obviously i'm not doctor and the only reason I know about the "aura" is because I just read about it when looking into a new med for my own migraines. I do not experience these "auras", but it sounds similar to what your son described.

I used to get those all the time when I was younger, I just assumed it happened with everyone.
It's very rare these days.
We really ought to tell each other some of these interior events, otherwise how would we ever know? My nemesis is the "gray wall" that rises up between me and necessary tasks, like a force field made of fog.

I've never had a dot pop event, but then I have never had the "H" part of ADHD. Is it possible this is a variety of epilepsy? Except for the pain part-- the brain doesn't feel pain, does it? Would migraines do this sort of thing? Or Tourette's -- any Touretters here to comment on this?

On the plus side, your son has a warning from his brain that misbehaviour is likely in the immediate future -- maybe he can learn to exercise some sort of control, redirect, do something else first...or certainly keep a record of the dot pop events, what comes before them and what comes out of them.

Sorry if this letter sounds alarming. You are lucky to have such an articulate kid. I will follow this thread with interest.

Ducky

Wow Bounce, you have a very articulate young man on your hands!

If this were my son, I'd discuss these events with his pediatrician, to see if a neurological workup may be warrented; maybe an EEG, MRI or something, especially in light that his headaches are getting more frequent.

I'll be following here too.

The first part you mention about the thing around the eye:

I used to get them when I rubbed my eyes or sometimes after being in a bright light. It's nothing to worry about, I've talked to many of my friends about it and almost all of them have experienced this kinda thing many times.


Not sure about the other stuff, talk to your sons doctor as others have said. Sounds like he's just got a good imagination and is visualizing some of the feelings he gets when he has a headache maybe. I'm not a doctor though, so make sure you talk to one and tell him exactly what you told us.

Ask him if the circle in his brain is a yellow colour. When I get those it's a yellow circle with a black hole in the middle like a donut.

It could also be that he was staring at too much glare/ the Sun as well. I don't know how that has anything to do with headaches but those dots happen to everyone when they look at glare/ the Sun. It is because the electrochemical signals in your retina take a while to die down when they get too much stimuli.

I'm pretty sure that what the little boy is experiencing is not "phosphenes", ("seeing stars") most commonly caused by pressure or impact. These visual events are common, built into the hardware of the eye. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene

It sounds like he is describing, with admirable detail, an internal event accompanied by stimuli which his brain interprets or classifies as visual.

Far from being imaginary, this kind of interpretation and reporting is a very good way (perhaps the only way) to convey interior experiences. Good job!

Ducky

I don't know about the dots....but the headachs could be cluster headachs. I get those, all of the sudden I get a sharp pain in my head usualy near my temple. They are called cluster headachs because they cluster together as in you get alot at one time like a week or month and then they disappear then come back. Mine arn't bad only last a few seconds to a min....but some people get them so bad they want to kill them selves...The doctors don't really have a way to stop them except to have pain killers 24/7 so I just deal with it...
I might bring him to the doc anyway, just to get it checked out.