RE: [Paddlewise] Feeling dizzy?

What all you folks are describing are various symptoms of what is usually 
called motions sickness.  Though this is a bit of a misnomer since you 
can experience this even when there is little 
or no motion at all.  I have experienced this in a number of contexts and 
it is easy to solve if you know what the cause is.  It does not happen to me often but I know
what to do about it when it does occur.

Basically it can be brought down to a confusion of the senses;  if your 
senses "see" motion but your inner ear does not feel it, or if you feel 
motion but do not see it, you will experience this confusion and the resulting vertigo.  The 
confusion can also come from sound or physical contact through your skin as 
well.

The quickest and easiest way to solve this problem is stop the confusion as quickly as possible: 
 either add a visual point of reference that will show you the motion you 
feel, or cut off one of the other sensations, usually by just closing your 
eyes (not always practical).

Let me give you examples:  Once when sailing along at a good rate with some 
friends I went below deck to get something out of my gear bag.  After 
leaving the visual reference of the horizon and the surface, I quickly 
became very nauseous and disoriented, nearly vomiting. 
  Realizing what had happened, I still felt the movement of the boat but 
could not see it, I just closed my eyes for a few seconds and the feeling 
quickly pasted.  I moved around by "blinking" my eyes open for a fraction of a second 
to see where my next step or hand hold is, until I found my gear bag.  I 
knew where my stuff was so I simply found what I wanted by feeling around 
in the bag with my eyes closed.  Then returned topside the same way, no 
problem.

Once when riding a bike rapidly in heavy traffic between cars I was moving faster than 
the cars as I came up to the light, and they move rapidly away after the 
light.  I suddenly lost the sensation of motion it became difficult to balance since I could not tell
how fast I was going relative to the ground.   I just kept my eyes on 
the road just in front of the front tire so I can see the motion.  I would 
quickly glance around to verify the location of the traffic every few 
seconds, but kept my eyes "at rest" on the road in front of me.

Once when hiking I was crossing a swollen creek by fighting my way between 
the branches of a large fallen tree.  The branches made great hand holds to 
stabilize me, but there were other branches that reached down into the fast 
moving whitewater only a few feet below the trunk.  The tree was vibrating 
because of this and the air was filled with mist and the noise of the water.  
When I got to the middle I looked down to take the next step, all of 
my vision, in front of me and my peripheral was full of the moving water 
going sideways, along with the noise and the vibrations, I suddenly could 
not tell whether the water was moving under me, or if I was flying sideways 
over the water on some kind of magic flying tree.  It was a very amusing 
sensation and I was not in any real danger but I realized something else at 
that moment: my whole body was completely "locked up".  I could not force it to 
move no matter how much I tried.  This was a sensation I never experienced 
and I have done all kinds of high speed sports and big wall climbing, it 
was fortunate I can coolly examine what was happening without immediate 
danger.  I again realized the sensory overload, and the confusion of the 
site, sound and "feel" of the vibrating tree, all added up to paralyzed my 
body.  But I had a problem, I could not go forward or back, I could not 
even jump off the log and slosh to shore (the water was only about knee 
deep, but it looked cold and I did not want to get soaked), I was frozen 
right there in the middle of the creek on that tree.  My first thought was to just 
cut off the sensations: but if I look to the far bank, I could not see 
where to place my feet on the slippery trunk, if I closed my eyes to stop 
visual input I could not see where to step next either, if I could move my 
hands enough (which I could not) to let go to stop the vibrations through 
my hands and cover my ears, I could slip and fall off the wet trunk.  I 
closed my eyes to think for a second, I could move now but I dare not take 
a step, so it occurred to me to get down on my hands and knees.  By placing 
my face close enough to the trunk (about 3 inches away), the size of the 
trunk, my arms and the branches blocked my peripheral vision enough I could 
crawl the rest of the way.  I felt foolish because it probably looked silly or like 
I was scared.  I was not, just stuck because of the sensory overload.

I was skiing down mount Baker once (after climbing the summit), and that 
large featureless snow dome near the summit, a low cloud ceiling and flat 
lighting made it difficult to see the humps and bumps in the snow.  There 
were a few large crevasses below so there was a small danger of 
falling in one, you had to keep you eyes down the slope to locate them 
before you came up on them too quickly.  Doing that however meant you could 
not see the local variations on the snow you were skiing on.  This same 
confusion of the senses stated to occur, it became disorienting and very 
difficult to ski down.  It would usually occur after you pick up some
speed.  I found it made a big difference to put on polarized sunglasses to 
increase the contrast and move my eyes constantly back and forth between 
the snow in front of my skis, and down slope to keep a watch out for the 
crevasses below.  We made it down from the summit this way in only about 15 
to 20 minutes (it had taken us six hours to get to the summit).

Another time a confusion of the senses occurred when we were on a hiking 
trip and I became very dizzy and disoriented when I was not moving at all! 
 I always feel comfortable knowing which way is North, where I am going and 
being comfortable identifying the terrain by studying a topo map before we 
go, and making spot checks along the way.  I have a very good sense of 
direction and have never been really lost, I have been way off route more 
than few times and done my share of bushwhacking, but I always knew where I 
was relative to where we camped, were we parked, etc. and how we got there. 
 Well one time we were on our way out I did not notice when I studied the 
map at the last break that the trail we were on forked.  The branch we 
wanted simply curved northward and followed down the valley paralleling the 
river, to where we parked a few days before.  But there was another trail that had 
gradually turned back southward up a nearly level side 
canyon that I had not noticed on the map.  Moving rapidly down the big 
valley and into the taller trees at the lower elevations some how we missed 
the fork, probably because we just were not looking for it, though I am 
usually observant of such things, we just missed it and did not notice that 
we had taken it and were moving more southward.  Eventually the trail moved 
along side the creek coming out of the side valley, it immediately struck 
me the water should have been flowing in the direction we were walking, not 
against it.  I did not see how this could happen and I took out my compass to 
see which direction it was flowing, we were headed North (I thought) going 
down the valley, and so should the water. When I saw the compass pointing 
almost 180 degrees the other way, my first though was something was wrong 
with it, I checked my partner's compass, put metal next to it to make sure 
it was working, etc.  Well as soon as I was satisfied it was working right 
I became very dizzy, nauseous and the ground was swirling under me.  Again 
I had never experienced this and it was only my grip on reality that kept me 
from panicking.  I had heard of people get lost, disoriented, panic, dump 
their gear and run in any direction, sometimes off a cliff.  I thought that 
always sounded silly, how could not knowing where you are cause you to panic and 
lose your mind if you are not in any immediate danger?  All the survival 
books instruct you to "not panic" if you realized you were lost. 
 Now I under stood that better, it is not a voluntary response, but an 
overwhelming reactions to suddenly not knowing where you are (something that has not 
happened to me before).  The problem 
was all my mind told me I knew where I was, heading north down river, but 
all my senses told me I was heading south up river, impossible.  My mind 
said that what I saw just could not be happening.  The ground finally 
stopped spinning when I forced myself to study the map more closely.  As 
soon as I noticed the side trail, and realized we inadvertently walked up 
it and did not notice, the universe stopped swirling around.

I used to live in southern California and I would be amused at the shear 
panic and terror that would grip some people when they felt an earthquake 
every once in a while (the Los Angeles basin can have over a hundred 
measurable quakes a month, but nearly all are too small for most people to 
notice) when a larger one occurs.  I guess something not rational, buried 
deep within our emotions, says that the solid earth JUST SHOULD NOT MOVE. 
And when it does it throws some people emotionally out of whack, often 
disorienting them and causing panic.

I had this disorienting sense of motion when on a river rafting trip once. 
Looking down at the moving water I would get this strange feeling of not 
knowing if the canyon walls were moving past us or we were moving past 
them.  The feeling goes away when you keep an eye on the river bank and you 
can see the motion you sense with your body.  I imagine the same thing can 
happen in a WW kayak though I do not have enough experience with this to 
know.

Most people as a passenger in a car will get sick if they put a book in 
the lap and try to read it.  A trick I use so I can read in a car with out 
getting motion sickness is to hold the item I am reading up in front of me. 
 This way I can see the motion of the car in my peripheral vision.  If you 
put it on your lap you will not see the movement, but your body will feel 
it.

Often people will get motion sickness if they watch a big screen movie with 
fast moving sense.  They see motion but do not feel it.

I could go on but all these examples reinforce the idea that if you feel motion but do not 
see it, or see motion and do not feel it, you have the potential to get 
nauseous, disoriented and even panic.

When you realize this is happening you must take action to stop the 
confusion of the input: either need to stop one of the inputs, or you need 
to add input so you will see a point of reference to stop the confusion.  I would 
think that in hazy calm conditions the easy and simplest thing to do is to 
splash water ahead of your kayak with each stoke as far as you can and keep 
you eyes on it.  It will give you a sense of your forward speed and the shape of 
surface of the water.  Adding polarizing amber colored glasses to increase contrast would also 
help.  Simply using Dramamine or one the other motion sickness medications 
would work too since it suppresses this part of your nervous system, though 
I would not advocate that unless you were real desperate.  Also the more you 
expose yourself to this condition the fast your body will adjust to it, sailors used to call
it getting you "sea legs".  Unfortunately with family and jobs you can often not spend enough time
as you would like in your kayak.


Peter



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