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Old 03-12-2012, 01:11 PM #1
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Default TBI and confabulations

Hi all, new here. Wondering if other TBI survivors experienced confabulations?

In late 2010 I was in an accident resulting in tramatic brain injury along with other trauma. When in hospital (I was in ICU for a month, followed by a month in neuro-rehab) , I experienced several interesting memories of things things that didn't actually happen but my my brain parsed together (my neuropsychologist refers to these are confabulations).

Here are some:

I took a trip to San Francisco. I was in a nice hotel room with a view of the city and the bay beyond. I was doing some unspecified work; messengers would bring in files that I would work on. My daughter (who actually does live in San Francisco) would also come in periodically and we would chat. She could come and go; disappointingly I couldn’t get up out of the bed, but it was nice having her to visit with.

One trip I made was to an exotic oriental destination which I think was Thailand. I was a guest chef on the Travel Channel show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain. Once again I couldn’t get up and move around, but the local fishermen would bring in different types of seafood. I would explain and demonstrate how they should d be prepared (after all that, months have gone by and I still haven't gotten my royalty check for being the guest host).

One day I imagined I was looking at the exterior of my house, admiring the artificial Christmas tree I had put by the front door the a couple of days before the accident. The difference this time was the house had moved. Instead of the residential street where it had been when we had moved in, the house was now on the plaza outside the office tower where my office is located. Instead of the former carpeted stairway the stairs were now steel and glass, as was the rest of the interior.

Any other good ones out there from TBI survivors?
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Old 03-12-2012, 03:38 PM #2
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Lightrail11,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your fight with the train.

Your confabulations sound like simple dreams. I have similar dreams where I combine different situations into one memory. The part of the memory that is from a dream is the inability to get up from the bed. This is the dream combining with the body paralysis that happens during the dream state. I have a dream where I overcome the body paralysis by being able to jet around in a jet pack chair. My legs don't need to move at all so the dream works without the stress of paralysis.

The problem with these dreams is they combine real events with dream parts that make it difficult to differentiate the dream parts from reality when I am awake. I have to search my memory for the details of the reality memory so I can sort of 'over-ride' the dream parts.

If I fall asleep watching TV, the audio of the TV gets combined into the dream. Sometimes, the audio is factual and other times just a TV script. It makes for interesting memories.

I know that combining reality with dreams or even combining realities from different events into one event is common as the brain deteriorates due to age. I have observed it as I watch my parents age. My late father had severe dementia and my mother is sharp as a tack but both did/do this.

It makes for some interesting memory confusion.

I wonder if the neuroscience researchers understand how/why our brains combine reality with fiction.
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Old 03-12-2012, 09:43 PM #3
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Hi Lighttrail,

Confabulation... first it is such a random word. I was having trouble with my memories, and I came across this word years ago. I would tell my doctors I think my thoughts we 'confabulation' and they would look at me like I was making stuff up. I knew the look, but I'd continue just because I put the effort into starting the story.

To me, confabulation is added stuff to things that happened to a point you don't know if they are true or not.

Myself, I think I was mugged by 'black' people who jumped out of trees in NYC in the 1990s. I think I was going to West Point in the 1980s, I think my dog's tongue is like 6 inches long... all not logically right (people didn't jump out of trees on 96 and Third Ave in NYC, I enlisted not West Point, and my Poodle is only 10 pounds, no 6 inch tongue)... but in my memories, I see this stuff.

Maybe your stuff is dreams, but if they seem like memory, then it is that big word. I dreamed of some murderous house thing last night, very odd, people dying, but that was a dream. My confab crap it more stuff I think really happened, but logically maybe didn't.




Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightrail11 View Post
Hi all, new here. Wondering if other TBI survivors experienced confabulations?

In late 2010 I was in an accident resulting in tramatic brain injury along with other trauma. When in hospital (I was in ICU for a month, followed by a month in neuro-rehab) , I experienced several interesting memories of things things that didn't actually happen but my my brain parsed together (my neuropsychologist refers to these are confabulations).

Here are some:

I took a trip to San Francisco. I was in a nice hotel room with a view of the city and the bay beyond. I was doing some unspecified work; messengers would bring in files that I would work on. My daughter (who actually does live in San Francisco) would also come in periodically and we would chat. She could come and go; disappointingly I couldn’t get up out of the bed, but it was nice having her to visit with.

One trip I made was to an exotic oriental destination which I think was Thailand. I was a guest chef on the Travel Channel show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain. Once again I couldn’t get up and move around, but the local fishermen would bring in different types of seafood. I would explain and demonstrate how they should d be prepared (after all that, months have gone by and I still haven't gotten my royalty check for being the guest host).

One day I imagined I was looking at the exterior of my house, admiring the artificial Christmas tree I had put by the front door the a couple of days before the accident. The difference this time was the house had moved. Instead of the residential street where it had been when we had moved in, the house was now on the plaza outside the office tower where my office is located. Instead of the former carpeted stairway the stairs were now steel and glass, as was the rest of the interior.

Any other good ones out there from TBI survivors?
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