Katy Vine gives her first-person account of five weeks spent suffering a bout of vestibular neuritis: an inflammation of the inner ear’s vestibular nerve, thought to be caused by a virus. The condition came on spontaneously and not only incapacitated her, it brought on bizarre almost out-of-body spiritual experiences and left feelings of—surprisingly—bliss.
That’s when the pulses began, emanating from some quiet location, independent of the chaos surrounding me. These weren’t physical sensations. Some carried messages—distinct from thoughts, as they occurred repeatedly, without variation, and did not feel invited, encouraged, or scripted by me. One message was, “Everyone I love alive and dead lives inside of me.” Another was, “I am the result of millions of years of evolution.”
Other pulses brought perceptions that unseen others were with me. The presence of a hundred-year-old version of me lingered nearby. I didn’t visualize any figure, and she didn’t offer advice, but I had an unmistakable feeling of a guard keeping a protective watch over me. On other days, I experienced recurring visits from my grandmother, my namesake aunt, and a close friend—all of whom had died. Sometimes they came together, sometimes separately. Their vibe was encouraging and sympathetic and affectionate, like relatives entertaining a bored toddler in church.
What happened to me, exactly? Look up the symptoms of vertigo or vestibular neuritis and you’d be hard-pressed to find an explanation for all of what I experienced. Every so often, in the intervening years, a friend of a friend suffering a bout of vertigo has called, complaining of spinning, and asked me how I got over it. I’ve had to refrain from telling them that it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.
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