Fifteen Minutes of Light

For me, the lights last about fifteen minutes. A small, strange light show, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. When I describe it that way, to myself, I notice my shoulders drop. This book is about taking the experience at its real size. Not smaller than it is, and certainly not larger.

Fear imagines the lights as endless. Experience says otherwise. Every single time I have had them, they have ended. Not because I fought them, but because that is what they do: they begin, they travel, they fade. It is a light show. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I have never once been the audience for one that didn’t finish. In simple terms, a slow wave of changed activity moves across the part of the brain that handles sight, and your vision shows it to you as shimmer, zigzag, or a drifting gap. It builds, it travels, and it passes.

It is the brain doing something unusual and then returning to normal, which is very different from a brain in trouble. That is a general description, not a diagnosis. Your doctor can tell you what applies to you. Here is a rough map of my own light show. Yours may differ in the details.

What matters is that you know your own map. Minutes 0–3: a small spot or shimmer appears. I say my prayer and begin to breathe. Minutes 3–10: the lights grow and travel. I rest, eyes closed if it helps, water within reach. Minutes 10–15: they thin out and fade. I keep breathing and do not rush to stand.

After: a gentle return. I stay seated a few minutes more. rest. I used to resist it, sprinting back into my day to prove I was fine. Now I give it what it asks. I know I may be sensitive for a while, maybe a little sore, a little foggy. And I know that is simply the cost of a light show: a small pause on the other side of it.

□Stay seated or lie down for ten to twenty minutes. □Water, and something light to eat if it feels right. □Lower light and lower sound than usual, if possible. □No self-judgment. Resting is not weakness. It is wisdom. I want to be honest here. For me, the lights pass without disabling my day.

For many readers, that is not the case: the lights are followed by severe pain, nausea, or hours of being unable to function. That is real, it is not a failure of faith, and it deserves proper treatment. If your episodes knock you flat, tell your doctor. Prayer and treatment walk together.

Nothing in this book asks you to choose between them. “Harmless lights” is the name I give my own familiar aura: the pattern a doctor has evaluated, that builds gradually, looks the way it always does, and fades within about an hour. A first-ever aura, an aura that looks different from yours, or one that lasts much longer than usual deserves a call to your doctor.

Sudden loss of vision, a shadow or curtain across your sight, a sudden shower of new floaters or flashes, weakness, numbness, trouble speaking, or confusion are never “just lights.” Seek urgent care. Faith and medicine are not rivals. I pray, and I keep my doctor’s number.

Both are acts of trust. How long do my lights actually last, if I time them honestly next time? What does my body ask for afterward, and am I giving it that? Resting well after the lights is a skill. This is the meditation I use. Lie back, or sit somewhere supported.

Let your eyes close. Breathe in slowly: ‘The lights are over.’ Breathe out: ‘My body is resting.’ Scan slowly from your forehead down to your feet, thanking each part for carrying you through. End with a quiet prayer of thanks: ‘Thank you for the rest. Thank you for the end of the lights.’ the true size of this experience, for me, and I hope, for you.

And where it is larger, may you have care large enough to meet it. Next in the series: Grateful for the Quiet Days — learning to treasure every day the lights do not come. Rod Gabriel ZR has lived with visual aura migraine for years. For a long time he treated every flicker as a threat.

What changed him was not a cure. It was a different way of standing inside the experience: calm breath, a gentler name for what he sees, honest gratitude for every quiet day, and a steady trust that he is held by something greater than his fear. He writes from his own faith in God, and invites readers of every tradition to address these words to whatever power they trust.

He is not a doctor. He keeps his doctor’s number next to his prayers, and he hopes you will too. The Migraine Relief Series — Rod Gabriel ZR Gratitude Journal The Identity Series — Rod Gabriel ZR Person on the Horizon Movement & Parenting — Sarah J.S. Hormones & Migraine — Sarah J.S.

Caregiving & the Sandwich Generation — Steven Albert Healing & Lightness — Jake R. Visual Health Anxiety — Amanda Q.