Crazy hallucinations during drug-free birth... anyone?

Can you remember anything about the scenes you observed around the world OP? Where were they?

I know, I'm clearly either just not very profound or my brain decided what I needed was light relief in that moment 😅 It was weirdly comforting though, and my DH said I was smiling randomly like I was high 😂

In my hallucination, I was at a party dancing to really loud music. I was quite upset being pulled back to reality by waters breaking.

There is scientific evidence that the brain produces a chemical called DMT during childbirth. Its the same chemical that is released when we die, some believe that birth and death are so close that only a thin line holds the space between. I just had my second birth. Both were without meds, the first birth was transcendent and I went to another dimension during transition, between contractions like you describe. This one I was far more present but transition was only a few minutes maybe so I didnt have time to relax into it, the labour was also half the time so there was no build up of endorphins like with first.

I thought my Dad was trying to reverse a trailer into the delivery room. 31 years ago and I still feel the same emotions I experienced every time I think of it.

I got given the sex and name as well during my experience, PP just prompted me to remember!

I read it as they found out the sex in the hallucination before finding it out in real life.

Yeah this sounds like intense dissociation to me. The mind is a very powerful thing, drugs often just dumb it down I feel.

I like that vision

I think women's bodies are beyond magical quite honestly and wether you experienced something metaphysical or other worldly who knows but your body definitely looked after you ❤️

I had my 3rd baby drug free (2 paracetamol) too and at times near to the stage where I started pushing I felt like I was off my head on drugs. I always said my body took me somewhere else, it was really amazing really that your body can do that. I’d assume if you’d had some gas and air or pethidine then you’d automatically assume it was the drugs but maybe it’s part body / part drugs.

It was an amazing experience having a drug free birth and just really listening to my body, how it made me pull back a little on pushing at times, presumably to prevent a tear, which I avoided. I didn’t intend to have a drug free birth but just went with how I felt on the day, I just knew I didn’t want an epidural as I had one with ds1 and ended up with an assisted delivery (failed ventouse and then forceps). The body is an amazing thing.

Different (long labour and difficult birth with uterine hyper-stimulation), but I distinctly remember looking down on the scene of myself during late stage contractions, as if I was floating somewhere near the corner of the ceiling. I remember watching and hearing this terrible, terrible screaming. Only a bit of gas/air at the start, so doubt it was that – as others have said, definitely think brain trying to protect itself.

Ooh yes - I know exactly what you mean.

I was also in the pool, draped over the side and fading in and out of the most blissful mini naps in between contractions. Probably for seconds but felt like an infinite amount of time. I vaguely remember DP asking the midwife if I should be sleeping.

It was a very chill labour of breathing slow and going with the flow of my body. Bizarre really because I’m not in to that kind of stuff but I leaned in to my body knowing what to do (despite a pretty nasty forceps birth previously, lol)

I don’t remember any dreams etc except at one stage hearing words of reassurance from a family member who had passed a few months earlier. I don’t believe in the afterlife etc but it was a very powerful moment that even now brings me to tears.

I had a hypnobirth with my first and had a similar experience.
Fast, easy labor (4 hours start to finish) and I was laboring in the bathtub in the hospital room. Between contractions I was seeing vivid colours, and felt like I was flying through space. I completely disconnected with my body but the contractions weren’t that painful.
Then I’d come back into my body with each contraction but every time it was over I’d be back flying through space.
As soon as the baby was born I remember saying I could eat nails, my body was so hyped on endorphins.

Not birth, I haven't got any children. But sex.

I hallucinate if it's really good. I see literature and art but from other worlds, sometimes artifacts almost from ancient cultures and symbology, places I have never been, architecture. Aside from the odd landscape it's usually man made things strangely now I think about it. I'm making it sound very mild with these buts incredibly profound in the moment.

I had two drug free births, but nothing abnormal like that. It sounds like a mild psychosis or very vivid dreams.

I didn't hallucinate but with both my first and third births I was unmedicated and went to a very strange, zen, "inner place" where time didn't exist and I wasn't in the room. In the pool as others have said.

I am absolutely useless at meditation. I have ADHD and I can't sit still for that long, I get bored! But birth was different. I've never been able to achieve the same level of relaxation/self-hypnosis in any other situation.

(The second one was horrifically painful and I mostly yelled my head off and panicked after I couldn't sit still for an epidural either so that didn't work 😨)

Well my labour hallucinations were purely provided by pethidine, but if you look up influencer Louise Pentland on YouTube, her birth story with her youngest DD who’s about 6 or 7 she talks about a very similar experience.

I was a POW being tortured during my horrendous back to back labour with a very stuck almost 11 lb son… it was so real. It was like I came back to myself in between contractions. Weird.

I had 2 drug free water births. One at 4am and my water went at 10pm so I hadn't had any sleep but I didn't experience what you did. Sounds like disassociating though

Yes. I am glad others have too. Only with my middle child, who was back to back, and I only had gas and air. It was horrific.

I started to have extreme deja vu, so I was predicting who was saying what and when. I could even hear/see what they were saying in the corridor and was answering them but they couldnt hear me....I was saying to my husband "they need to give me that fucking pethidine, they're saying they won't..." he said, "they're not in the room, don't worry" then they came back and one said "I'm so sorry, we can't give you the pethidine".....I said I know I've just watched you discuss it!

Then I said "don't ask me that, I'm exhausted" and gave the evils to the midwife who said, "well I was just going to get you to stand up...."

It was very weird...I felt like I had an all seeing vision and also said to them, "you can talk about me all you want, I know I'm not as bad as the woman in the same situation yesterday" to which they looked a little anxious/scared. My husband then said I said in a sinister voice "I know more than you think"

I mean, could all be hormones, gas and air, pain, exhaustion etc. But for a while I felt like I was God 😆

YES!! I experienced this with my second daughter. Total out of body experience, I literally had a hallucination that I collected her from what I assume was heaven??! She was handed to me by an older woman. So bizarre lol. Odd thing is, we didn’t know she was a girl until she arrived.
She also came out with very clear “stork bites”

Completely drug free birth too. It was very special 🩷 I enjoyed every second of her labour.

This wasn't a hallucination to me amd still isn't. I was in advanced labour 20 years ago with my first-born rainbow (2nd pg) and my mom came to help me cope with the pain. She, or rather her body, had been deceased for 6 years nearly by that point - would you want to tell my Mom that she can't attend the birth of her 2nd grandchild or help her daughter? She would've said that even Death and wild horses wouldn't dare try. It's been a lovely memory and I've had several 'visits' from her since then 💕