Since the very earliest days of Christianity, saints, mystics, and regular believers have all described the experience of sudden, overwhelming visions.
The history of the Church is littered with accounts of individuals seeing marching celestial armies, blinding lights, and vast heavenly cities.
For many, these strange signs were clear confirmation that they had been touched by something beyond human understanding.
But scientists say that there might be a physiological explanation, which can reveal what it is really like to receive one of these visions from God.
According to some neurologists, the symptoms described by those experiencing a heavenly vision closely match with a phenomenon called a ‘migraine aura’.
These neural storms trigger visual hallucinations, almost always featuring bright zigzags known as ‘fortification patterns’ due to their similarity to city walls.
In some cases, migraine sufferers can be struck by hallucinatory sounds, illusory odours, and even out-of-body experiences.
Some scientists believe it may be these overwhelming and unexpected hallucinations that people describe when they report having a ‘vision from God’.
Since the first days of Christianity, saints and mystics have described receiving visions from God. Now, scientists say they have an explanation for what it is like to have one of these visions
Migraines are thought to affect about 10 per cent of the general population, or approximately 148 million people worldwide.
For about a third of people who experience migraines, the pain is preceded by a wave of strange perceptual effects known as an aura.
Although the most obvious symptom of a migraine is a pounding pain in the head, this condition is far more than just an exceptionally bad headache.
For some people, this can manifest in powerful visual effects like flashing zigzag lights, bright colours and even temporary blindness.
Dr Philip Holland, a neuroscientist from King’s College London, told MailOnline: ‘It’s essentially a wave of excitation that travels across the cortex [the outermost layer of the brain].
‘If that happens in your visual cortex, that’s what causes visual symptoms like flashing lights.’
Often these symptoms can be relatively mild, but some people experience powerful disturbances almost equivalent to full-blown hallucinations.
The British neurologist Oliver Sacks once described an aura as seeing ‘an enormous shimmering semicircle stretching from the ground to the sky, with sharp zigzagging borders and brilliant blue and orange colors.’
According to some scientists, the experiences described in some religious visions match the symptoms of a migraine aura. This is an intense period of neural activity preceding a migraine headache which often causes visual disturbances (file photo)
Migraine auras often manifest as a bright ‘scintillating’ field of light moving from the centre of the visual field to the edges. This is often followed by sudden blindness or intense tunnel vision
In this video produced by The Mayo Clinic, scientists have visualised what it would be like to experience an intense migraine aura as it spreads across your vision.
These intense experiences can be bewildering to a modern patient, so it is no surprise that they have often been interpreted as something more mysterious.
In the 12th century, the German abbess, philosopher, and composer Hildegard von Bingen began to describe a series of wondrous visions from God.
Von Bingen described how her daily life was nearly constantly interrupted by what she called ‘umbra viventis lucis’, or ‘reflections of the living light’.
In her writings, von Bingen said: ‘I saw a great star, most splendid and beautiful, and with it an exceeding multitude of falling sparks with which the star followed southward.
She continued: ‘Suddenly they were all annihilated, being turned into black coals… and cast into the abyss so that I could see them no more.’
At the same time, she also described falling into a pain ‘so intense that it threatens to kill me’.
From the perspective of Hildegard von Bingen and her fellow religious devotees, these intense experiences were clearly a visitation from a divine presence.
The German abbess, philosopher, and composer, Hildegard von Bingen (pictured) began to describe a series of wonderous visions from God. However, scientists believe that her visions could actually have been caused by a migraine aura
However, Professor Stephen Silberstein, a neurologist at Thomas Jefferson University, says that migraines are a more likely explanation.
‘There are two ways of interpreting it. One is that it’s an aura. Two is that the mystics took hallucinogenic drugs.’
Although von Bingen’s visions seem more complex than a standard aura, migraine auras can have a far wider set of effects than simple visual disturbances.
For example, some migraine sufferers might experience ‘Alice in Wonderland Syndrome’ which causes them to see themselves growing or shrinking compared to the world around them.
Professor Silberstein says: ‘If the aura spreads over the brain it can bring back memories and make hallucinations. That’s unusual, but not uncommon.’
While migraine auras might not be the source of all reported heavenly visions, they might explain why some people report seeing blinding lights, fortifications, and armies from heaven.
But that doesn’t mean von Bingen or other mystics were crazy or making up their experiences, they simply interpreted them according to their understanding of the world.
Hildegard von Bingen recorded her visions in incredible works of art. The tessellating patterns of these and her descriptions of a ‘great star’ appearing to her could be an attempt to make sense of the powerful hallucination caused by an intense migraine
One of the most common migraine aura symptoms are bright zigzags known as fortification patterns due to their similarity to city walls. This may be what von Bingen recorded in some of her paintings (pictured)
Professor Silberstein says: ‘You’re not imagining them; the brain is generating the information and you’re interpreting it.’
Why do migraines come with auras?
However, there is nothing mystical about a migraine aura, and scientists are now beginning to understand their connection to migraines.
In one study, patients experiencing migraine had their brains scanned with an MRI machine to look at which areas were activated.
The researchers found that while the patient was experiencing a visual aura, this was associated with intense firing in certain parts of the brain.
What made this so strange was that the pattern of activation in the brain appeared to follow the pattern of the visual aura described by the patients.
More recent studies have even shown that the progression of the aura through the brain could be linked to migraines at the chemical level.
Researchers found that the aura was accompanied by a wave of chemicals which travelled through the fluid surrounding the brain, activating regions which cause the headache.
Scientists now understand that migraine auras are caused by disturbances in the brain. In this diagram, researchers showed that the progress of activity in the brain’s outer layer (shown in green and red on Figure C) matches the progress of the visual aura (white lines in Figure A)
Since the brain itself doesn’t have any pain receptors it had been a puzzling question just how activity in the brain actually triggered the feeling of pain.
Scientists now believe that the wave of aura activity sensitises nerves at the surface of the brain which can trigger headaches in some people.
‘It seems that the migraine and the aura are separate, but related conditions,’ says Dr Holland.
So, as scientists learn more about the origins and causes of migraines and their auras, we can get a little closer to learning what it’s like to receive a vision from God.
