Le temps d’un éclair : les fulgurés, entre médecine et clinique des expériences exceptionnelles

Objectives

Every year, lightning strikes between 200 and 500 people in France. Although the medical side of keraunopathology is well documented and explored, the psychological experience of lightning victims is still very little studied. However, despite publications concerning the depressive and anxiety-provoking potential of being “struck by lightning,” the examination of life stories before, during, and after the electric discharge is almost non-existent. The aim of our study is to trace some of the clinical and phenomenological coordinates of this phenomenon by drawing on a number of fictional and non-fictional accounts, including those of people who also describe this moment as a near-death experience.

Method

After reviewing the current neurological and psychopathological knowledge about keraunopathology, we will look at the close link that usually exists between victims’ stories and mythology or fiction. Then, we will review some stories that can be found in non-fictional literature and that link near-death experiences and fulguration. Finally, and to support our proposal from a psychodynamic and phenomenological point of view, we will look at the original clinical case of Athéna and try to understand how a stormy day could have reshaped her life, her thinking, and her relationship to the world.

Results

The psychic dimension of lightning appears to be central to the treatment of its victims. We observe that, beyond the direct medical and even psychopathological after-effects, the psychical reorganization attributed to lightning has repercussions on the emotional, cognitive, perceptual, spiritual, and social levels. Moreover, these upheavals introduce a hesitation in the psychodynamic diagnosis of the subject. Thus, what may appear to be the decompensation towards mystical delusion of a psychotic organization could in reality be only a mystical attitude rooted in a neurotic structure.

Discussion

Psychological support for people with mental illness requires a multidisciplinary approach that takes their complexity into account. Knowing how to find ways of understanding while avoiding any hasty categorizations remains essential. Moreover, beyond the reflection necessary for the treatment of the person experiencing the exceptional, lightning gives the opportunity to rethink certain classic models of the near-death experience. Paradoxically, this mortal threat, which occurred at the speed of light, seems to be richly subjectivized by the subjects, in a temporality that is clearly out of sync with physical time.

Conclusions

Further work will be needed to complete the beginning of the reflection that we have outlined in this article. It must be supported by similar descriptions in order to form a solid conceptualization, whether of keraunopathology or of the near-death experience in a broader sense. Despite the rarity of the phenomenon, it would nevertheless concern a hundred or so people each year who, during their visit to the emergency room, could benefit from dedicated support integrating medical and psychological perspectives.