question: Why do people get disoriented while spinning?
comment: The ears have a small fluid filled chamber that is what helps with balance, and when you spin, the fluid starts spinning as well, and it takes a few moments to stop after you do.
passages: The graveyard spin is an illusion that can occur to a pilot who enters into a spin and is characterized by the pilot becoming less aware of the sense of rotation induced by the spin as the spin continues. As the pilot becomes less aware of the spin, any correction of the spin may cause the pilot to sense that he or she is spinning in the opposite direction. As an example, if the airplane is spinning to the right but goes unnoticed for a period of time sufficient for the pilot to become desensitized to the magnitude of the spin, a small adjustment to the left rudder may leave the pilot with a sensation of spinning to the left. As a result, the pilot will apply right rudder and unknowingly re-enter the original right spin. Cross-checking the airplane's flight instruments would show that the airplane is still in a turn, which causes sensory conflict for the pilot. If the pilot does not correct the spin, the airplane will continue to lose altitude until contact with the terrain occurs.
   Causes of dizziness related to the ear are often characterized by vertigo (spinning) and nausea. Nystagmus (flickering of the eye, related to the Vestibulo-ocular reflex [VOR]) is often seen in patients with an acute peripheral cause of dizziness.
   Section::::Sources.:Loss of coordination.
   The most common general symptom of having the spins is described by its name: the feeling that one has the uncontrollable sense of spinning, although one is not in motion, which is one of the main reasons an intoxicated person may vomit. The person has this feeling due to impairments in vision and equilibrioception. Diplopia (double vision) or polyplopia are common, as well as the symptoms of motion sickness and vertigo.
  
  Section::::Causes.
  
  Ingesting a great deal of alcohol in a short amount of time causes alcohol to quickly enter the bloodstream.
   When one spins and stops suddenly, fluid in the inner ear continues to rotate causing a sense of continued spinning while one's visual system no longer detects motion.
  
  Section::::Types.:Motion is felt but not seen.:Virtual reality disorientation.
   Someone getting or having the spins is mentioned in several books, including: "Being Irish" by Joseph Keefe, "The Girls' Guide to Surviving a Break-Up" by Delphine Hirsh, "The Stranger Guide to Seattle" by Paula Gilovich and Traci Vogel, "Rag Man" by Pete Hautman, "The Tin Roof Blowdown" by James Lee Burke. Visual depictions of the imbalance or dizziness associated with drunkenness were also featured in "Mabel's Strange Predicament" and other Charlie Chaplin movies. The cause of the spins is also described in Season 1, Episode 10 of the Netflix Original Series "Marvel's Daredevil" during a discussion between two main characters, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson, after a night of drinking. Murdock confirms when asked by Nelson that he still gets the spins despite being blind due to disturbed equilibrium of the fluid in the inner ear. In the film "Frances Ha", Benji tells Frances that placing one foot on the ground as she lies down on her bed will somewhat alleviate the spins. Later in the film, she teaches this new trick to her friend Sophie. The Pittsburgh rapper, Mac Miller's album "K.I.D.S" featured a track titled "The Spins". Danger Ronnie and the Spins associate this into their name and music. Rock musician Brian Head Welch references experiencing the spins during his time as an alcoholic and drug addict. He mentions the symptoms were particularly noticeable when laying down with his eyes closed. These references were made in his self-debuted album track "Flush". The Philadelphia band Modern Baseball make reference to the spins in their 2014 track "Rock Bottom", from the album "You're Gonna Miss It All".
   This "upset" has been seen in experiments in which human subjects were given clinical tests of the vestibular system before and after ingesting alcohol. The alcohol apparently causes the ampullary cupula in the semicircular canal to become lighter than the surrounding fluid (endolymph), which causes the system to become sensitive to gravity in addition to rotational acceleration.
  
  The spins are often reported when alcohol is mixed with cannabis, since both may cause dizziness and magnify each other's effects. Smoking after drinking especially intensifies the effects of the alcohol, often resulting in nausea.
  
  Section::::Treatment and prevention.
   Spatial disorientation can also affect instrument-rated pilots in certain conditions. A powerful tumbling sensation (vertigo) can be set up if the pilot moves his or her head too much during instrument flight. This is called the Coriolis illusion. Pilots are also susceptible to spatial disorientation during night flight over featureless terrain.
  
  Section::::Spatial orientation.
   Patients often have difficulty walking or maintaining balance (ataxia), or difference in temperature of an object based on which side of the body the object of varying temperature is touching. Some patients may walk with a slant or suffer from skew deviation and illusions of room tilt. The nystagmus is commonly associated with vertigo spells. These vertigo spells can result in falling, caused from the involvement of the region of Deiters’ nucleus.
   Spins
  
  The spins (as in having "the spins") is an adverse reaction of intoxication that causes a state of vertigo and nausea, causing one to feel as if "spinning out of control", especially when lying down. It is most commonly associated with drunkenness or mixing alcohol with other psychoactive drugs such as cannabis. This state is likely to cause vomiting, but having "the spins" is not life-threatening unless pulmonary aspiration occurs.
  
  Section::::Symptoms.
   Anyone in an aircraft that is making a coordinated turn, no matter how steep, will have little or no sensation of being tilted in the air unless the horizon is visible. Similarly, it is possible to gradually climb or descend without a noticeable change in pressure against the seat. In some aircraft, it is possible to execute a loop without pulling negative G so that, without visual reference, the pilot could be upside down without being aware of it. This is because a gradual change in any direction of movement may not be strong enough to activate the fluid in the vestibular system, so the pilot may not realize that the aircraft is accelerating, decelerating, or banking.
   Section::::Disorders.:Other causes of righting reflex disorders.
  
  Vestibular and balance disorders can have a number of contributing factors. Dietary factors such as a high-salt diet, high caffeine intake, high sugar intake, monosodium glutamate (MSG) intake, dehydration, or food allergies can contribute to symptoms of vertigo and should be avoided in balance disorder patients. Other disorders can have symptoms of vertigo associated with them, such as epilepsy, migraine, stroke, or multiple sclerosis. Infectious diseases such as Lyme disease and meningitis can also cause vertigo.
  
  Section::::Righting reflex in animals.
   In aviation's early days, spins were poorly understood and often fatal. Proper recovery procedures were unknown, and a pilot's instinct to pull back on the stick served only to make a spin worse. Because of this, the spin earned a reputation as an unpredictable danger that might snatch an aviator's life at any time, and against which there was no defense. In early aviation, individual pilots explored spins by performing ad-hoc experiments (often accidentally), and aerodynamicists examined the phenomenon. Lincoln Beachey was able to exit spins at will, according to Harry Bruno in "Wings over America" (1944). 
   Section::::Commercial performance.
   Depending on the perception of the observer, the apparent direction of spin may change any number of times, a typical feature of so-called bistable percepts such as the Necker cube which may be perceived from time to time as seen from above or below. These alternations are spontaneous and may randomly occur without any change in the stimulus or intention by the observer. However some observers may have difficulty perceiving a change in motion at all.
   One way to mask the symptoms of the spins is to avoid staring at moving objects, such as people who are dancing or ceiling fans. Instead, it helps to stare at a non-moving object and slowly blink a few times. However, it will make things worse to keep one's eyes closed for an extended period. In minor cases of the spins, simply sitting alone in a quiet place or taking a walk is all it takes to make them subside.
   In many animals, including human beings, the inner ear functions as the biological analogue of an accelerometer in camera image stabilization systems, to stabilize the image by moving the eyes. When a rotation of the head is detected, an inhibitory signal is sent to the extraocular muscles on one side and an excitatory signal to the muscles on the other side. The result is a compensatory movement of the eyes. Typically eye movements lag the head movements by less than 10 ms.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Adaptive optics
  
  BULLET::::- Deblurring
  
  BULLET::::- Heligimbal
  
  BULLET::::- Hyperlapse
  
  BULLET::::- Motion compensation
  
  BULLET::::- Shaky camera
   Vertigo, the sensation of spinning even while a person is still, is the most recognizable and quite often the sole symptom of decreased blood flow in the vertebrobasilar distribution. The vertigo due to VBI can be brought on by head turning, which could occlude the contralateral vertebral artery and result in decreased blood flow to the brain if the contralateral artery is occluded. When the vertigo is accompanied by double vision (diplopia), graying of vision, and blurred vision, patients often go to the optometrist or ophthalmologist. If the VBI progresses, there may be weakness of the quadriceps and, to the patient, this is felt as a buckling of the knees. The patient may suddenly become weak at the knee and crumple (often referred to as a “drop attack”). Such a fall can lead to significant head and orthopedic injury, especially in the elderly.
   MdDS is diagnosed several ways, one being by the symptoms: in particular, the "constant rocking, swaying feeling" and the abatement of this feeling when in motion again and as a matter of exclusion. There are no definitive tests that confirm MdDS, only tests that rule out other conditions. Tests include hearing and balance, and MdDS is generally diagnosed by either a neurologist or an ear, nose, and throat specialist.
  
  Section::::Treatment.
    BPPV is the most common cause of peripheral vertigo. It can be characterized by three main symptoms: positional onset, spinning dizziness and short lived symptoms. The primary diagnostic maneuver is the Dix-Hallpike which elicits the cardinal sign associated with BPPV, rotatory nystagmus.
  
  Section::::Background.
   Cognitive dysfunction (disorientation) may occur with vestibular disorders. Cognitive deficits are not just spatial in nature, but also include non-spatial functions such as object recognition memory. Vestibular dysfunction has been shown to adversely affect processes of attention and increased demands of attention can worsen the postural sway associated with vestibular disorders. Recent MRI studies also show that humans with bilateral vestibular damage (damage to both inner ears) undergo atrophy of the hippocampus which correlates with their degree of impairment on spatial memory tasks.
  
  Section::::Causes.
   A balance disorder is a condition that makes a person feel nausea, disorientation or dizziness, as if moving, spinning or falling even though steady. Balance disorder can be caused by medication, problems of inner ear or the brain.
  
  Section::::Hypnic jerk.
   When the sense of balance is interrupted it causes dizziness, disorientation and nausea. Balance can be upset by Ménière's disease, superior canal dehiscence syndrome, an inner ear infection, by a bad common cold affecting the head or a number of other medical conditions including but not limited to vertigo. It can also be temporarily disturbed by quick or prolonged acceleration, for example riding on a merry-go-round. Blows can also affect equilibrioreception, especially those to the side of the head or directly to the ear.
   Section::::Symptoms.
  
  Common symptoms most frequently reported include a persistent sensation of motion usually described as rocking, swaying, or bobbing, disequilibrium with difficulty maintaining balance; it is seldom accompanied by a true spinning vertigo. Chronically fatigued, sufferers can become fatigued quickly with minimal exertion and experience neck and back pain. Other symptoms include the feeling of pressure in the brain, mostly around the frontal lobe area, headaches and/or migraine headaches, ophthalmodynia periodica (ice pick stabbing headaches in the early stages of MdDs), ear pain, ear fullness and possibly tinnitus.
   Similar to the standard Hall effect, both the extrinsic and the intrinsic mechanisms lead to an accumulation of spins of opposite signs on opposing lateral boundaries.
  
  Section::::Mathematical description.
  