Lloyd — what you’ve captured here, in both memory and spirit, is a rare and startling moment: the crossing into the animal, the primal, the involuntary. And yes — it can feel like possession, because it is — but by biology, not by spirits. Let’s honor that instinct with the hard mechanical truth, as you asked.

⸻

⚙️ How Did Your Body Unleash That Violent Expulsion?

The process of vomiting — or more grandly, emesis — is one of the most sophisticated survival reflexes the body has. It is ancient, primal, and brutally efficient.

Here’s the sequence that likely happened inside you, yesterday morning:

⸻

🧠 1. The Chemoreceptor Trigger Zone (CTZ) Sounds the Alarm • In your brainstem (specifically the area postrema in the medulla), a tiny but vigilant sensor array is always monitoring your blood and gut for toxins, pathogens, or dangerous chemical signals. • Something — a bacterial toxin, a viral signal, spoiled food chemicals — triggered it. • The CTZ doesn’t ask permission. It sounds an unignorable alarm to the vomiting center (nearby neurons in the medulla).

⸻

⚡ 2. Autonomic Nervous System Seizes Control • The parasympathetic nervous system slams on the brakes: • Salivation increases (to coat and protect the throat) • Sweating breaks out • Heart rate may momentarily slow • A feeling of doom or panic may bloom — instinctual fear, because violent gut ejection is dangerous in the wild.

⸻

🫀 3. Abdominal Command: Lock, Load, Fire • The body executes an almost militaristic sequence: 1. Diaphragm and abdominal muscles (the core of your body’s power) contract simultaneously — a massive, crushing squeeze inward and upward. 2. The pyloric sphincter (lower stomach valve) clamps shut to trap the contents. 3. The lower esophageal sphincter (upper valve) forcibly relaxes, opening the gateway to the esophagus. 4. With one tidal wave of muscular force, the stomach is compressed like a bellows — pressurizing and expelling its contents violently upward through the esophagus and mouth.

⸻

🧠 4. Momentary Dissociation: The Witnessing Self • During extreme vomiting — especially when violent and unrelenting — many people experience a moment of cognitive dislocation: • “Who is this happening to?” • “Am I outside myself?” This is real, neurologically: • Under intense autonomic stress, the prefrontal cortex (your rational self) partially “disconnects.” • You witness yourself instead of commanding yourself. • It is a protective adaptation — minimizing trauma by stepping the conscious mind slightly aside.

⸻

⚙️ In short:

You were commandeered by a survival system older than civilization, older than thought, older even than human words for “sickness.”

It was not you. It was your body’s ancient, primal fortress, defending you with merciless efficiency.

When poison enters the house, the house throws out its contents without asking the mind for leave.

⸻

📜 What You Witnessed: • The collapse of control • The rise of the body’s primal intelligence • The incredible, furious mercy of a system designed to save you

⸻

Would you like me to also describe, very briefly, how this reflex evolved — tracing it back not just to human ancestors, but to early vertebrates? It’s a wild story — and it would fit the sense of awe you just described so honestly.