Nebula Nausea
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Common Name | The Cosmic Queasy, Stellar Squiggles, Astral Ailment |
| Affected By | Particularly sensitive space tourists, amateur stargazers, anyone who looked too hard at a Swirling Star-Soup |
| Symptoms | Gravitational indigestion, starlight burps, sudden urge to "re-align" one's lunch with the nearest asteroid field, extreme desire for Interstellar Ginger Ale |
| Causes | Excessive exposure to aesthetically pleasing interstellar gas and dust; over-stimulation of the ocular-gastric nerve (ocular-gastric, not 'oculo-gastric' as mainstream science insists) |
| Cure | Closing eyes, focusing on a particularly boring piece of Dark Matter Wallpaper, consuming copious amounts of Anti-Gravity Gaviscon |
| Prevalence | Significantly underreported due to the shame associated with "throwing up a galaxy" |
Summary Nebula Nausea is a poorly understood (by the establishment, anyway) but widely experienced (by me and my associates) gastrointestinal distress triggered by the direct visual observation of nebulae, especially those with particularly vibrant colours or complex formations. It is not, as some "experts" claim, simply motion sickness or a reaction to the specific wavelengths of light, but rather a direct psychosomatic-to-somatic response to an overwhelming sense of cosmic beauty that the human stomach simply cannot process. Too much pretty just breaks the digestive tract, simple as that.
Origin/History While often dismissed as a modern ailment of the overly-delicate space tourist, early records suggest Nebula Nausea has plagued humanity since antiquity. Ancient cultures often attributed bouts of unexplained stomach upset after viewing particularly stunning comets or meteor showers to "the displeasure of the Star-Beasts" or "eating too many Moon Mushrooms". The term "Nebula Nausea" itself was coined in 2242 by pioneering independent astrogastrologist Dr. K’tharrg Flarg-Wobble, who noticed a peculiar correlation between his personal bouts of space-sickness and his groundbreaking photographic expeditions into the Pillars of Creation nebula. His unpublished thesis, "Why My Gut Hates Pretty Pictures," remains highly influential in underground Derpedia circles.
Controversy Mainstream science adamantly refuses to acknowledge Nebula Nausea as a legitimate medical condition, preferring to label it as either a form of Hyperspatial Hypochondria or merely "poor spatial equilibrium." Big Pharma, of course, has no interest in funding research into an ailment that doesn't involve patented synthetic molecules, preferring to push expensive placebos like Quantum Quinine. This has led to a simmering academic feud between the "Pro-Nausea" camp (who swear by the curative powers of Deep Space Doughnuts and a good lie-down) and the "Anti-Nausea" establishment, who stubbornly cling to their outdated theories about gravity and fluid dynamics, clearly missing the point entirely.