8 ms·

Exploding Head Syndrome

87 points by warent 7y ago

zadokshi 7y ago
Did not need to know about that one.
davidhariri 7y ago
I had this for a few years. Was awful. Glad it went away.
wyum 7y ago
Weird - I just experienced one of these as I was waking up about 20 minutes ago! I say "weird" b/c it's not a regular thing, but I have experienced this a few other times, along with similar sudden full-body "spasms" while drifting to sleep. It's not usually alarming, just a strange feeling.
- rzzzt 7y ago
  One hypothesis for the sudden contraction of muscles is that your brain is losing feeling of the bed supporting your body when going to sleep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
  - saghm 7y ago
    When this happens to me, it always feels like I'm about to fall forward. The best I can describe it is as the feeling that I just took a step forward but instead of my foot finding the ground, the surface I was walking on ended (as if I stepped off a ledge or something).
    - rzzzt 7y ago
      For me it's the opposite: it feels like someone pushing me out of a tree swing or a chair that has no backrest (I'm sleeping on my side).
- taneq 7y ago
  The full body spasms are normal, they’re called “hypnic jerks” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk) I’m guessing the exploding head thing is related but involves auditory nerves rather than the semicircular canals?
jniedrauer 7y ago
I've had this before, combined with sleep paralysis. It sounds like a load rushing river combined with the sensation of falling, and I can't move. Was pretty scary the first time. If you don't fight sleep paralysis though, it's mostly just like lucid dreaming.
- jayflux 7y ago
  The sound that happens during sleep paralysis is a different phenomenon to this, this sound is a very short “shock” sort of sound.
randomer666 7y ago
I've been having those for quite some time and was never able to pinpoint the reasons that could cause it. It's kind of fun when you get used to it.
- kjakm 7y ago
  Is it something you can control in anyway? I've experienced sleep paralysis for years (it's pretty terrible) but I've seen a lot of people harness that to enable lucid dreaming. Curious if it's similar with this.
jokowueu 7y ago
I had this when I used to be anxious . The slightest noise is amplified 100x . When I first had them I thought some one had dropped kicked my door . Didn't really mind it
holiveros 7y ago
Have this one, usually it happens every few years; I've correlated it to stressful / extreme tiredness situations. For me it's always: All black -> loud bang -> flash of light A few times there were a heat sensation, tingling. Once I hard punched a friend who was sitting beside me after "waking up":/
GlenTheMachine 7y ago
Disorders of the waking-sleeping “interface” can be really weird. Mine: occasionally, when I’m really really tired, as I fall asleep I experience a buzzing in my head that starts out soft and gets louder and louder. After a few moments it’s accompanied by extreme panic, temporary whole-body paralysis, and an uncontrollable need to wake back up. This happens over and over and over again, until I finally get out of bed, eat something, wait half an hour, and try again. I have never seen a medical authority acknowledge this particular disorder, but over the years I’ve seen individuals on reddit mention the same thing. I have to believe it’s due to parts of the brain shutting down in the wrong order as it attempts to transition to sleep.
- ljm 7y ago
  I often get what can only be described as lucid nightmares. I can feel every sensation in my body (down to sexual impulses) but when the nightmare kicks in I won't manage to wake up without screaming. The thing is, I live alone so in my dream the screaming is muffled and almost useless. I have no idea if its actually loud in 'the real world'. I am almost certain its connected to past trauma given the subject matter in the dreams. It's crazy what the mind can do when you try and get a good night's sleep.
flafla2 7y ago
I find stuff like this really interesting, a large (double digit) percentage of the population has the condition, and may or may not assume it is normal. I don't have Exploding Head Syndrome, but I do have the Photic sneeze reflex [1], which affects ~20-30% of people. People with the reflex tend to sneeze when they see bright things such as the sun. My father and I both have it, and it felt great when I told him about it. He was as surprised as I was that it didn't happen to everyone! In a weird way I'm grateful for it, as I'm sure the reflex urged me to stay inside and cultivate my love for computing :). It's too bad it made me dislike the beach as a kid though -- these days I make sure to bring sunglasses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
- JshWright 7y ago
  I had a similar experience when I learned that "aphantasia" is a thing (or rather, that having a "mind's eye" isn't just a figure of speech).
  - pansa2 7y ago
    Similar for me with “musical anhedonia”. It blew my mind to find out that “sad songs” actually make people feel sad - it doesn’t just mean “low tempo” or “appropriate to play at a sad time”.
- 5co 7y ago
  Do you or your father have deviated septum's? I ask as if you will actually know lol, apparently 80% of us have deviated septum's and there's a direct correlation between that and photic sneezers. I've had it for years but I only found out recently during a routine inspection that I do indeed have a deviated septum.
  - amelius 7y ago
    My septum was surgically corrected but I still have the sneeze thing.
- ddevault 7y ago
kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago
Hmm. I think I get this on occasion. It sounds like a heavily distorted electronic crunchy buzz like if you touched a guitar jack to some random metal while hooked up to an amp. I had previously thought these might be “brain zaps” that people describe after stopping anti depressants, even though I never started
- GlenTheMachine 7y ago
  I get both of those sometimes. In my experience they aren’t the same.
fizixer 7y ago
This would happen to me when my monitor was right next to my bed. (I believe the flash part, while the exploding/popping sound is external). I would use my computer an hour or more before going to bed, so the monitor would run warm (or even hot). When I'd turn it off and go to bed, the monitor would cool down over the next, I don't know, between 15 minutes to an hour. And at some point during the cool down, the plastic would make a popping sound (just once). This would be around the same time I'd be about to fall asleep. And that's when a flash would go off in my head. This happened pretty much everyday. Now I don't have my monitor sitting next to my bed.
Severian 7y ago
I experience this frequently. Right on the edge of loosing consciousness, I sometimes hear what reminds me of an old wooden screen-door slamming into a doorframe. If you know the sound it's unmistakable. It is preceeded by a woosh, like when your blood-pressure suddenly increases. It usually jolts me awake for a brief moment. I rarely see flashes of light but it sometimes happens.
- duncan-donuts 7y ago
  Oh man a wooden screen-door spamming shut is a good descriptor. When this happens to me I’d say the sound is similar to that, but there’s like a large cracking sound as well.
- flir 7y ago
  I've got the door slamming version. It was most common first year of uni, when I was convinced it was the wardrobe door next to the bed. Still get it once or twice a year even now. No lights though. Because it happens at the same time in the sleep cycle, it really feels like the auditory equivalent of a hypnic jerk. Reading the thread, it sounds like there are two rough categories: "door slam" and "guitar feedback". I wonder if they're two different phenomena.
- popotamonga 7y ago
  First time it happened to me i thought some one had break in the house and grabbed a knife. Just like the movies...
_Microft 7y ago
Another 'interesting' thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis (Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is waking up if you are unable to move?) It happened twice to me and still scared the heck out of me the second time. Been there, done that, can't recommend.
- mx24 7y ago
  I’ve also experienced this a couple times and it was terrifying. It was exactly as in the depiction on Wikipedia. A demon came over me very quickly as I laid in bed and I was unable to move.
- TheRealSteel 7y ago
  Got this three times yesterday. Not a fan. Probably had 4 or 500 incidents total in my life.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Might be sleep apnea.
- gooseus 7y ago
  I used to get this quite a bit when I was in college and had a lot of bad sleep habits. I noticed it happened a lot more when I would take a nap or go to sleep super late. Definitely freaked me out a lot at first, but eventually I learned that fighting was futile and made it worse, while the best thing to do was surrender, relax, and just drift back to sleep a little more. Nowadays I have better sleep habits and this only happens sometimes after overnight travel, but I still usually remember what's happening and can convince the lizard brain we're not dying and to chill out until we can wake up for real.
drog 7y ago
There are also many other things that could happen when you are going to sleep, for example you can hear voice or see someone. It is called hypnagogic hallucinations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
- RandomTisk 7y ago
  I had one of the most incredible dreams ever last week. I was laying on the couch watching something, not feeling too great, and I fell asleep, I think. Thinking I was still awake, I began to see this city by the sea/ocean, and I remarked to myself how incredible it was that I was able to visualize this city so well because I've never hallucinated before. Then I wondered if I could manipulate it like a 3D level, and I could, so I spent some time moving my mental camera around this space, flying like superman kinda but at low speed. Then a Telsa rocketship took off from the city and crashed into the sea, but it didn't explode, it burrowed like a torpedo and turned back towards land. A woman was on a bench by the ocean and it should have hit and hurt/killed her but the rocket just disappeared. Then I realized this must be a dream and woke up. It was so bizarre, I thought I had been awake the whole time.
  - drog 7y ago
    It looks like you enjoyed it which is great! Mine are always triggered when life stress and anxiety build up and it makes me even more stressed.
    - RandomTisk 7y ago
      Yeah very much so, it was like I was in a holodeck visualizing things with my mind. My dreams are always weirdest when I'm sick too.
davesque 7y ago
I experience this occasionally. It sounds like microphone feedback but with a sort of metallic ringing to it. I didn't realize there was a name for it. I also assumed most people experience it which I guess is wrong.
k__ 7y ago
Interesting. I had this a handful of times. But I also had sleep paralysis and panic attacks a few times. Never was a constant problem.
almost_usual 7y ago
Can happen to alcoholics during steep withdrawals. Similar to a Hypnic Jerk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
- tapland 7y ago
  I've heard people have them when stepping down ssris as well.
IAmGraydon 7y ago
I have occasionally experienced this. I once woke up to what sounded like a very loud gunshot right outside of my bedroom window. I actually called the police, half in a fog, until I realized half way through the call that it may have been a hypnagogic hallucination of sorts.
jsonne 7y ago
Oh wow, I didn't know the name for this but absolutely experience it. The most disturbing part for me personally is the gasping for air part, or as the article states, " sensation that feels as if they have stopped breathing and have to make a deliberate effort to breathe again."
Edd314159 7y ago
This happens to me very frequently. It’s kind of freaky how accurate the description of the symptoms are in this Wikipedia article - even down to the gif depicting the flashes I see. Reassuring to know it’s a known condition, especially one with such a dramatic name. It comes and goes for me, but it’s pretty frightening during the periods when it happens. The stress explanation sounds plausible.
- tapland 7y ago
  I've had them now and then. Maybe once a year now, but when I was working nights at a casino and studying during the day I would have them very often. Sleep deprivation and stress.
- ethanbond 7y ago
  Easy to miss but worth seeing: the first item under the Treatment in the quick facts box is "Reassurance." Quite a pleasant treatment and it's administered as easily as a link to Wikipedia!
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
I used to get this quite frequently when I lived in the heart of downtown Toronto and had an extreme drinking (alcoholic) habit. It scared me half to death the first few times it happened, then it was just annoying once I realized what it was. Moved out of Toronto and stopped drinking heavily and I don't get them at all anymore. I remember being woken up constantly at 2/3/4/5am to police/ambulence sirens and car horns. So psychological stress (as wikipedia suggests) was most definitely a factor in my having had this imho. Just my 2 cents.
forkexec 7y ago
Yep. I know someone that has this almost everyday of his life and he hears a gunshot or a cannon that doesn't exist. It maybe related to spinal cord compression from a genetic anatomical abnormality in the skull or cervical region between the skull and thorax. Oddly enough, I accidentally induced this effect on myself by falling asleep laying my neck on the corner of a hard surface. It sounded like someone beating hard once on the wall, but as I woke up, I realized no one was around and no sound had actually happened (no echo).
myself248 7y ago
When I was very little, I used to have nightmares that consisted of this bang and flash, repeated, indefinitely. They didn't happen every night, thankfully, and eventually they stopped but I don't know why. In the last twenty years, it's come back exactly once.
- forkexec 7y ago
  Ah. OTOH, EHS is "hearing" an extremely realistic-sounding loud "noise" that wakes you up, but then realizing the "noise" never happen. It's like your body is gaslighting yourself.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Had no idea what it was called. Never thought it was abnormal. Once a month or so I am awaken with the loudest possible "bang bang bang bang". It puts me into a state of terror where I must carefully check every door and window for someone banging to get in. So much worse now that I have kids to protect. I will also get a similar gunshot sound if I'm dozing off in the afternoon. Makes napping impossible. I always just wrote it off as being caught in a semi dream state.
Udik 7y ago
Used to happen to me, somewhat frequently as a child, less and less with age (I probably haven't had it in the past ten years). As I was falling asleep I started to hear some soft rhythmic noise repeating over and over, slowly at the beginning, then faster and faster until it ended in a really loud "bang" after which for a second my head felt entirely empty. (However the bang didn't feel like a real noise, more like an explosion inside my head). After I while I learned to recognise the pattern of speeding rhythmic sound and sometimes I would be able to stop it before the bang- lifting my head from the pillow was enough to break the sequence.
Jamie452 7y ago
Sometimes when I'm drifting off, before I start dreaming I get this weird vibrating sensation, accompanied by a sensation that things are progressively getting more intense. It usually causes me to jolt myself awake out of fear. When I can push through it and stay asleep I usually end up having a lucid dream. I wonder if this is the same thing?
supernintendo 7y ago
This happens to me from time to time! It really is bizarre. I’m hyper attuned to sound, particularly which direction sounds are coming from. When a sound seems to be emitted from within your own head, it creates a disorienting sensation that I experience as a sort of extreme vertigo. For me the sound is never really abrasive and usually manifests as a woman’s voice calmly saying one or two words. The disturbing part is just how “clear” the sounds are, like every other sound I’ve ever heard seems distant in comparison.
Jhsto 7y ago
When I have been stressed out for longer periods of time, I start to get weird problems with sleep. This has included hearing many indistinct voices when going to sleep, waking up to a sleep paralysis with the demon sitting on me / next to me, and sensation of falling immediately after falling asleep (which makes it impossible to sleep). In all of the cases, it seems like the unconsciousness is so occupied that it doesn't want me to rest. Every time, when I have talked about my worries hence processed them, the symptoms have gone away. So to at least to my anecdotal experience, the sleep disorders seem to be caused by held back emotions.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  If you haven't already, you might want to get checked for sleep apnea. Many of those symptoms, especially sleep paralysis are symptoms of sleep paralysis. And sleep apnea is also known to get worse with stress and anxiety.
mmastrac 7y ago
I've had this a few times and it was pretty jarring - almost sounds like listening to white noise as loud as you possibly could for about 1/10 of a second.
rv-de 7y ago
I regularly experience during falling asleep a burst of static noise like sound that repeats in short variable intervals (let's say 20 seconds). It seems to last about a second or less.
drcongo 7y ago
I have this. Interesting note: I hear different types of loud noise, doors slamming, cars backfiring, banging on the front door etc. - they're nearly all believable, which is incredibly annoying as I often end up having to get out of bed to check whether it was a real noise or not. I sometimes get the bright flashes of light too, I like those as it's a good hint that the accompanying noise wasn't real.
polemic 7y ago
I've had this happen a few times! It'll happen usually while falling asleep - a sudden very loud ("overwhelming" is probably a better word since its obviously not auditory) static rising rapidly, sometimes with the image per the page. I never found it frightening, possibly because its so brief. I can imagine it would be terrifying if it continued for longer than a second or too. Having just read "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" (Neal Stephensons latest novel), this is what I expect he describes when Dodge first gains consciousness. Just... overwhelming random static.
IvanLudvig 7y ago
I had this a couple of times when having a nap. I call it the cracking of the sun.

87 points by warent 7y ago

zadokshi 7y ago

Did not need to know about that one.

davidhariri 7y ago

I had this for a few years. Was awful. Glad it went away.

wyum 7y ago

Weird - I just experienced one of these as I was waking up about 20 minutes ago! I say "weird" b/c it's not a regular thing, but I have experienced this a few other times, along with similar sudden full-body "spasms" while drifting to sleep. It's not usually alarming, just a strange feeling.

rzzzt 7y ago
One hypothesis for the sudden contraction of muscles is that your brain is losing feeling of the bed supporting your body when going to sleep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
- saghm 7y ago
  When this happens to me, it always feels like I'm about to fall forward. The best I can describe it is as the feeling that I just took a step forward but instead of my foot finding the ground, the surface I was walking on ended (as if I stepped off a ledge or something).
  - rzzzt 7y ago
    For me it's the opposite: it feels like someone pushing me out of a tree swing or a chair that has no backrest (I'm sleeping on my side).
taneq 7y ago
The full body spasms are normal, they’re called “hypnic jerks” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk) I’m guessing the exploding head thing is related but involves auditory nerves rather than the semicircular canals?

jniedrauer 7y ago

I've had this before, combined with sleep paralysis. It sounds like a load rushing river combined with the sensation of falling, and I can't move. Was pretty scary the first time. If you don't fight sleep paralysis though, it's mostly just like lucid dreaming.

jayflux 7y ago
The sound that happens during sleep paralysis is a different phenomenon to this, this sound is a very short “shock” sort of sound.

randomer666 7y ago

I've been having those for quite some time and was never able to pinpoint the reasons that could cause it. It's kind of fun when you get used to it.

kjakm 7y ago
Is it something you can control in anyway? I've experienced sleep paralysis for years (it's pretty terrible) but I've seen a lot of people harness that to enable lucid dreaming. Curious if it's similar with this.

jokowueu 7y ago

I had this when I used to be anxious . The slightest noise is amplified 100x . When I first had them I thought some one had dropped kicked my door . Didn't really mind it

holiveros 7y ago

Have this one, usually it happens every few years; I've correlated it to stressful / extreme tiredness situations. For me it's always: All black -> loud bang -> flash of light A few times there were a heat sensation, tingling. Once I hard punched a friend who was sitting beside me after "waking up":/

GlenTheMachine 7y ago

Disorders of the waking-sleeping “interface” can be really weird. Mine: occasionally, when I’m really really tired, as I fall asleep I experience a buzzing in my head that starts out soft and gets louder and louder. After a few moments it’s accompanied by extreme panic, temporary whole-body paralysis, and an uncontrollable need to wake back up. This happens over and over and over again, until I finally get out of bed, eat something, wait half an hour, and try again. I have never seen a medical authority acknowledge this particular disorder, but over the years I’ve seen individuals on reddit mention the same thing. I have to believe it’s due to parts of the brain shutting down in the wrong order as it attempts to transition to sleep.

ljm 7y ago
I often get what can only be described as lucid nightmares. I can feel every sensation in my body (down to sexual impulses) but when the nightmare kicks in I won't manage to wake up without screaming. The thing is, I live alone so in my dream the screaming is muffled and almost useless. I have no idea if its actually loud in 'the real world'. I am almost certain its connected to past trauma given the subject matter in the dreams. It's crazy what the mind can do when you try and get a good night's sleep.

flafla2 7y ago

I find stuff like this really interesting, a large (double digit) percentage of the population has the condition, and may or may not assume it is normal. I don't have Exploding Head Syndrome, but I do have the Photic sneeze reflex [1], which affects ~20-30% of people. People with the reflex tend to sneeze when they see bright things such as the sun. My father and I both have it, and it felt great when I told him about it. He was as surprised as I was that it didn't happen to everyone! In a weird way I'm grateful for it, as I'm sure the reflex urged me to stay inside and cultivate my love for computing :). It's too bad it made me dislike the beach as a kid though -- these days I make sure to bring sunglasses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex

JshWright 7y ago
I had a similar experience when I learned that "aphantasia" is a thing (or rather, that having a "mind's eye" isn't just a figure of speech).
- pansa2 7y ago
  Similar for me with “musical anhedonia”. It blew my mind to find out that “sad songs” actually make people feel sad - it doesn’t just mean “low tempo” or “appropriate to play at a sad time”.
5co 7y ago
Do you or your father have deviated septum's? I ask as if you will actually know lol, apparently 80% of us have deviated septum's and there's a direct correlation between that and photic sneezers. I've had it for years but I only found out recently during a routine inspection that I do indeed have a deviated septum.
- amelius 7y ago
  My septum was surgically corrected but I still have the sneeze thing.
ddevault 7y ago

kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago

Hmm. I think I get this on occasion. It sounds like a heavily distorted electronic crunchy buzz like if you touched a guitar jack to some random metal while hooked up to an amp. I had previously thought these might be “brain zaps” that people describe after stopping anti depressants, even though I never started

GlenTheMachine 7y ago
I get both of those sometimes. In my experience they aren’t the same.

fizixer 7y ago

This would happen to me when my monitor was right next to my bed. (I believe the flash part, while the exploding/popping sound is external). I would use my computer an hour or more before going to bed, so the monitor would run warm (or even hot). When I'd turn it off and go to bed, the monitor would cool down over the next, I don't know, between 15 minutes to an hour. And at some point during the cool down, the plastic would make a popping sound (just once). This would be around the same time I'd be about to fall asleep. And that's when a flash would go off in my head. This happened pretty much everyday. Now I don't have my monitor sitting next to my bed.

Severian 7y ago

I experience this frequently. Right on the edge of loosing consciousness, I sometimes hear what reminds me of an old wooden screen-door slamming into a doorframe. If you know the sound it's unmistakable. It is preceeded by a woosh, like when your blood-pressure suddenly increases. It usually jolts me awake for a brief moment. I rarely see flashes of light but it sometimes happens.

duncan-donuts 7y ago
Oh man a wooden screen-door spamming shut is a good descriptor. When this happens to me I’d say the sound is similar to that, but there’s like a large cracking sound as well.
flir 7y ago
I've got the door slamming version. It was most common first year of uni, when I was convinced it was the wardrobe door next to the bed. Still get it once or twice a year even now. No lights though. Because it happens at the same time in the sleep cycle, it really feels like the auditory equivalent of a hypnic jerk. Reading the thread, it sounds like there are two rough categories: "door slam" and "guitar feedback". I wonder if they're two different phenomena.
popotamonga 7y ago
First time it happened to me i thought some one had break in the house and grabbed a knife. Just like the movies...

_Microft 7y ago

Another 'interesting' thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis (Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is waking up if you are unable to move?) It happened twice to me and still scared the heck out of me the second time. Been there, done that, can't recommend.

mx24 7y ago
I’ve also experienced this a couple times and it was terrifying. It was exactly as in the depiction on Wikipedia. A demon came over me very quickly as I laid in bed and I was unable to move.
TheRealSteel 7y ago
Got this three times yesterday. Not a fan. Probably had 4 or 500 incidents total in my life.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Might be sleep apnea.
gooseus 7y ago
I used to get this quite a bit when I was in college and had a lot of bad sleep habits. I noticed it happened a lot more when I would take a nap or go to sleep super late. Definitely freaked me out a lot at first, but eventually I learned that fighting was futile and made it worse, while the best thing to do was surrender, relax, and just drift back to sleep a little more. Nowadays I have better sleep habits and this only happens sometimes after overnight travel, but I still usually remember what's happening and can convince the lizard brain we're not dying and to chill out until we can wake up for real.

drog 7y ago

There are also many other things that could happen when you are going to sleep, for example you can hear voice or see someone. It is called hypnagogic hallucinations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

RandomTisk 7y ago
I had one of the most incredible dreams ever last week. I was laying on the couch watching something, not feeling too great, and I fell asleep, I think. Thinking I was still awake, I began to see this city by the sea/ocean, and I remarked to myself how incredible it was that I was able to visualize this city so well because I've never hallucinated before. Then I wondered if I could manipulate it like a 3D level, and I could, so I spent some time moving my mental camera around this space, flying like superman kinda but at low speed. Then a Telsa rocketship took off from the city and crashed into the sea, but it didn't explode, it burrowed like a torpedo and turned back towards land. A woman was on a bench by the ocean and it should have hit and hurt/killed her but the rocket just disappeared. Then I realized this must be a dream and woke up. It was so bizarre, I thought I had been awake the whole time.
- drog 7y ago
  It looks like you enjoyed it which is great! Mine are always triggered when life stress and anxiety build up and it makes me even more stressed.
  - RandomTisk 7y ago
    Yeah very much so, it was like I was in a holodeck visualizing things with my mind. My dreams are always weirdest when I'm sick too.

davesque 7y ago

I experience this occasionally. It sounds like microphone feedback but with a sort of metallic ringing to it. I didn't realize there was a name for it. I also assumed most people experience it which I guess is wrong.

k__ 7y ago

Interesting. I had this a handful of times. But I also had sleep paralysis and panic attacks a few times. Never was a constant problem.

almost_usual 7y ago

Can happen to alcoholics during steep withdrawals. Similar to a Hypnic Jerk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

tapland 7y ago
I've heard people have them when stepping down ssris as well.

IAmGraydon 7y ago

I have occasionally experienced this. I once woke up to what sounded like a very loud gunshot right outside of my bedroom window. I actually called the police, half in a fog, until I realized half way through the call that it may have been a hypnagogic hallucination of sorts.

jsonne 7y ago

Oh wow, I didn't know the name for this but absolutely experience it. The most disturbing part for me personally is the gasping for air part, or as the article states, " sensation that feels as if they have stopped breathing and have to make a deliberate effort to breathe again."

Edd314159 7y ago

This happens to me very frequently. It’s kind of freaky how accurate the description of the symptoms are in this Wikipedia article - even down to the gif depicting the flashes I see. Reassuring to know it’s a known condition, especially one with such a dramatic name. It comes and goes for me, but it’s pretty frightening during the periods when it happens. The stress explanation sounds plausible.

tapland 7y ago
I've had them now and then. Maybe once a year now, but when I was working nights at a casino and studying during the day I would have them very often. Sleep deprivation and stress.
ethanbond 7y ago
Easy to miss but worth seeing: the first item under the Treatment in the quick facts box is "Reassurance." Quite a pleasant treatment and it's administered as easily as a link to Wikipedia!

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

I used to get this quite frequently when I lived in the heart of downtown Toronto and had an extreme drinking (alcoholic) habit. It scared me half to death the first few times it happened, then it was just annoying once I realized what it was. Moved out of Toronto and stopped drinking heavily and I don't get them at all anymore. I remember being woken up constantly at 2/3/4/5am to police/ambulence sirens and car horns. So psychological stress (as wikipedia suggests) was most definitely a factor in my having had this imho. Just my 2 cents.

forkexec 7y ago

Yep. I know someone that has this almost everyday of his life and he hears a gunshot or a cannon that doesn't exist. It maybe related to spinal cord compression from a genetic anatomical abnormality in the skull or cervical region between the skull and thorax. Oddly enough, I accidentally induced this effect on myself by falling asleep laying my neck on the corner of a hard surface. It sounded like someone beating hard once on the wall, but as I woke up, I realized no one was around and no sound had actually happened (no echo).

myself248 7y ago

When I was very little, I used to have nightmares that consisted of this bang and flash, repeated, indefinitely. They didn't happen every night, thankfully, and eventually they stopped but I don't know why. In the last twenty years, it's come back exactly once.

forkexec 7y ago
Ah. OTOH, EHS is "hearing" an extremely realistic-sounding loud "noise" that wakes you up, but then realizing the "noise" never happen. It's like your body is gaslighting yourself.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Had no idea what it was called. Never thought it was abnormal. Once a month or so I am awaken with the loudest possible "bang bang bang bang". It puts me into a state of terror where I must carefully check every door and window for someone banging to get in. So much worse now that I have kids to protect. I will also get a similar gunshot sound if I'm dozing off in the afternoon. Makes napping impossible. I always just wrote it off as being caught in a semi dream state.

Udik 7y ago

Used to happen to me, somewhat frequently as a child, less and less with age (I probably haven't had it in the past ten years). As I was falling asleep I started to hear some soft rhythmic noise repeating over and over, slowly at the beginning, then faster and faster until it ended in a really loud "bang" after which for a second my head felt entirely empty. (However the bang didn't feel like a real noise, more like an explosion inside my head). After I while I learned to recognise the pattern of speeding rhythmic sound and sometimes I would be able to stop it before the bang- lifting my head from the pillow was enough to break the sequence.

Jamie452 7y ago

Sometimes when I'm drifting off, before I start dreaming I get this weird vibrating sensation, accompanied by a sensation that things are progressively getting more intense. It usually causes me to jolt myself awake out of fear. When I can push through it and stay asleep I usually end up having a lucid dream. I wonder if this is the same thing?

supernintendo 7y ago

This happens to me from time to time! It really is bizarre. I’m hyper attuned to sound, particularly which direction sounds are coming from. When a sound seems to be emitted from within your own head, it creates a disorienting sensation that I experience as a sort of extreme vertigo. For me the sound is never really abrasive and usually manifests as a woman’s voice calmly saying one or two words. The disturbing part is just how “clear” the sounds are, like every other sound I’ve ever heard seems distant in comparison.

Jhsto 7y ago

When I have been stressed out for longer periods of time, I start to get weird problems with sleep. This has included hearing many indistinct voices when going to sleep, waking up to a sleep paralysis with the demon sitting on me / next to me, and sensation of falling immediately after falling asleep (which makes it impossible to sleep). In all of the cases, it seems like the unconsciousness is so occupied that it doesn't want me to rest. Every time, when I have talked about my worries hence processed them, the symptoms have gone away. So to at least to my anecdotal experience, the sleep disorders seem to be caused by held back emotions.

jjeaff 7y ago
If you haven't already, you might want to get checked for sleep apnea. Many of those symptoms, especially sleep paralysis are symptoms of sleep paralysis. And sleep apnea is also known to get worse with stress and anxiety.

mmastrac 7y ago

I've had this a few times and it was pretty jarring - almost sounds like listening to white noise as loud as you possibly could for about 1/10 of a second.

rv-de 7y ago

I regularly experience during falling asleep a burst of static noise like sound that repeats in short variable intervals (let's say 20 seconds). It seems to last about a second or less.

drcongo 7y ago

I have this. Interesting note: I hear different types of loud noise, doors slamming, cars backfiring, banging on the front door etc. - they're nearly all believable, which is incredibly annoying as I often end up having to get out of bed to check whether it was a real noise or not. I sometimes get the bright flashes of light too, I like those as it's a good hint that the accompanying noise wasn't real.

polemic 7y ago

I've had this happen a few times! It'll happen usually while falling asleep - a sudden very loud ("overwhelming" is probably a better word since its obviously not auditory) static rising rapidly, sometimes with the image per the page. I never found it frightening, possibly because its so brief. I can imagine it would be terrifying if it continued for longer than a second or too. Having just read "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" (Neal Stephensons latest novel), this is what I expect he describes when Dodge first gains consciousness. Just... overwhelming random static.

IvanLudvig 7y ago

I had this a couple of times when having a nap. I call it the cracking of the sun.