This is weird

Over the last 6 months or so, I've been occasionally having these weird symptoms at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping and am in a half awake/ half asleep state. Usually it's the middle of the night, or early morning, like 3-4 AM. I'll hear a click coming from inside my head. I figure it's in a dream and try to fall back to sleep, and I'll hear the click again a few minutes later. I realize that I'm not actually dreaming, but then there it is again, the click. Sometimes the click is faint. Sometimes it's a little louder. It sounds a little like a rubber band snapping.

The noise is definitely not outside my head, in the room. The room is dead silent. I can literally hear the noise, but it's coming from inside my head. Usually, I'll just fall back asleep again and forget about it. It's happened a handful of times in the last six months or so.

A couple weeks ago, something similar happened, except this time, it wasn't a click. It was a gunshot. Inside my head. Extremely loud. But only one. So after lying there for a while, next to my peacefully sleeping wife, wondering WTF was going on with me, I finally got back to sleep.

The next morning, I Googled the symptoms, hoping I wouldn't find that it was the first stages of some mental illness. Auditory hallucinations. :eek: And to my surprise, I found it immediately. It's really a thing. And it's basically harmless, although some people don't like it and lose sleep worrying about it. And it has a funny name. Exploding head syndrome. Glatt has exploding head syndrome. Weird, huh? Life is a strange trip sometimes.

Fortunately, just knowing what it is, and you're not alone, is the key to coping.

I've had the click occasionally for years. But no boom yet. Guess I'm a slow developer. :blush:

that's weird

xoxoxoBruce;873536 wrote:

Fortunately, just knowing what it is, and you're not alone, is the key to coping.

Exactly. I was worried I was going crazy. But knowing that it's harmless, I can easily deal with an occasional clicking sound that I hear, but nobody else does. I'll just roll over and go back to sleep.

But what if it was actually a sound and your wife just didn't hear it?

It actually is a sound. And she didn't hear it.

One of the theories is that the sound is caused by bones in the middle ear being moved by a muscle spasm and creating noise that way. Another theory is that it is a minor seizure in part of the brain. But it really is a sound either way.

Oh wow! I get that from time to time!

DanaC has exploding head syndrome!

Is yours loud like a gunshot, or quieter, like a click or a snap?

A very clear 'snap!'

Weird as fuck when it happens. It's woken me up sometimes, from the halfway dozing state.

I've had them on rare occasion as well, maybe once a year. Mine are of the deep bass booming variety. Never while dozing, always startling me out of a deep sleep. I always figured they were connected to my temporal lobe stuff, since night is a more common time for seizure activity.

lumberjim;873550 wrote:

But what if it was actually a sound and your wife just didn't hear it?

Wife not hear something? You a funny man, very funny man. :lol2:

BEWARE: That is "sort of" how it started for me, only it was an out right
attack on my conscious..

JBKlyde;873591 wrote:

BEWARE: That is "sort of" how it started for me, only it was an out right attack on my conscious..

Oh my, that means we may have the makings of a JBglatt, JBBruce, JBDanaC (good rapper name), and JBClodfobble in addition to JBKlyde. I suppose there's nothing we can do but wait and see if their user names change.

sexobon;873639 wrote:

Oh my, that means we may have the makings of a JBglatt, JBBruce, JBDanaC (good rapper name), and JBClodfobble in addition to JBKlyde. I suppose there's nothing we can do but wait and see if their user names change.

Did anyone else hear thunder when you read those new names?

Oh yes, I've been...

[youtube]v2AC41dglnM[/youtube]

This is a tenuous connection, but I like to join in.

I am occasionally awoken by someone shouting my name.
No joke.
I can always recognise the voice too, it's always someone I know or knew.
I woke Mum up once because it was her voice I heard. I responded the way you would expect when you live in the same house and someone is shouting for you through your bedroom door.
"Whaa?! What? I'm awake, what's wrong? You okay?"

No reply, dozed back off. Okay, I guess in a real situation I would have followed it up.
But Mum's memory of what I said tallied with mine, except she was asleep until she heard me calling out.

I think I'd rather have clicks.

Are you sure it's not your TMJ clicking?

You know that thing where you learn of something and then see it everywhere?

The Atlantic is writing about my thing. And it matches my own experiences.

Aww man. The twanging sound. I get that. It's the weirdest fucking thing. Sometimes the sound of a sharp knock.

I get the knocking too. I've woken up and gone to the door.

If there's suddenly a spate of articles letting you know your not the only one, and it's OK, don't worry about it, probably the insurance companies ruled they won't pay for it.



I'm glad I haven't become cynical. :rolleyes:

is it ever words?

like someone says something and it wakes you, and you can swear your ears felt it....like tactile memory.... but not a bang or a knock.... more like... FRIDAY 8PM! and you're wide awake with that ringing in your head.

but it's tuesday morning, and now you have to wait all week to find out what happens?

(nothing happened)

I've had that. Sometimes really scary when it happens. I remember one time it was the words 'Stop it!' in a deep male voice. *shrugs* really freaky. Even more freaky was the time I heard a woman's voice saying in a sing song kind of a way 'Daaaaannniiii'

DanaC;920906 wrote:

I've had that. Sometimes really scary when it happens. I remember one time it was the words 'Stop it!' in a deep male voice. *shrugs* really freaky. Even more freaky was the time I heard a woman's voice saying in a sing song kind of a way 'Daaaaannniiii'

so is this a dream thing? like you dream the sound illusion? or is it physical ...like a knuckle cracking on your ear drum?

Feels physical. It's not usually while I'm 'asleep'. But I've more than likely gone in and out of sleep without realising it.Often it's when I'm just offin my own little world, starting to feel drowsy and then a noise / sensation of sound of one type or another will jolt me to full awareness.

The voice ones sound like someone is in the room speaking. Like I've heard with the ears rather in the mind.

Same here, but never voices.

Clicks, snaps, bangs, booms.

The only one that is an internal sound is the twang. It's like something has twanged inside my head. hard to describe really. It's still heard as a sound, but there's an accompanying physical sensation of something snapping/twanging inside.

The voices sound more like hypnopompic hallucinations - hallucinations that occur as we're on the threshold of regaining consciousness. Hypnagogic hallucinations are similar phenomena that occur just as we're falling asleep. I've had those, but not so much the waking ones. Otoh, I've woken with a start, knowing - just knowing - I heard some major sound, but unable to pinpoint what it was - and finding that nothing at all was happening.

DanaC;920906 wrote:

...I remember one time it was the words 'Stop it!' in a deep male voice. *shrugs* really freaky.

[QUOTE=lumberjim;920907]so is this a dream thing? QUOTE]
A man saying stop it to Dana? Has to be a dream, certainly couldn't be real. :headshake

I've seen two different articles in two days. The press is noticing this topic.

When I Googled my symptoms 2 years ago, there was very little information out there. Now it's kind of exploded. *heh*

But people searching "Exploding Head Syndrome" hasn't spiked recently. It took off about 6 years ago. I guess that's because if they don't know what it's called, they don't know what to search.

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The 2014-15 spike is probably a result of it recently being listed in Google News.

I heard a story about it yesterday on the radio. The hosts were discussing this story out of WSU.

None of you are waking up in the night hearing your dog telling you to kill people, are you?:worried:

No, that was the cat. :p:

I wake up in the night hearing my dog tell me to get biscuits - does that count?

I wake up in the middle of the day, hearing squirrels telling me "Cookie, motherfucker!".

They don't even say please, anymore.

Ha! you got me started feeding mine peanuts. Now they sit out back and make all sorts of noise if I forget to toss some out there the night before.