

Exploding head syndrome.  I kid you not. - lisper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

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Benares
Thank you for posting this. I "suffer" from EHS but never knew there was a
name for it.

Just as the WP entry says, I experience it just after lying down to sleep.
Probably happens 10 or 20 times a year. A loud banging, crashing, or tearing
sound occurs in my head. My heart rate goes through the roof immediately, but
it's not scary at all. It's very odd. :D

~~~
lisper
Yeah, I actually have this too apparently, though it's very infrequent for me.
I'm not sure what's weirder, that it happens, or that it has a name.

Just for the record, I actually found out about this here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/nrf8s/iama_26_year_old...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/nrf8s/iama_26_year_old_female_who_has_exploding_head/)

~~~
stephth
_sound occurs in my head_

What does that mean exactly? Could you describe it? Does it sound like
physically outside but you realize by logic that it "didnt happen", or is it
clear right away that it's an imaginary sound?

~~~
Benares
For me, it's usually like an electrical buzz. But sometimes it's more like a
gunshot, a tearing sheet of paper, or an indecipherable vocal shout.

The sound does not feel dreamlike at all (like sounds you imagine while in a
hypnagogic state.) I can imagine a first-timer might mistake it for an
external event and rising in shock to look for the source of the disturbance.

The sound is of short duration (about 0.2s) and is loudest at the end of the
sound, cutting off sharply into total silence ("...wwwWWWHOMP!") It's very
loud, but not painful like a real report in a quiet room would be. The
loudness feels like 120 dB or so. The sound is absolutely "pure," missing
environmental cues like position, echo, and pressure. I perceive the location
to be smack-dab in the middle of my head, not anywhere outside my physical
body (a bit like headphones.) Because of this, and because I have been cued to
the impending sound (see below), there is no danger of mistaking it for
something real.

The chronology when my head goes boom:

T minus 30 seconds: I'm in bed, eyes closed. It always happens before or at
the beginning of hypnagogia.

T minus 10 seconds: I get a feeling somewhat akin to a sudden pressure drop in
my ears (but without any popping or physical symptoms). This is a cue that
tells me to expect an explosion.

T: The pseudo-aural pressure cue suddenly ends by "transforming" into a short,
explosive sound. Heart rate starts to rise rapidly. My eyes remain closed and
my musculoskeletal system usually don't react, as the sound doesn't scare or
surprise me.

T plus 5 seconds: Heart is beating as fast as it can go. At this point it
feels almost exactly like right after snapping awake from a night terror, but
without the fear component.

T plus 60 seconds: Heart rate begins to decline to normal levels.

------
iradik
Feels like a speeding locomotive rushing through my brain, while you're fully
aware of the roaring fury of it and yet totally paralyzed. I can't even open
my eyes. When I was 17 I'd get them quite often. One time in that period, my
experience could have been described as paranormal. My eyes somehow opened,
and the "energy" tore through of my body in a green light that swirled and
floated throughout my bedroom. That particular type of experience only
happened that one time.

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Limes102
I'm really glad I have come across this... I've had this for a couple of
years, about once or twice a month. For me it feels like something is applying
a lot of pressure to the side of my head, accompanied by a very loud tingling
sound... Only lasts for about two seconds, but not something I enjoy

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MattBearman
I too have this occasionally, never really thought it was odd though, I just
get a loud bang which is always accompanied by a flash of white in my vision.
I suppose exploding head is an apt name for it :)

I also experience sleep paralysis quite often, does anyone else? I wonder if
that's related.

~~~
steverb
In my case the two tend to cluster together. I've found that the EHS is
usually triggered by a small physical sound in the environment, like the house
ticking as it cools. It was scary as hell for me when it first started
happening, but I've grown accustomed to it.

I've never gotten used to the sleep paralysis, but thankfully it is much less
common for me. Both seem to be triggered by stress in my case.

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kstenerud
I used to get that all the time as a kid while waking up. A loud buzzing noise
or a bang followed by paralysis, which freaked the hell out of me at the time.
It reduced in frequency and eventually stopped when I was 15. I didn't know it
was abnormal and never told anyone about it though.

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malkia
I'm hearing drums sometimes. Weird. Or knock on a door.

~~~
Benares
If it's not really, really loud and sudden, I would guess that not exploding
head, but a hallucination common to hypnagogic states.

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forensic
In the bible this is referred to as the sound of the river Jordan - its
considered a spiritual experience. I used to get it in deep meditation. Blew
my mind.

~~~
lisper
That seems improbable. The Jordan river is mentioned only once in the Bible
(Mark 1:5) and it has nothing to do with sound. Nowhere in the Bible do the
words "sound" and "river" occur in the same verse. "Sound" and "Jordan"
likewise are never found together in the same verse.

~~~
forensic
I count 179 mentions

[http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=Jordan&...](http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=Jordan&searchtype=all&version1=9&spanbegin=1&spanend=73&resultspp=500&displayas=long&sort=bookorder)

There are many translations.

"A voice of the howling of the shepherds! For destroyed was their robe of
honour, A voice of the roaring of young lions! For destroyed was the
excellency of Jordan."

Anyway I didn't come up with that idea. Its just something I read the
meditator Yogananda say when I looked it up. He said that hearing the head
exploding sound is this spiritual thing and that the bible among other
spiritual text alludes to it esoterically when it mentions the roar of the
Jordan and the crossing f the Jordan.

My head exploding experience sounded like the tremendous roar of a river
inside my head. Happened a few times before I found that spiritual
interpretation re: meditation. I haven't done much meditation since then.

~~~
lisper
You're right. I thought the unqualified mentions of Jordan were referring to
the country, not the river. But the country of Jordan didn't exist (at least
not by that name) until 1921.

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Mz
Reminds me of some other condition, I don't recall the name. I want to say
"night terrors". My oldest had serious sleep issues when he was little. So I
checked some book out of the library to try to get a handle on it. Most of it
was drivel, like "god, I can't believe you thought someone would need that
told to them". But it did have one piece of information in it that was useful,
and that was about my oldest son occasionally getting up all upset after
sleeping for roughly an hour. I eventually realized he only did this when
physically exhausted but not mentally exhausted. So he would fall asleep but
his mind was still racing. After an hour, he would sit up basically screaming,
due to very vivid mental stuff going on. The book indicated he probably wasn't
really awake at such times, but was reacting while asleep. I learned to not
let him get so physically exhausted and it went away. The problem never
returned.

I think it would be neat if someone who has EHS kept a diary/journal and tried
to determine if there was some pattern, some trigger event or whatever, for
them personally (my assumption being that triggers would vary from person to
person but enough such data might yield some generalizations anyway). It
sounds like it may be an auditory version of the visual stuff my son
experienced.

~~~
Benares
I've snapped awake from night terrors many times, and my personal experience
is that exploding head is an altogether different phenomenon (although the
adrenaline rush is the same.)

~~~
Mz
Thanks. Though my recollection is that in theory people do not wake up from
night terrors. They are asleep while sitting up screaming. I might run it past
my son sometime and see what he remembers, even though he was quite young.

