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Exploding Head Syndrome (Hypnagogic Noise(s))

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Anonymous

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has anyone heard of this? what causes it? i think i've experienced it... one is dreaming, then there is a loud bang or crack... loud enough to wake one up... it actually leaves a ringing in ones ears. i heard about this syndrome awhile back and was wondering if anyone knew of any medical facts behind it or the symptons of it.:confused: thanx
 
re. EHS

Yeah, I get this all the time. It happens just as I fall asleep and can be quite disturbing. I am afraid I have no idea what causes it. From what I've read on the internet, nobody else has any idea either but a lot of people suffer from it. At least we are not alone!
 
At the risk of making myself sound like an absolute goon, this does get mentioned by those who claim to be able to teach one how to astrally project. Apparently, it's a sign that one is ready to 'ascend' as it were. Look, I never said I had anything constructive to offer.

Of course, they may well be right, in which case, I'd write to the CIA and ask for a job if I were you. Alternatively, it could be connected to the body's sleep responses kicking in; they may trigger 'jumps', just as they can sometimes trigger momentary paralysis.
 
When I read the title of this thread I immediately thought of that cheesy film from the 70s/80s about people with special mental powers who could cause people's heads to explode;)
 
Sounds like some sort of sinus related problem to me. Unless of course you're in the habit of sleeping somewhere prone to drastic air pressure changes.

Either that or there's a failure grade Scanner lurking somewhere!

Cronenberg - cheesy! I've never heard the like! You young ones, you know nowt! Check out 'Videodrome' and 'Existenz' - seriously wierd movies. And 'Crash' is a classic!
 
Crisks in your neck

The bang could be the cracking of tendons as you snap your neck at the moment you awake, you know, like cracking your knuckles. And of course, being in your neck, the noise could be amplified somewhat. Dunno really, just a suggestion.

Moggadon
 
OR it could be the sound of splintering wood as the maniac twists his axe on the inside of your wardrobe door, waiting for you to fall asleep.

(Lightning sound and maniacal laugh) :eek:
 
I often have a similar experience as I'm going to sleep. I'll have just started to sleep when all of a sudden I feel like I've tripped up. This always wakes me up. It started to happen a lot so I asked someone with a medical background what it was.
They said that when you start to sleep your body relaxes. This causes your heart to slow down and there comes a point (just before the heart beat is steady) when you heart doesn't beat for a little longer than usual. When it does beat it wakes you up giving you the trip like sensation.

How true this is I don't know but it seems reasonable.
 
monkey010101 said:
I often have a similar experience as I'm going to sleep. I'll have just started to sleep when all of a sudden I feel like I've tripped up.

. . . or it feels as if you've fallen into a big hole . . .
 
No, it's more than just that falling feeling. There is a quite definite explosion or very loud crack. Convincing enough to make me wonder if it has come from somewhere in my house rather than in my head. Even after experiencing it numerous times, it still makes you think twice about where the noise came from and how 'real' it was.
 
Also when sleeping, does anyone else get that thing were you feel like you've been dropped from about 3 feet on to your bed?
I get this and its always in the wee hours of the morning. Am I being abducted when this happens?
 
I have the following thoughts on this subject:
.........................:( :eek: :) :rolleyes: :eek: :confused:..........................
 
Yeah, I had a few experiences of head explodions (!), the last one about five years ago when I had about 3 instances in one week. I thought I might have a brain tumor or something! However, these episodes were always incorporated into dreams; the last time, I remember dreaming that I'd been smacked on the head with a baseball bat. I work up pretty sharpish and I could still feel the sensation / sound in my head. I once found a web page devoted to a 'scientific study' of this phenomenon, but now I come to look for it, I can't find it!

I think that sometimes this is different from the sudden awakening that you get when you're dropping off to sleep, where you may dream you've tripped up or been run over. I think this has something to do with the lowering of blood pressure as your body relaxes. My head normally exploded about 3 or 4 in the morning.
 
I'm glad to hear other people experience this. I have done some sleepwalking in my time, and I was always worried that I was getting up to walk, but then fell back into bed, causing the "snap." Though, I never really thought about how I always landed on the pillow, rather than nailing my head on the wall. It's not like me to not hurt myself if the opportunity is there . . .
 
I've experienced the Falling or tripping sensation. I've seen it in other people too: just as they fall asleep, their body gives a little jolt. I've been told I do it too. From this I've always assumed it was your body relaxing it's muscles all in one go (you ay think that you are relaxed when lying down and drifting off, but you are not. I've been tuaght a little Shiatsu Massage and have learnt that people are very, very rarely completely relaxed)
 
Myoclonic spasm

These weird twitches are known as myoclonic spasms (or jerks) and happen as you enter or awaken from sleep. No-one really knows the cause, although people with epilepsy, spinal damage and hypoxia (hence the relationship with OBEs and NDEs? Oo, controversial) will experience them more frequently and/or more severely.
I find that when I have them, the brain absorbs the 'shock' by incorporating the spasm into my dreams (which are usually light, given the early stage of sleep) and I usually dream that I've tripped up or lost my footing. More often than not, I'm woken by it.
The name, incidently, is from (I think?) the Greek for 'muscle turmoil').
 
Head Explosions

Not sure about head explosions, but quite regularly, as I'm on the verge of drifting off to sleep, I'm brought out of it by a sharp clicking noise, which seems to come from just above my head. It sounds a bit like somebody hitting two metal rulers together. It only ever happens once a night, and I never seem to have any trouble sleeping after it happens. This has been happening for as long as I can remember.

I've also experienced falling and floating sensations whilst on the edge of sleep, which I think most people have at some time. I've also had the feeling that the bed is spinning and somersaulting, but only after a night on the Old Peculiar! :)
 
Audio hallucinations at the point of sleep are a symptom of some sleep disorder (can't recall which). Met someone once at a sleep lab who had the problem. He said it wasn't fatal (unless your bed partner had a heart attack from you jumping). ;)
 
I have some osteoarthritis in my neck. The odd shaped bits of bone can click against each other, and because they are so near to the ears the sound seems really loud. It literally is in my head!
 
:eek!!!!: I get the "falling" sensation frequently and it's quite alarming to say the least. In my case it feels like I'm sleeping on top of a wall and I roll over on my side and fall off.
I blame my mother for telling me a story about an eccentric elderly aunt who used to creep out of the house during the night and sleep naked on her back on a brick wall at the end of the garden which was a few feet high on the side facing the house, but faced a 20 foot drop on the other side. By some miracle she never fell.

On the subject of auditory hallucinations, I find that when I'm very tired I suffer from quite bad tinnitus, which doesn't normally trouble me.
On one occasion when I 'd been up working till 4.00-ish and was extremely tired I heard a song (Champagne Supernova by Oasis - this was a few years ago) playing in my head, and the wierd thing was that it was perfectly reproduced as if I was listening to a recording. Apparently my brain had sampled it in its entirety for some reason. In my normal state of mind I'd be pushed to remember the guitar chords or even the lyrics. I've heard stories of people under hypnosis being able to recall how many steps there are on a staircase they use regularly and all kinds of other things that they're not consciously aware of remembering but which are squirreled away in their grey matter.
Maybe we all have fantastic memories, but we just don't know how to use them.
 
The exploding head thread reminds me of something . . .

I read somewhere, (I can't remember exactly), that some chickens were mysteriously dying at this farm. It was later found out that a nearby factory was producing soundwaves whose resonance were the same as a chickens skull and the soundwaves was what was causing them to die. Anybody hear of this? If this could happen, could it be done to humans? Scary!
 
Was it supposed that a vibration of a certain wavelength disrupted some tissue in the chickens heads?
People have seizures from looking at certain wavelengths of light or hearing soundwaves of a certain range, but I think there has to be some individual vulnerability for that to happen.
If you're just looking for a wave that'll explode someone's head, I think microwaves are your best bet;)
 
Resonant frequency for a human skull would be in the 7-20Hz range (maybe a shade higher, but I sure as hell dont want to try :D ), so pretty undirectable, great for terrorism but otherwise unmanageable to do deliberately.

I'd go with afbek and let steam do the job :)



8¬)
 
You mean to say it is actually possible to make someone's head explode ?? WAAAH!!

:eek!!!!: :eek!!!!:

Carole
 
My 'falling' sensation feels as if I've suddenly fallen down a hole, although I had a different one the other night, where it felt as if I'd tripped before falling.

Carole
 
carole said:
You mean to say it is actually possible to make someone's head explode ?? WAAAH!!

:eek!!!!: :eek!!!!:

Carole

To see how its done... put an egg in a microwave for 4 mins and then clean out the mess :)

8¬)
 
My girlfriend's mother experienced the explosion sensation not long ago - which seemed as if it were inside the head.

I have experienced an inexplicable 'gunshot'-loud explosion that sounded as if it were in the room I was in at the time. It was a long time ago (1984), when my brother and I were up at c. 1am watching videos in the family living room. We both reacted to the tremendous sound, which was like thunder inside the house, or a car crashing into it. The pet Cockatiels went mad too. But, on investigation, there was no obvious cause, and it failed to awaken other members of the household.
I later met a medium pair of mother and daughter (at a UFO convention in Manchester) who put it down to spirits welcoming us to the house (we hadn't long moved in)....

I only wish they could have done it more quietly...
 
Am I being abducted when this happens?
Nope, they're returning you, minus microscopic tissue samples and post-anal probe.

I have heard bangs like this and got up to investigate...nothing.
A dead giveaway is that my dogs didn't bark whereas a real bang like that would have them waking up the neighbourhood.
 
The Germans once experimented with low frequency sound waves. Using a concrete (!) whistle, they generated sound waves capable of bursting a human body. Thankfully the range was considered too short for practical use. :rolleyes:
 
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