[HN Gopher] Exploding Head Syndrome: What We Know About This Mys...
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Exploding Head Syndrome: What We Know About This Mysterious
Disorder
Author : amichail
Score : 40 points
Date : 2024-09-08 19:20 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| brudgers wrote:
| _Scanners_ immediately came to mind. That 's not what the article
| is about.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| This happens to me sometimes. I think it would happen randomly
| when I was a kid, but as I've gotten older it seems to only
| happen when I'm really stressed out and not getting much sleep.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I have had something like this and a bunch of other parasomnias
| for a while, one of which I haven't really come across in any
| literature and doctors seem to have no idea what I'm talking
| about, so I'll try to explain.
|
| I can't do it 100% of the time, but I can enter a
| dream/unconscious state whilst being fully awake. Here's how it
| goes:
|
| - first stage you start seeing light swirling shapes that can
| take various colors, believe this is called hypnogogic
| hallucinations, but at this point you won't make any sense or
| shape of them
|
| - second stage these swirling shapes start to take form into the
| shapes of images, sometimes flashing between different ones
|
| - third stage directly after this is the "exploding head" part
| that doesn't happen 100% of the time but right in between that
| hypnogogic boundary I get an incredibly loud buzzing sound in my
| head, accompanied by a deep sense of terror - almost like you get
| from sleep paralysis.
|
| - fourth stage, once you get past that, you enter a light "dream"
| state where you start to feel like you can move your arms and
| legs and walk around, even if you don't see anything - it's a
| very weird sensation because you can still "feel" your physical
| body lying in the bed at this time. I believe this is when sleep
| paralysis is happening.
|
| - fifth stage I am in a dream state and fully lucid. I can
| maintain that state for a while before either losing the dream
| and waking up or falling deeper into unconsciousness. What's odd
| is in this state I am almost always in a dream-representation of
| my house. 99.999% of the time. Initially my doctors thought this
| was when I was sleep walking, but cameras ruled this out.
|
| I have a bunch of other parasomnias like sleep walking/talking
| and bed wetting stuff when I was younger. It's all related
| somehow, but no one really knows what's going on that I've talked
| to so far. It's kind of cool but can occasionally lead to crappy
| stuff like insomnia or poor quality sleep, or when I injure
| myself sleep walking. The only thing that's ever come up in a
| sleep study (which I struggle to take because in those settings I
| can't fall asleep normally) is that I enter REM sleep very
| quickly, almost like a narcoleptic, but that was never the formal
| diagnosis. Another thing that's happened in more recent years,
| ever since I experienced DMT, that I will occasionally have
| dreams where my sense of time literally feels like _decades_ have
| passed. It 'll always be super mundane stuff too, and when I wake
| up it's a really disturbing feeling.
| pureheartlover wrote:
| That mirrors almost exactly the process of astral travelling.
| You might be interested in the book "How to Know Higher Worlds"
| by Rudolf Steiner.
| kfrzcode wrote:
| This is essentially what the advanced tantric sadhana of dream
| yoga is all about... Lucid dreaming is a super power. Cultivate
| a practice of recognizing when you are in a dream state (during
| sleep) and building the ability to visualize intently with the
| minds eye is essentially what all the esoteric traditions are
| trying to teach.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_yoga
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I don't really believe there is anything mystical about it,
| but yea, that stuff is interesting - and I am well practiced
| at becoming lucid _during_ a dream state, due to chronic
| severe nightmares I 've had since a very young age. But, what
| I am describing here looks and feels way different to me.
|
| However, this is funny:
|
| > According to Kragh, "The yogi is here instructed to think
| of whatever dream arises as being merely a dream and to
| relate to it without any fear. If he dreams of water, he
| should plunge into it or walk across it. He should jump into
| an abyss or sit down to be bitten by dream-dogs or beaten by
| dream enemies. He should fly in air, visit the god realms, or
| go sight-seeing in India."
|
| > Blessing as illusory and getting rid of fear - Here, the
| yogi checks their mind during the dream to see if there is
| even the slightest fear, and if so, they should let go of it
| by recognizing that they are only in a dream. Once they've
| mastered the feeling of complete unobstructedness, they have
| "blessed their dreams as illusory" (sgyu ma byin gyis brlabs
| pa).
|
| I basically do this but didn't know it was a thing. When I
| experience that sleep-paralysis like terror in a dream state,
| I try to conjure up the most horrible thing I can imagine
| until it goes away, stuff like that. Nothing ever comes.
| david-gpu wrote:
| If you want to learn more about Dream Yoga, Alan Wallace's
| Dreaming Yourself Awake is a great resource that includes
| guidance and exercises you can practice.
|
| When you experience fear in a dream, remind yourself that
| what you experience is not what you are, in the same way
| that the movie is not the same as the screen on which it is
| projected. The monsters in our dreams are a reification of
| our fear, and the best way to address them is by allowing
| conpassion to arise and kindly comfort your fear as you
| would do with a child who is scared. Nothing in your
| dreamscape can harm you.
|
| Anyway, I hope this helps. Alan Wallace recommends letting
| the monster hurt you in your dream, but personally I think
| it is not the optimum approach.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why is lucid dreaming a super power? What can you practically
| do with it?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| For me, I can do a lot of things - when I'm very proficient
| (it feels like a skill that can atrophy like any other
| skill can) I can conjure entire worlds and scenarios I'd
| never be able to simulate in real life - I can have sex
| with who I want, I can go to the top of a mountain, I can
| fly. This stuff is occasionally useful for my creative
| writing. more practically though, I've been using it lately
| to access memories that are usually very difficult to
| access in my waking life due to severe trauma. it's been
| very useful for that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Hmm, ok. I lucid dream, but I can also daydream with
| nearly the same clarity. I use the daydreaming for most
| visualization and memory recall use cases. I could see
| how vivid dreaming could be used instead of that.
| david-gpu wrote:
| In stage three I have never felt any fear.
|
| I believe what you are feeling in stage four is not your real
| body on your bed. You probably lost the sensations of your
| physical body around phases two or three. Rather, by stage four
| you are already experiencing a dream and you haven't
| "projected" a particular visual image yet.
|
| I suspect that "astral projections" are nothing but non-lucid
| dreams in which people dream that they are on their bed without
| realizing that it's not real.
|
| How much do you normally sleep? To me it sounds like the sort
| of experiences I have when severely sleep deprived, especially
| the part about entering REM really fast.
| oorza wrote:
| This happens to me. Started in my twenties and I was convinced I
| had a brain tumor. I'll be almost entirely asleep, then I get
| jerked by a weird electric buzz sound, like the buzz of a
| transformer, and it feels like my body from the shoulders up is
| zapped with electricity, then I get terribly anxious. And then I
| don't get to sleep that night more often than not because of the
| anxiety.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| I get this too occasionally.
|
| I find it correlates with being extra stressed or exhausted. If
| I workout too hard, or stay up to long or too much is happening
| at work and I'm tanked, I get the ZZZAAPPPP noise in my head
| when falling asleep.
|
| A lot of folks say its related to withdrawing from
| Antidepressants. But I'm not on anything and havent been, so
| who knows what actually causes it
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Exploding head is very much a sleeping thing.
|
| Brain zaps can be while fully awake.
| joe5150 wrote:
| If you have a chance to see _Memoria_ by Apichatpong
| Weerasethakul, you definitely should. Tilda Swinton plays a woman
| with this condition.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoria_(2021_film)
| wyldfire wrote:
| "Drive" [1] was a really fun episode of "The X-Files" featuring
| exploding head(s).
|
| And - interesting anecdote about it:
|
| > The episode was written by Vince Gilligan, directed by Rob
| Bowman, and featured a guest appearance by Bryan Cranston.
| Gilligan cast Cranston to play the antagonist because he felt he
| could successfully humanize the role. Cranston's success in
| "Drive" later led to his casting as Walter White in Gilligan's
| AMC series Breaking Bad.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(The_X-Files)
| deisteve wrote:
| similar but for me and this only happens after I've taken large
| amount of edibles before falling asleep
|
| instead of a large bomb I hear a loud scream in my head usually
| when i have to be awakened due to urge to urinate
|
| i now avoid taking large amount of edibles before I fall asleep
| waking up during the night and feeling paranoid
| Janicc wrote:
| It used to happen like every night in my teens. Now it's only
| like once a month. No real idea why. Maybe less stress
| wduquette wrote:
| I'm delighted that "Exploding Head Syndrome" isn't what I was
| afraid it was.
| airstrike wrote:
| for a minute I was worried "The Boys" might have been _too
| good_ about the current challenges to humanity's future...
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| I had 2-3 sleep paralysis events over a short period of time;
| seemed mostly self inflicted due to poor sleep hygiene and lots
| of travel, but the first time was very disconcerting. I was "90%"
| awake, but unable to get my body to do _anything_ for what felt
| like a long time. I didn 't really feel a "presence" like other
| describe, but maybe I was just distracted.
|
| The next time it happened (a few days later), I had a plan. I
| knew I had limited control over my lips and drooling/spitting, so
| I just did what I could with that until I couldn't breath; Didn't
| take long to wake up for real after that :)
| Swizec wrote:
| I used to get sleep paralysis a lot. Almost daily. Easiest to
| trigger when you're falling asleep but your mind is racing. At
| one point you'll notice that your body has fallen asleep but
| your mind has not yet.
|
| At this point you have two options:
|
| 1. Just wait. You'll fall asleep soon and then all good
|
| 2. Focus very very hard on moving _something_. Eventually your
| body gives way and unlocks. Now you can move
|
| These days I use option 1 when going to bed. Got so used to it
| that I don't notice the paralysis part anymore. Option 2 is
| good when you need to get up in the morning or when you were
| startled awake (or just need to pee) at night and your body
| hasn't caught up yet.
|
| Ok I guess I still get sleep paralysis a lot but I got used to
| how it feels heh
| altruios wrote:
| 3. Focus very hard on staying conscious and you get to
| remember the process of falling asleep (do not recommend).
| david-gpu wrote:
| Why do you not recommend?
|
| Pretty much every night I attempt to fall asleep
| consciously and nothing bad has happened, as far as I can
| tell. Witnessing the transition from being awake, to light
| and deep sleep, and finally the emergence of dreams -- it's
| a fun experience, and it automatically rewards you with a
| lucid dream.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > seemed mostly self inflicted due to poor sleep hygiene
|
| And a lot of coffee, especially in the afternoon.
| daedrdev wrote:
| I get the related hypnic jerks they mentioned, just suddenly my
| whole body jerks a little every so often, I think it goes away
| when I am not getting enough sleep funnily enough
| guerrilla wrote:
| Hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep pralysis, sleep walking and
| night terrors I've had but the most fucked up one I've had is
| compulsive night eating. The sleep walking was also night eating
| but a bit diffeent: unconcious rather than compulsive. I wonder
| if there really is a big difference. If you've never had a true
| compulsion, I have to tell you it's a lot stranger than you
| think. I could stand there and tell myself to stop repeatedly and
| reason with myself, even put obstacles and reminders in my way
| ahead of time but it was like I was just a passanger in my own
| body. It took me two years of fighting it full time. Literally
| harder to stop than actual drug addiction. I think it came from a
| sleep medication that I had discontinued by then but the damage
| somehow stayed with me.
|
| What worked was eating a lot much later before bed and then still
| doing battle with all my other tricks like obstacles, etc.
|
| Recurring nightmare hallucinations suck too though. I used to
| wake up absolutely certain there were snakes in my bed, get up,
| turn on the light and look through my bed. It took me minutes to
| fully wake up and realize it was a dream. I think I was able to
| fix that by imagining the dream but with a pleaeant ending before
| I went to sleep. I'm not sure if that works but it did stop after
| that. I didn't even know recurring nightmares were a thing. I
| thought that was just from movies.
| bafe wrote:
| I've had both hypnagogic hallucinations and night terrors a lot
| when I was younger, up until my early 30s. They almost
| disappeared now, which I can't really explain. For me the worst
| were the hallucinations, the most recurring one was seeing a
| dark figure abseiling from the ceiling or from the window,
| which after waking reveals to be a ceiling lamp or a curtain.
| It's terrifying stuff while you experience it and I even broken
| stuff in a desperate reaction of throwing objects to defend
| against the "intruder"
| stillbourne wrote:
| I have this. When it first started I thought there were like
| secret gang wars going on in my apartment complex. I would wake
| up hearing a _BANG_. I called 911 a couple of time even thinking
| it was gunshots, but they police said no one else heard anything.
| I started asking my neighbors if they had heard it too. That 's
| when I started to realize that I was hearing things. I talked to
| my doctor and that's when I learned about exploding head
| syndrome.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Yes, I had this during an extremely stressful life crisis.
|
| Basically woke up believing a bomb went off in my neighborhood.
| Absolutely real and startling and disorienting.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Is this the same thing as night frights that some people are
| prone to?
| russdill wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by "night frights". Are you talking
| about "night terrors"? As someone who experienced EHS a lot
| when I was younger and who's seen someone with night terrors,
| they are very, very different things.
| lkrubner wrote:
| On a slightly different topic, we now know that a surprisingly
| large number of people suffer daytime "hallucinations without
| delusion" meaning they see things but they know the things are
| not real. And I've often wondered if that is some kind of
| dysfunction of the sleep cycle. If we think of dreams as a kind
| of hallucination, then is daytime "hallucination without
| delusion" a kind of dreaming while awake? I'd like to see more
| research on that question.
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