You know i never really knew until i recently researched it. but i have a condition called "Exploding head syndrome" while it sounds pretty epic and frightening its not.
EHS only occurs for me when i am under periods of great stress such as numerous looming deadlines for a number of clients, or adjusting to sleeping in a new place. Once it occurs, it is initially startling, but within 2 seconds i realize what happened.
It manifests itself when i am just drifting off to sleep... when suddenly i will experience and auditory and visual hallucination lasting only a brief second or two
the auditory component is similar to a balloon bursting, or a single second of very loud TV static and is similar in volume to what both events would actually be. More commonly the full volume TV static sound would be encountered.
the visual component is a simple white flash of light - though my eyes are closed, and i am just entering sleep. It is best compared to being in a dark, featureless room and suddenly there is a strike of lightening
the event lasts approximately one or maybe two seconds and is over
the first time i experienced this i was a young man in my late teens or early twenties... i dont remember exactly, but i do remember waking up, and walking around my room and bathroom looking for the source of this bright noisy flash, thinking that something "electrical" had taken place like a light bulb becoming over powered and busting (you know the sound i mean?) and woke me up. i found nothing and went back to bed.
after experiencing this several other times i determined that it was some sort of physiological response that my body was having as a reaction to natural sleep. I had heard of people twitching or kicking a leg upon falling asleep as the brains way of "making sure it was still alive" so very soon - perhaps after the third episode, i dismissed it as being just how my brain sometimes responds to shutting down for the night.
It was not until after experiencing this several times that i grew to realize that it seemed to occur during periods of stress or fatigue.
i would estimate that i experience perhaps as few as 3 to maybe as many as 5 bouts of "EHS" per year - though i never really counted them.
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