This has happened to me last night: a “bang” as loud as a gunshot woke me up.
It’s happened to me four other times over the past months. Previously the the sound that woke me was metal against metal, like a single crash of cymbals. It never happened before Trump came along, and to say I have been stressed out because of what Trump is doing is an understatement.
Here’s a more detailed description of what happened to me:
Last night at exactly 11:40 PM (I looked at the clock) after I fell asleep at about ten, a very loud “BANG!” sound woke me from a non-dreaming sleep. It came from very close to my head or actually inside my head. It sounded like a very sharp gunshot in the room with no reverberation like a real shot would have. I knew instantly it wasn’t a real noise because it happened before. I knew what it was and wasn't at all alarmed.
The first couple of times it happened I thought it was an actual noise in the house but when I ruled out all possible sounds (there’s a train about 150 feet from my house and once in a great there’s a loud sound when they start up and there’s metal on metal clanking sound). I looked up “loud bang sound waking a person from sleep” and sure enough there it was on Wikipedia and in several articles. I was surprise that this is a “real thing” and relieved to learn it is benign.
And guess what, it can be stress related.
Could Trump stress have done this to me? Has it done it to you? Doctors don’t know the cause but it is speculated stress can cause it. Again, it bears repeating, don’t worry, it is a benign condition that has a name that sounds like science fiction, however it is real.
This condition was thought to be rare until recently:
Many of the authors who published the early reports said that the disorder is rare—but judging by the growing number of anecdotal accounts in recent years, EHS may not be as uncommon as originally thought. Brian Sharpless, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University, wrote in his 2014 review of the disorder that because data on EHS is so limited, classifying the condition as rare might be premature. He cited a 2008 study in the German journal Somnologie, which estimated that EHS appears in 13.8 percent of psychiatric patients, 10 percent of patients with a sleeping disorder, and 10.8 percent of healthy people who answered a screening questionnaire. Sharpless also suggested that people may not report symptoms of EHS during a doctor’s visit, out of embarrassment about their unusual symptoms. “How to Defuse Exploding-Head Syndrome,” The Atlantic
Technically Exploding Head Syndrome is is called episodic cranial sensory shock,[1] snapping of the brain,[2] or auditory sleep start[3].
Here’s the Wikipedia definition (emphasis added):
Exploding head syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which a person experiences unreal noises that are loud and of short duration when falling asleep or waking up.[2][4] The noise may be frightening, typically occurs only occasionally, and is not a serious health concern.[2] People may also experience a flash of light.[5] Pain is typically absent.[2]
The cause is unknown.[3] Potential explanations include ear problems, temporal lobe seizure, nerve dysfunction, or specific genetic changes.[2] Potential risk factors include psychological stress.[2] It is classified as a sleep disorder or headache disorder.[2][5] People often go undiagnosed.[5]
There is no high quality evidence to support treatment.[2] Reassurance may be sufficient.[2] Clomipramine and calcium channel blockers have been tried.[2] While the frequency of the condition is not well studied, some have estimated that it occurs in about 10% of people.[2] Females are reportedly more commonly affected.[5] The condition was initially described at least as early as 1876.[2] The current name came into use in 1988.[5]
An article from Time Magazine:
Here’s an article from The Guardian:
Excerpt:
Of all the sleep disorders, “exploding head syndrome” (EHS) has arguably the most intriguing name. EHS has been described as “a sensory parasomnia characterised by the perception of loud noises and/or a sense of explosion in the head when transitioning to or from sleep. These noises are not associated with significant pain, but lead to abrupt arousal and feelings of fright”.
Although this phenomenon was first described as long ago as 1876, it was not given its colourful title until 1988. Despite its long history, it has received very little systematic research attention, with most of our knowledge being based upon small samples of case histories as opposed to large-scale investigations.
Here’s one from The Atlantic, “How to Defuse Exploding-Head SyndromeThe best treatment for the often-frightening condition—which causes sufferers to experience loud noises, light flashes, and strange sensations—may be as simple as soothing patients' fears.”
Excerpt:
The earliest known description of exploding-head syndrome, or EHS, dates back to 1876, when Philadelphia physician Silas Weir Mitchell published his paper “On Some of the Disorders of Sleep,” in the Virginia Medical Monthly. Mitchell described the case of a patient he called Mr. V, who experienced a “sense of a pistol shot or a blow on the head.” Mr. V complained of “a noise in my head, which is sometimes like the sound of a bell, which has been struck once … or else I hear a loud noise, which is most like that of a guitar string, rudely struck, and which breaks with a twang.” In 1920, Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, a Welsh psychiatrist, described several psychiatric patients whose symptoms included terrifying nighttime experiences with “snapping of the brain.”
There are many more articles and several YouTube videos if you are curious and want to do a web search. If you’re scientifically inclined you can also search Google Scholar for journal articles.
Please take the poll whether you think you’ve experienced this or not. The more people who take it the more valid the results will be. Of course because this is Daily Kos the results will be based on a skewed sample of progressives who are nearly 100% worried about what Trump is doing to the country.
If you are concerned about this ask your primary care physician to refer you to a neurologist. They may want to do an EEG to rule out temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), which is most often successfully treated with medication . TLE often goes unrecognised because people and even their physicians may attribute some of the symptoms to something else. Some people may have only one of these symptoms.
I will share the results of the poll below with a physician at the neurology department at the medical school in Portland, Oregon Health and Science University, OHSU, which has a renown neurology department called the Brain Institute.