I first experienced exploding head syndrome in the early nineteen seventies and was really frightened by the experience. I was lying on my bed when all of a sudden it was as if a bomb had gone off in my head and it freaked me out.
I happened again a few times over the next few days and I thought I had something really wrong with my brain or something.
I was too poor to go to the doctor so I just carried on and hoped for the best.
I’ve put up with it all these decades and mostly when I’m not stressed it doesn’t happen; it does seem to happen when I’m busy thinking, and most usually just before I go to sleep.
As you can imagine, I was afraid to go to sleep at first; these days I practice meditation and mindlessness to offset my own thoughts causing me harm.
Google says that exploding head syndrome is a parasomnia event where the subject experiences a loud bang or bomb going off inside the head.
A few years ago I also started experience ringing in the ears that is sometimes very loud, but this is entirely different from exploding head syndrome.
For me, the hypnagogic jerk is an all encompassing explosion that completely immobilises me for a moment and comes from inside my brain somewhere.
Some say it is nerves misfiring. Others say it is an ancient primate reflex that woke us up and stopped us from falling off the branch and out of the tree.
I’m lucky and don’t get it every night; sometimes it goes away for years and then suddenly it happens again, and I never know when it will happen.
Image from Pixabay
Below is a link to more information on exploding head syndrome.