A long while back I was hanging out with one of my sisters and she said that she hears thunder in her head when she gets startled.
Me: “Scuse me. What?”
Her: “You know. That thunder you hear when someone startles you.”
Me: “Again. What?”
Her: “You don’t hear thunder when someone startles you?”
Me: “Uh, no.”
Her: “Oh. I thought that happened to everybody.”
Is this a thing? Does this happen to anybody else out there? She did struggle with depression for much of her life. Could that have had something to do with it?
Doesn’t sound the same, but I have the excellently named Exploding Head Syndrome. Could be something related?
I’ve never heard this term but the second I read it I knew exactly what it meant. I get this when trying to sleep. I will be peacefully drifting off to sleep and suddenly I feel like I’m falling down through my bed towards the floor and I hear this loud whoosh/rumble/explosion. The two are so jarring that no matter how many times it happens it can’t just be ignored. When it happens over and over in the same night, it actually makes my ears ache. It is the major cause of my insomnia for the last 15 years.
Over the last 3-5 years I’ve experimented with Polyphasic sleep (short naps rather than one long sleep period) as well as better sleep hygiene (using red light to signal when it’s sleep time) and even more recently binaural beats (though sleeping with headphones is awkward at best).
Somehow it feels somewhat validating to know there is a term for this and it’s a known phenomena. I wish it was something that could be treated though.
I think yours is more specifically hypnic jerk.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
Though I haven’t heard of hypnic jerk with the loud sound. So maybe it’s a bit of both?
I have experienced something similar whenever I enter a lucid dreaming state. Sounds like roaring static as my brain switches over from ear input to dream sound input.
Oooooh I also get this occasionally! It’s absolutely terrifying, isn’t it? Like somebody has hit the “reset” button for your brain…
It’s awful when it happens but it’s so infrequent for me that it’s not too bad. Since having kids though it has evolved from a loud crash or bang to the sound of one of the kids screaming. My partner thinks I’m a complete loon when I go running into the kid’s room for seemingly no reason, just to find them sleeping peacefully.
