Ever been suddenly awakened from sleep by something that sounds like booming thunder,
a shotgun blast, or perhaps a bomb singing the song of its people?
But when you awake, you realize there was no apparent external source for the sound?
Well, congratulations, you just experienced a rather curious condition known as Exploding
Head Syndrome, and you’ve likely not got long to live….
Or do you?
Well, you’ll just have to watch to the end of this video to find out!
;-) Who first documented the bizarre phenomenon
isn’t precisely known, though Rene Descartes’ seems to have experienced such.
As described by Adrien Baillet in his La vie de Monsieur Descartes, where he states after
Descartes had one of his famous three dreams, he lay awake thinking about the “blessing
and evils of this world,” and then drifted off back to sleep on November 10, 1619.
He then, “had a new dream in which he believed he
heard a sharp and shattering noise, which he took for a clap of thunder.
The fright it gave him woke him directly, and after opening his eyes he perceived many
sparkling lights scattered about the room.
The same thing had often happened to him at other times…”
While Descartes seems to have thought these particular dreams on that night were divine
in nature, modern physicians think it likely he simply was one of at least 10% of people,
and probably many more, who occasionally experience the phenomenon of Exploding Head Syndrome.
As for the first medical professional to not only document the syndrome, but study it in
great detail, we have to fast-forward to 1876 and famed American physician Silas Weir Mitchell,
today known as the father of medical neurology.
For example, in his Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System: Especially in Women, he
describes the experience of one patient: “When just falling asleep, he became conscious
of something like an aura passing up from his feet.
When it reached his head, he felt what he described as an explosion.
It was so violent and so loud, that for a time, he could not satisfy himself that he
was not hurt.
The sensation was that of a pistol-shot, or as of a bursting of something, followed by
a momentary sense of deadly fear…”
In another case, he notes the individual in question when perceiving this aura traveling
up his body, if he awakened himself to full consciousness before it reached his head,
he could stop the explosive sound from ever occurring.
In yet another case, the individual notes, for him, it’s not actually a loud explosion,
but the sound of a ringing bell, and sometimes “that of a guitar string, rudely struck,
and which breaks with a twang.”
Fascinatingly, Dr. Mitchell even found one single example of a person who experienced
the phenomenon not just while drifting off to sleep or while asleep, but also while fully
awake.
She described: “…after a slight heat-stroke, and a new exposure to severe fatigue of body
and mind, I experienced… a sensation like the explosion of a pistol in my head.
I hardly know how otherwise to describe it.
A few months later, I began to have what I have always since called my shocks.
A peculiar something, which for want of a better name I call electricity, starts from
my head, chest, stomach, or bowels, and seems to pervade me in a flash, then comes the sense
of shock in the head and an uncontrollable shriek.
At first, it never came unless my eyes were shut, but for one week, when I was most highly
nervous and sleepless, it would come if I was startled by any sudden sound, and then
I found that for a short period I could cause it by touching a spot over my stomach…
Of late these shocks are not always preceded by any length of warning, and are in the head
alone.
They come mostly as I am going to sleep, and by straining my eyes to keep them open, I
can sometimes prevent the shocks altogether.
I should say, that there is often some queer sense of chilliness in my head for an hour
before the shocks, which is in a general way a warning of what may come….After absence
from home and freedom from cares, I have been exempt from these shocks for weeks or months.”
This condition eventually became known as “snapping head syndrome” in the early
20th century, but didn’t receive more serious attention until 1989 when neurologist J.M.S.
Pearce examined 50 patients with the condition.
In his paper, Clinical Features of the Exploding Head Syndrome, he notes,
“[Although] some start in childhood . . . the commonest age of onset remains middle and
old age . . . . The pattern of episodes of explosions is . . . variable.
Some report 2 to 4 attacks followed by prolonged or total remission, others have more frequent
attacks up to 7 in one night, for several nights each week and may then remit for several
months…”
A separate study, this one done in 1991, The Exploding Head Syndrome: Polysomnographic
Recordings and Therapeutic Suggestions, states, “Five of the six cases who underwent daytime
polysomnography slept during parts of the recording in stages 1-2.
Only two reported attacks of explosions.
One patient had two attacks while she was awake and relaxed . . . . In . . . her attacks
there was . . . an alerting effect.
The other case reported after the recording session that he had experienced an explosion
during sleep.
According to his EEG, he had not, in fact, slept at all during the recording.
. . .[i]” Beyond the whole extremely loud exploding
or banging sound, as alluded to, among the interesting symptoms described by patients
includes a bright flash of light and a sensation of inability to breathe for a moment, resulting
in the subjects having to very forcibly and consciously start breathing again.
As you might imagine, this is a rather disconcerting sensation, with some misinterpreting it, their
racing heart, and sometimes a temporary stabbing pain or bizarre tingling sensation in the
head or extremities as perhaps having a stroke or a heart attack.
Others interpret the whole thing as maybe being brain tumor based, and some even go
so far as thinking perhaps they were abducted by aliens or the like and placed back in bed
after.
The boom and flash of light then presumably being the space ship rocketing off.
So what actually causes Exploding Head Syndrome?
Lizard people of course.
But for those wanting the root cause put forth by those refusing to accept the truth or otherwise
pushing the agenda of our Lizard overlords, may they reign forever, as for Dr. Mitchell
way back in the 19th century, he strongly connected it with people who were stressed
or exhausted, noting, “I have seen a large number of persons who suffer in like fashion
from some one of the various forms.
The most of the cases are women worn out, or tired out, and hysterical, whether strong
and well-nourished or not.
In sturdy men it is rare, unless they be excessive users of tobacco.”
So what advancements of modern physicians made on tracking down the source of the problem?
Well not much actually in terms of anything definitive, though there is a pretty solid
hypothesis as to what generally is going on, even if the specifics aren’t clear.
First, modern physicians agree with Dr. Mitchell that anxiety, stress and fatigue seem to contribute
to triggering it.
One study, Topiramate Responsive Exploding Head Syndrome, looking at the effectiveness
of topiramate (an anticonvulsant used to treat seizures) did note “mother and daughter
have similar symptomatology, raising the possibility that [EHS] may be hereditary,” but whether
this is actually true has not yet been proven.
As for something more specific, the limited studies monitoring the activity of the brain
while people are experiencing the phenomenon show a marked spike in neural activity right
when explosive or other symptoms are occurring.
This seems to happen right when the body is more or less transitioning from wakefulness
to sleep, with, as one researcher studying the phenomenon, Brian Sharpless of Washington
State University, describes as like a “hiccup in the reticular formation”, a network in
the brain that plays a role in maintaining consciousness and general arousal, among other
things.
Sharpless goes on, “We think the neurons [responsible for processing sound] are all
firing at once”.
The result is then a really loud bang, even though your ear drums didn’t actually initiate
the neurons firing.
Presumably a similar thing is happening for flashes of light and strong smells experienced
by others, sometimes in addition to the sound or sometimes by themselves.
In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnagogic jerk that
pretty much everyone has experienced from time to time when transitioning from wakefulness
to sleep.
As for treatments, going back to 19th century Dr. Mitchell, he avoids recommending leeches,
and instead recommends rest and reduction of outside anxieties.
Fast-forwarding over a century, and the recommendation remains the same, albeit a bit more specific,
things like Yoga, relaxing reading (so, you know, not politics or social media), a hot
bath before bed, relaxing music, and listening to the sweet, calming sound of my voice as
I impart knowledge to you while you drift to sleep; it’s also strongly recommended
in this case you keep autoplay on for the TodayIFoundOut channel and just let it run
all night for maximal results.
In a nutshell, all of this trying to get you to relax before bed and watch more TodayIFoundOut
or listen to more of our BrainFood Show podcast, which is always a good thing regardless of
whether you have Exploding Head Syndrome.
It’s also noted that patients who previously didn’t understand what was happening when
this occurred, and thus often had anxiety about it when falling asleep, tended to have
a marked reduction in recurrence simply by learning about the syndrome and that it seems
completely harmless other than being a bit startling to endure.
As Dr. Sharpless asserts, “You can help a lot just by reassuring a person that they’re
not crazy or experiencing symptoms of a tumor or some other brain disorder.”
That said, we feel obliged to point out that just because experiencing Exploding Head Syndrome
isn’t a marker of being crazy, the fact that you have doesn’t actually mean you
AREN’T crazy either.
It just means you’re not imagining this phenomenon.
You still could be crazy or have a brain tumor and be about to die… any minute now.
As for drug treatments, in a 2010 study, the aforementioned quite limited sample study
indicated that topiramate lessened the intensity of EHS events but did not diminish its frequency.
The study's authors also noted that other helpful drug therapies have included clonesapam,
nifedipine, flunarizine and clomipramnine.
That said, even for those drugs that have shown signs of being effective, when you actually
look into the matter as we did, the data supporting this conclusion is mostly non-existent, usually
studies looking at just a handful of people for their sample.
Given the condition is pretty random as is, judging whether the medication actually helped
or not falls squarely in the age old “further research needed” camp.
On that note, not only is further research needed on every facet of this seemingly quite
common phenomenon, even the name has been suggested to need further tweaking, as hearing
a loud explosion is just one form of probably the same basic syndrome, given others experience
flashing light, or strong smells and the like instead or in addition to the noise.
Thus, it’s been suggested that a more apt name would be “Episodic Cranial Sensory
Shock”, though that doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Exploding Head Syndrome”
and certainly wouldn’t get as many clicks for those of us trying to spread the word
about the condition, and that it’s nothing to worry about…
Except for in your case, Steve.
Speaking of getting clicks for something useful- Skillshare!
…. Bonus Fact:
Speaking of bizarre mental phenomenon, it turns out some people can’t see faces of
other humans.
The condition is known as "prosopagnosia" / "facial agnosia", or in less medical terms:
"face blindness".
("Prosopagnosia" actually literally means: "face ignorance")
Once thought to be incredibly rare, with only 100 or so documented cases up until the last
decade or so, it's now thought that around 1 in every 50 people has some level of this,
with those on the Autistic spectrum particularly usually experiencing the condition.
Of course, for most people, they just have a really hard time recognizing people by their
faces, rather than being completely unable to.
That said, for some, the condition is so severe that they can't even recognize their own face,
let alone someone else's.
There are also instances of people with prosopagnosia who are unable to tell whether what they are
looking at is a face at all or simply a picture of an oddly shaped rock or just random objects.
To be clear, face blindness isn't a problem with the people's ability to see, nor do people
with this condition have memory problems.
They just can't, or have difficulty with, recognizing faces.
Why not?
It turns out when most people see faces, their brain processes the face as a whole, rather
than by its individual parts.
For people with prosopagnosia, they see the individual parts, but are not capable of perceiving
the face holistically, making it incredibly difficult to recognize someone by their face.
As to why this is happening, there is a special part of our brain that has facilities for
"seeing" faces and recognizing them later.
This shouldn't be too surprising as most people know from experience that when they see people
from other racial backgrounds they aren't very familiar with, there is often that politically
incorrect thought of "They all look the same."
However, if you spend time around a lot of people in that other race, you'll quickly
find that your brain begins to be able to distinguish between people that not long before
you thought all looked the same, but now no longer do.
Once this happens, you'll easily and quickly be able to distinguish between such people
and might well wonder how on Earth you used to think that people of that ethnicity "all
looked the same".
The specific part of the brain that's thought to not function properly in the cases of prosopagnosia
is known as the fusiform gyrus, This handles things like visual word recognition, color
processing, and face and body recognition, among other things.
This system of the brain allows people to more readily distinguish faces than they would,
say, one rock from another rock, or other similarly complex inanimate objects.
For people with prosopagnosia, they rely more on the brain's facilities of object recognition,
which takes much more training to distinguish one similar looking object from another.
This more generic object recognition system is how an arborist can instantly recognize
what tree a leaf came from, even if it's extremely similar to another leaf from a different type
of tree.
They can do this through significant training.
Similarly, a geologist can recognize what type of rock something is even if it strongly
resembles a different type of rock- again, they can do this only after quite a bit of
experience and training.
For most people, we simply learn faces quickly and easily without conscious thought using
the special "facial recognition" mechanism of the brain designated for this, rather than
relying on the generic object recognition system.
As you can imagine, people with more severe levels of the condition have difficulty with
certain aspects of socializing, leading many to adopt the practice of always looking down
when walking, so that they can act like they don't see people, in case they come across
someone they know, but don't recognize.
When they do encounter someone, many often adopt the practice of being overly friendly
to everyone, in case the person they are talking to isn't a stranger.
In the course of the conversation, they try to determine whether it's someone they actually
know or not and who the person is.
How clever people are at naturally masking face blindness is, according to one Dr. Thomas
Gruter of the Institute o Human Genetics, "probably why [the disorder] went unnoticed
for so long."
As one woman with this condition, Cecilia Burman, said, "People think I'm just snobby...
It makes me really, really sad to lose new friends because they think I couldn't bother
to say hello."
Burman's fairly low on the spectrum in that she has trouble recognizing her own mother's
face and even has difficulty recognizing her own face in pictures or the mirror.
The problem isn't just about saying "hello", though.
Not surprisingly, people with face blindness also tend to have problems interpreting facial
expressions.
This can make it difficult at times to properly gauge a person's mood or the like, which can
further make someone with face blindness seem insensitive or misinterpret what someone's
saying.
In the end, there is no known cure for prosopagnosia and treatment options have proven fairly ineffective
to date.
The primary way to treat the condition is simply to teach people to pay attention to
things like hair style and color, body types, frequently worn clothing, jewelry, etc. to
help recognize people.
As most born with this condition already do this naturally, having picked up on it from
a young age, there really isn't a whole lot in the way of actual treatment that can help
them yet.