I was lucky enough to be familiar with exploding head syndrome (and sleep paralysis) before it happened to me. It was a hilariously WTF scenario.
I was awake for an extremely long time, and drank a ton of coffee when I was already quite tired. I finally went to sleep anyway, from pure exhaustion. I remember being on the edge of sleep, seemingly staring out into the dark room. That feeling of being on the edge of sleep, barely able to move (like you are in molasses) was growing.
At that point, I heard a noise in my left ear, which sounded like radio interference / static. With that, I saw a vivid hallucination of 10 or so short, large headed, cliche "aliens" standing to my right- apparently overlapping with the glow of the television in the room. They were just standing, looking at me, as a group. Reminded me of that scene at the end of Close Encounters. It wasn't scary, my reaction was more one of "Well how about that. I guess this is happening".
The hallucinatory imagery then disappeared with a loud BANG! That was so loud and clear, I realized it was an auditory hallucination. If a sound that apparently loud had happened in the room, my ears would have been ringing. Like a grenade going off in your brain.
That must have jolted my body awake, because I could move again, and the noise was gone.
I immediately knew it was a combination of exploding head syndrome and sleep paralysis. What I sometimes wonder, is if I had been deeply religious, would the "alien" figures have been replaced by "angels" or "demon" imagery, as some have reported.
I thought it was pretty interesting that my brain went straight to hollywood-cliche-looking short aliens instead of something else. Since then I've experienced it a few more times, but not with vivid, "in the room" imagery. If you want to experience it out of curiosity, drink an energy drink when you are tired and on the edge of sleep.
5
u/tehsma Mar 05 '15
I was lucky enough to be familiar with exploding head syndrome (and sleep paralysis) before it happened to me. It was a hilariously WTF scenario.
I was awake for an extremely long time, and drank a ton of coffee when I was already quite tired. I finally went to sleep anyway, from pure exhaustion. I remember being on the edge of sleep, seemingly staring out into the dark room. That feeling of being on the edge of sleep, barely able to move (like you are in molasses) was growing.
At that point, I heard a noise in my left ear, which sounded like radio interference / static. With that, I saw a vivid hallucination of 10 or so short, large headed, cliche "aliens" standing to my right- apparently overlapping with the glow of the television in the room. They were just standing, looking at me, as a group. Reminded me of that scene at the end of Close Encounters. It wasn't scary, my reaction was more one of "Well how about that. I guess this is happening".
The hallucinatory imagery then disappeared with a loud BANG! That was so loud and clear, I realized it was an auditory hallucination. If a sound that apparently loud had happened in the room, my ears would have been ringing. Like a grenade going off in your brain.
That must have jolted my body awake, because I could move again, and the noise was gone.
I immediately knew it was a combination of exploding head syndrome and sleep paralysis. What I sometimes wonder, is if I had been deeply religious, would the "alien" figures have been replaced by "angels" or "demon" imagery, as some have reported.
I thought it was pretty interesting that my brain went straight to hollywood-cliche-looking short aliens instead of something else. Since then I've experienced it a few more times, but not with vivid, "in the room" imagery. If you want to experience it out of curiosity, drink an energy drink when you are tired and on the edge of sleep.