When I go to bed and the house is all quite kids settled etc. just as I’m dropping off I hear like a loud bang (sounds like 2 symbols been banged together!!) don’t know whether it’s just in my head or it really has happened but my head buzzes for ages after!! Strange I know I’ve woken my husband and said did you hear that but he just looks at me gone out. Has anyone else ever experienced this??
I think it’s called a hypnagogic hallucination, which can be visual or auditory and happens just as you’re dropping of to sleep. It is also related in some way to sudden jerking of the limbs as you are on the verge of falling asleep. I get this qute a lot and it seems to be worse the more tired or stressed I am.
Carrie
Hi Bambi,
There is such a thing as Exploding Head Syndrome (I kid you not!), which is a harmless, poorly understood, but scary phenomenon, where patients may experience what they perceive as a loud explosion whilst drifting off to sleep. Sometimes it’s acompanied by a bright flash, as well. I don’t think it has anything directly to do with MS, but can happen to anyone.
I think I had it once, years ago, as a child (well before MS). I was lying in bed, when there was what I took to be an enormous explosion. A flash came from what seemed to be outside - I was lying facing the curtains, at the time, and it seemed like they lit up.
I was very scared, and immediately wide awake, and expected there to be some evidence of the huge blast, or at least that there was a thunderstorm or something. But when I was upset and asked my parents what it was, they didn’t know about any “loud bang”.
I never found out what it was, and it never happened again. I had to accept it as some sort half sleeping, half waking dream. Years later, as an adult, I read about Exploding Head Syndrome, and thought: “Yup, that sounds like it!”. I was surprised to find it’s not that rare, but we still don’t really know what causes it. Nothing really is exploding, though - it’s not part of the brain self-destructing.
Tina
x
Hi Bambi, I started getting this a few years back and did some google research. I found a neurological condition called ‘Exploding Head Syndrome’!!!
Yep I know it sounds like a joke but it happens to be true! Google it and see.
It is apparently harmless & although it might be our MS that has caused it, it isn’t particularly linked to MS.
I mentioned it once to neuro who just gave me a strange look and didn’t comment (wonderful social skills as per usual!)… but at least you’ll now have a name for it.
Pat x
Tina and I posted at same time… so you see 2 people who know about this strange syndrome!!!
Haha, great minds, Pat.
T.
x
Thank you all was starting to think I was going mad. Just another to add to my list of ailments, and I’ll google it and see what it’s all about. Thanks xx
Hi what a strange title for something. I think I`ve heard something similar on odd occassions.
Now if I tell my hubby it has a name like Exploding Head Syndrome, Im sure hell think I`ve really lost it!
luv Pollx
Poll Rang my husband this afternoon and he couldn’t stop laughing at me 
I told him to google it which he did. He’s just emailed me to say when he’s next home he’s moving into the garage dosen’t want to run the risk of me waking him evertime it happens!! Lol think he was joking (i hope he was anyway) xx
Val I have an appt nex wed with my neuro I’m going to mention it to her and see what she says. Oh and it is called exploding head syndrome I’d never heard of it! It’s the strangest thing ever when it happens and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what’s waking me in the middle of the night, that & the leg pain. The joys eh xx
Tina, I was astonished to see someone I knew referring to this strange phenomenon. I know a bit about it because my mother suffered from it about 15 years ago. The doctor had nothing to offer except to say (just as you do) that it was nothing to worry about, but that was not how it felt to her, being regularly woken by what felt like a pistol shot, or an explosion, in her skull. I searched on the internet and found stuff about ‘exploding head syndrome’ and she was enormously reassured to find that she was not the only person in the world to suffer from it!
Bambi, I am glad to say that it stopped happening for my mum, or stopped being a sleep-disrupting nuisance, anyway. Occasionally she would get a hint of it, but after a few months, the alarming and violent noises stopped and never recurred. I hope that you find the same.
Alison
Absolutely astonished to discover that my husband, who I have known for nearly 32 years, also has this!
My, “You’ll never believe this - there’s a thing called exploding head syndrome…” revealed something he’d never told me in all that time - he’s had it for as long as he can remember!
(He doesn’t have MS btw.)
Karen x