Monday, 8 December 2014

Odd

Some years ago now, I was startled from sleep by a very vivid impression. A loud, crashing chord, and a sudden powerful image – as it happened, a head-and-shoulders of a pale-faced young man standing in front of a tall (it must have been, I couldn’t see the top of it), neatly clipped beech hedge in very bright sunshine. I didn’t know him. But the crashing chord was so loud and the image so sudden, bright and insistent, that it startled me awake.

A few years after that I was travelling to London on the train when again a sudden, loud, crashing chord sounded in my head, and some memorable words about my life in the future (yet to be tested, it related to old age) came in to my mind.

Then last night, at twenty past four, I was startled out of sleep by the most tremendous, rending, tearing crash – like someone dropped a skip onto the road from a height. It was cataclysmic, apocalyptically loud. Eventually I got up and went to look around the house, fearful in case something dreadful had happened. All calm and peaceful; just inside my own head.


What is this? Is it a neurological phenomenon?

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18 comments:

  1. Katrina Green8 December 2014 at 19:08

    I've had experiences of being awakened by the doorbell ringing or the sound of someone knocking at the door, amazingly true to life, but again it was inside my head. From my reading about tinnitis, it appears that there is a condition involving a sound memory being replayed in the head. I've also had loud bangs, but not such as you describe, which sounds as if it could feel quite frightening. I wonder if it relates to stress?

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  2. Pen Wilcock8 December 2014 at 19:12

    Over on Facebook, a friend says it sounds like this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
    xx

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  3. Paula Sullivan8 December 2014 at 19:17

    This chord phenomena that you describe so well resembles a sound in my head that awakens me in the morning, but only every now and then. Mine has a swishing sound and It is a rare occurrence, but when it happens I am startled and have a slightly uncomfortable feeling. I can't recall an event where it began, though there may be one. If there is an event then perhaps it's a post- traumatic type of nerve response or maybe your mind trying to deal with something in the past?

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  4. Pen Wilcock8 December 2014 at 19:25

    When it happens to me, I don't feel afraid or uncomfortable, just really, really alert - wide awake and all senses paying attention.

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  5. Anonymous8 December 2014 at 20:54


    There's a wiki about this!
    here's the link...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

    DMW

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  6. Pen Wilcock8 December 2014 at 21:06

    Interesting, isn't it! xx

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  7. Buzzfloyd8 December 2014 at 23:17

    I've had this too. I find it takes a while to convince myself that it wasn't an external noise. But I tend to also get those myoclonic jerks and other sleep transition oddities.

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  8. Pen Wilcock9 December 2014 at 08:59

    Yes, me to every now and then. xx

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  9. Elizabeth @ The Garden Window9 December 2014 at 12:32

    I've had something similar too.

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  10. Rapunzel9 December 2014 at 13:15

    the ghost of a forgotten crash from childhood?

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  11. Pen Wilcock9 December 2014 at 13:48

    Yes - I did wonder if, in order to have the auditory hallucination, a person would need to have the information - the tape, as it were - already neurally stored.

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  12. Rapunzel9 December 2014 at 16:33

    I wonder that too.
    I remember my dad telling me that your brain can't 'invent' a face, that all the faces that appear in our dreams are faces we have seen somewhere, perhaps just in a random crowd. Our brain apparently saves all that information for future reference.
    Maybe sometime you'll hear the crash and remember what the first one was.

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  13. Pen Wilcock9 December 2014 at 18:27

    I wonder if our dreams are always memories or sometimes premonitions. And if even premonitions, then, have to be formed of memories (?)

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  14. Rapunzel9 December 2014 at 20:31

    Well if all time, past, present, and future exists simultaneously then your 'noises off' could be a glimpse of somewhere/somewhen else.
    The veil between the worlds is thin in places.

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  15. Kathryn10 December 2014 at 00:14

    When this has happened to me, I thought I must have been grinding my teeth. Then I just went back to sleep without any problem. Who knows?

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  16. Pen Wilcock10 December 2014 at 08:20

    Hi friends

    Yes, Rapunzel - full of mystery! xx

    Kathryn - no, these are cataclysmic crashes - massive! xx

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  17. BLD in MT10 December 2014 at 20:37

    How odd indeed. Hmmm... I wonder. But, I usually take note of oddities like this. I've found so often they mean something. Or maybe its EHS. But, I prefer a mystical approach. :)

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  18. Pen Wilcock10 December 2014 at 20:48

    :0) xx

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