by drummyfish, May 2025
released under CC0 1.0, public domain

I have now experienced the "exploding head" syndrome twice and would like to record my subjective description of it while it's still in my vivid memory. For context: I am a white male, 34 years old, I often have migraines with auras but almost always without headaches, I also suffer from "psychosomatic" issues with my sight (kind of "visual noise", flashing and flickering, ...) and have experienced sleep paralysis many times as well, as far as I remember only with auditory hallucinations (this to me now seems very similar to the exploding head thing). I am taking antidepressants and sometimes drink wine, but have never taken any other kinds of drugs (not even weed). The first explosion I heard occured after a period of stress, depression and increased antidepressant dosage.

Both times it happened as I was waking up, the first time was very intense -- in fact I think it was the explosion that woke me up, although I think the brain was in an early stage of coming from sleep and that is why it happened. It was a very, VERY loud sound that I shortly after described to my family as a shotgun fired inside my head, but it was also a little unnatural and strange. It sounded a little like a synthetic noise, a kind of "sci-fi" sound effect of a "laser gun shot", or maybe like the electronic bass drum, there was a slight bit of simple, short electronic echo to it as if it happened in a very small, metalic chamber, but it was still an explosion, that's the single word that would describe it best. I was surprised how loud it was, but it wasn't painful because, obviously, my eardrums couldn't have been hurt, there was just a slight psychological shock. First thing I remember thinking was simply "wow". I think many other people would have been very scared and might jump ouf of bed, possibly believing the explosion came from the "real world", but I didn't react this way for several reasons: firstly I am the type of guy who immediately after spotting a nuclean mushroom cloud over the horizon would first think: "hey, that's cool", and only then run to hide. Secondly, like I said, the sound was a bit unnatural and I recognized it was probably a hallucination, given that I already experienced sleep paralysis, and thirdly I have already read about the exploding head syndrome and realized this was probably it. All in all though it wasn't horrible at all, I might even say I'm glad for the experience, it was surreal and something new, cool and strange, which I know can't harm me physically, but then again I'm someone who enjoys getting light headed and even feeling various kinds of pain sometimes, it is very understandable that to many others this would be very distrurbing and something they'd be afraid of. Before personally experiencing this phenomenon I used to believe it must be a seriously awful thing, I was even afraid it could happen to me, but now I am no longer worried, I think it just sounds very scary on the paper, in itself it's nothing debilitating or any kind of big deal really, just a curiosity of human mind.

The second time happened a few weeks after the first experience. This was much weaker, the same kind of sound but not as loud or long, I don't even recall this one as well as the first despite it having happened more recently. I think it felt as if I kind of stopped the explosion mid way through and so it didn't escalate to the super loud bang, like I went quickly to the "full awake" state before the bubble could have grown too big and so the burst was much less spectacular. I now wonder if the intensity could also be bigger, but I as I said, I am not afraid of it now at all, compared to anything else it's the last thing to worry about in life.