One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light

Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by throw_away on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @06:50PM (#13422687)

Do you mean sounds that are real or imagined? Reading this article made me look up this phenomenon I sometimes experience, and it turns out it's a documented thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by nom on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @07:22PM (#13422902)

Thank you so much for the link! I've experienced it too and always wondered what it's called. It happened multiple times, over a period of a couple weeks. It always occured at the worst time - the moment where you actually fall asleep. It's definitely related to the twitching many people experience during this stage [0], as I thought.

It can be really intense: an extremely loud sound, a bright flash of light and jerking of the neck muscles. It became stronger every time it happened - until it suddenly went away completely.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by svachalek on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @07:39PM (#13422989)

Interesting, I never knew there was a word for this. I get the "plunging into a bottomless pit" version myself.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by throw_away on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @07:34PM (#13422963)

In the past, I've also suffered from sleep paralysis, so it's interesting that the two are possibly linked.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by knz on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @12:12AM (#13424154)

I used to experience sleep paralysis as a teenager and it was terrifying until I worked out how to end it (stay calm and focus on wiggling a toe).

It always left me wondering how many stories about alien abduction etc were related to sleep paralysis. I read once that a feeling of being watched was common with sleep paralysis.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by stordoff on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @01:01AM (#13424400)

> I read once that a feeling of being watched was common with sleep paralysis.

I've only experienced a couple of times, but that was the most noticeable thing about it. I knew about sleep paralysis before I first experienced, so it didn't really concern me (as soon as I realised I was awake but unable to move, I knew what it was and roughly what to expect), but glancing over to my doorway and seeing a vague silhouette just standing there watching me is somewhat disconcerting nonetheless.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by stouset on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @09:34PM (#13423515)

This seems like the closest thing to describing a thing I sometimes experience, that I call a "glitch" or a "reboot". It feels like there's just a momentary… zap, or something. Maybe akin to pressing the degauss button on a CRT. Just a split-second interruption in normal processing, usually accompanied by a brief popping sound and/or sensory zap. It's hard to explain.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by lostlogin on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @04:09AM (#13425056)

I really miss that button.

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Re:One in five of us may 'hear' flashes of light by travisl12 on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @06:44PM (#13431596)

No, it's definitely real sounds. Generally pipes or creaking staircases.

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