Health and Disability

The syndrome is characterized by the perception of abrupt loud noises when waking up or going to sleep. Although typically painless, these noises can cause fear and distress to the person experiencing them, who may be unable to rationalize what has caused their symptoms.

In the study - the largest of its kind - 211 undergraduate students were assessed for both exploding head syndrome and isolated sleep paralysis through interviews conducted by psychologists or graduate students.

Nearly 1 in 5 (18%) of the participants reported experiencing exploding head syndrome at least once. More than a third (37%) of these participants also reported experiencing isolated sleep paralysis.

Participants that had experienced exploding head syndrome frequently reported clinically significant levels of fear, with a small minority (3%) reporting clinically significant distress and impairment in association with these episodes.

Dr. Sharpless states that exploding head syndrome can often lead individuals to interpret their experiences as more severe health problems, such as seizures or bleeding in the brain, or even attribute them to unnatural events.

"Some people have worked these scary experiences into conspiracy theories and mistakenly believe the episodes are caused by some sort of directed-energy weapon," he says. "For this scary noise you hear at night when there's nothing going on in your environment, well, it might be the government messing with you."