Everyone has felt like they were falling while dreaming, or even experienced sleep paralysis. These are just two of the disorders that occur during rest hours, although there are several that are not as well known. This is the case of exploding head syndrome, which although It was discovered by doctors in 1876remains an enigma for researchers, as revealed by a recent study published in the journal sciencealert. But what exactly does it consist of?
When an individual is trying to sleep and suddenly He stands up, startled by a deafening sound. that comes from within you, then you’ve probably experienced exploding head syndrome. This disorder belongs to the family of parasomnias, those strange behaviors that occur during sleep and are usually benign.
Not everyone hears the same sound. There are those who hear the explosion inside of bombs, shots, slamming doors or even screamsand the duration is only a few seconds or even less. This is not the only symptom of the syndrome, as sometimes it is accompanied by hallucinations or even intense heat, as revealed by the magazine. New England Journal of Medicine.
The data
The data reveal that a 11% of healthy adults have suffered from this disorder at some timealong with 17% of university students who claim to have suffered from exploding head syndrome repeatedly during their lives. These percentages are added to others carried out in the same subject, which show that one in three undergraduate students had heard this noise once, and 6% more than once.
The origin of the disorder remains a mystery to science. According to the study, when sleeping, the activity of the reticular system is reduced, causing a kind of “blackout” to occur in the senses such as sight and hearing. When you suffer from exploding head syndrome, this gradual shutdown process is interrupted, so the senses receive many stimuli at the same time which are translated in the brain as a strident sound.
At the moment, scientists have not been able to conclusively discover the causes of the disorder. There is a factor that indirectly influences and is very common in students: stress, as it symbolizes a variation in a person’s normal sleep patterns. Even so, experts emphasize that Exploding head syndrome is not dangerous at all.
