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What is exploding head syndrome? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Jerome
0:17
Speaker 1: Roland over there. Uh, and this is stuff you should Know.
0:21
Speaker 1: For a second there, I thought you said Jerry the
0:23
Speaker 1: drone Roland, and I was like, what a weird nickname?
0:28
Speaker 1: Jerry talked like, oh as in droning. I was thinking
0:32
Speaker 1: she was like a remote controlled playing with a camera attached. No,
0:35
Speaker 1: that's not what I meant. Or that she was bombing
0:38
Speaker 1: women and children. No, not that either. I didn't even
0:42
Speaker 1: say that, I said, Jerry Jerome. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Okay,
0:46
Speaker 1: you're feeling all right today? Yes? You? How is your sleep?
0:51
Speaker 1: You know, dude, I have all but stopped drinking lately.
0:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, lately. Okay, And so I'm sleeping like a champ. Yeah,
1:01
Speaker 1: and waking up like a champ too, I imagine, right,
1:04
Speaker 1: makes a big difference, especially at our age. Yeah, I've
1:07
Speaker 1: only had the alcohol once in the past two weeks,
1:13
Speaker 1: and um, I'm sleeping so good. I'm kind of like,
1:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not quitting drinking. Let's be honest. I
1:20
Speaker 1: mean it doesn't sound like you need to know, but
1:22
Speaker 1: I it's uh, it just one day became two became three,
1:26
Speaker 1: and I was sleeping like a champ. And this is
1:28
Speaker 1: after a couple of nights of bad sleep due to
1:30
Speaker 1: too much booze. So I'm like, man, that's kind of nice. Yeah,
1:34
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, life is enjoyable. I forgot. Yeah.
1:38
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think it's super healthy too. And you know,
1:41
Speaker 1: I have talked about this before. I think it's super
1:43
Speaker 1: healthy to do at least a month out of the
1:45
Speaker 1: year straight through where you're just like I'm not having
1:48
Speaker 1: a drop. Oh yeah, yeah, this is good for you. Yeah.
1:51
Speaker 1: I had a couple of years ago. I went exactly
1:54
Speaker 1: one month without a single drink and I still ate
1:58
Speaker 1: like crap, didn't not exercise, and I dropped like thirteen pounds.
2:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just from not consuming alcohol from beer. No,
2:08
Speaker 1: I don't drink much beer, that's right. But I mean,
2:10
Speaker 1: you know gin and tonic, that's a ton of calories. Yeah,
2:13
Speaker 1: that's I drink diet tonic when I haven't. You get
2:16
Speaker 1: used to it, and there's good diet tonic out there,
2:19
Speaker 1: Like you just have to treat yourself. I guess so,
2:21
Speaker 1: I've never diet tonic really tastes gross, like the swill
2:24
Speaker 1: that they have in like the little Leader bottles. That's diet.
2:27
Speaker 1: That's what's good. Like the handmade brand fever Fever Tree. Yeah,
2:32
Speaker 1: like the crafted stuff, like like artisan tonic. Yeah, tonic
2:36
Speaker 1: for rich people. Yeah, the tonic made by a guy
2:38
Speaker 1: who's mustaches waxed. We'll have to try that then, I
2:43
Speaker 1: think you should. And yeah, it is expensive, but I
2:45
Speaker 1: just don't. Don't drink eight gin and tonics, you know,
2:48
Speaker 1: or Jins and Tonic. What would Williams Sapphire say, Jen's
2:52
Speaker 1: and Tonics? Probably. I told Emily the other day, I
2:56
Speaker 1: was like, I wish you could drink into your mouth
2:58
Speaker 1: and taste it and have a nice little effect afterwards,
3:02
Speaker 1: and have it just leak out a tube in the
3:04
Speaker 1: side of your body. I think that's called like a stoma,
3:08
Speaker 1: so you don't get the calories or the you know,
3:11
Speaker 1: the lingering effects. And she said, yeah, it's probably good
3:14
Speaker 1: that you're not drinking. You're like, no, really, let's flush
3:18
Speaker 1: this out, Like there's gotta be a way to do it.
3:22
Speaker 1: So um, anyway, a long way of saying I'm sleeping
3:24
Speaker 1: great I'm glad. I'm glad. Have you ever been falling asleep?
3:30
Speaker 1: And uh, right as you were about to enter the
3:34
Speaker 1: land of slumber, get your saw out, putting it to
3:38
Speaker 1: a log. You haven't started sawing yet, but you're about to,
3:41
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, boom and you ship
3:44
Speaker 1: bowled up right. You're like, what what was that? I
3:47
Speaker 1: don't think so I can tell you for a fact
3:50
Speaker 1: that's never happened to me. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty
3:52
Speaker 1: sure it's never happened to me. But um, unless I'm misremembering,
3:57
Speaker 1: I just don't see how you could forget some thing
4:00
Speaker 1: like this. It seems pretty significant, you know what. I agree.
4:03
Speaker 1: So we're talking about exploding head syndrome, which before we
4:08
Speaker 1: started recording, you were angry. You weren't angry. I'm always angry.
4:13
Speaker 1: It's so not true. You were. No it is. I
4:17
Speaker 1: need help. You were picking at the the name of
4:20
Speaker 1: the syndrome because it's very overblown, to say the least,
4:26
Speaker 1: exploding head syndrome. Uh what'd you say? It should have
4:31
Speaker 1: been called? Uh? What crazy sound, sleepyhead, loud noise? What what?
4:39
Speaker 1: What syndrome? Or I'm trying to sleep without work in
4:44
Speaker 1: the morning syndrome, stupid brain. I could do this for
4:49
Speaker 1: an hour. Maybe we should releast it as a blooper reel.
4:54
Speaker 1: So exploding head syndrome is a a nighttime hallucination. Also,
5:01
Speaker 1: you can classify it as a parasomnia. Did we do
5:05
Speaker 1: one specifically on sleep paralysis or just talk about it?
5:07
Speaker 1: Aloe and Buddy? It deserves its own I can't believe
5:12
Speaker 1: we haven't done it yet. I know we talked a
5:13
Speaker 1: lot about it in sleepwalking, sleepwalking and cranial magnetics simulation. Yeah.
5:18
Speaker 1: I think we did one on sleep period too, didn't
5:20
Speaker 1: we Or did we? I think so? It's hard to
5:22
Speaker 1: recall we Yeah, but for the most part we have
5:26
Speaker 1: skirted around it, and I think we should continue to
5:28
Speaker 1: because I think it definitely deserves its own, its own episode.
5:32
Speaker 1: So we should continue to skirt around it. Yeah, by
5:34
Speaker 1: not doing it? No, no, no no, I mean in this episode.
5:38
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah, I think it deserves
5:40
Speaker 1: its own, freestanding, standalone, vertically integrated episode called, uh, what's
5:47
Speaker 1: the deal with sleep paralysis? You got it? So this
5:51
Speaker 1: is a nighttime hallucination or a parasomnia, like I said,
5:55
Speaker 1: of which sleep paralysis is as well. That's all I'm
5:58
Speaker 1: gonna say. Don't give it away. Uh And here's the deal.
6:01
Speaker 1: Like you described, you're either already asleep or I think
6:05
Speaker 1: a little more typically falling asleep. Yeah. And you hear
6:09
Speaker 1: a loud, loud booming sound like a gun or an explosion,
6:16
Speaker 1: symbols crashing. That's a good one, something that catches your attention.
6:19
Speaker 1: What else? Um falling down the steps, A big person
6:24
Speaker 1: carrying a drum set falling down the steps, right, one
6:26
Speaker 1: of those one man bands falling down some status totally,
6:30
Speaker 1: which everybody wants to see. Even if you don't have
6:33
Speaker 1: like a meme bone in your body, you still kind
6:34
Speaker 1: of want to see something like that, just for just
6:36
Speaker 1: to see how it sounds and crazy. Yeah, it might
6:39
Speaker 1: play a little tune you never know on the way down.
6:43
Speaker 1: Yeah right. Uh so it's just a genuine disorder. And
6:48
Speaker 1: I did a little Facebook survey. Yeah, hats off to you, man,
6:53
Speaker 1: you're basically a citizen scientist. Now we're did did were
6:57
Speaker 1: with the Were the respondents all weird? Know? Were they weird? Stuff?
7:01
Speaker 1: You should know? Followers? So they're I know what you mean,
7:05
Speaker 1: the acronym weird both ways? Okay, they were neither no,
7:11
Speaker 1: we have like a very wide demographic. It's great. Yeah,
7:14
Speaker 1: it is good. Uh. And basically I just said, has
7:17
Speaker 1: anyone ever been afflicted with exploding head syndrome? Then I
7:20
Speaker 1: explained it because a lot of people, as will find like,
7:24
Speaker 1: responded with, oh my god, that's a thing. Yes, I
7:26
Speaker 1: have it. That's really cool. That showed up in one
7:28
Speaker 1: of the articles that we researched. Yeah. Um, and I
7:31
Speaker 1: got about a hundred and fifty by the time I
7:34
Speaker 1: cut it off respondents that said yes and wait him out. Huh,
7:43
Speaker 1: you've got a hundred and fifty yes responses to whether
7:47
Speaker 1: or not, a hundred and fifty total responses including like
7:50
Speaker 1: comments on responses, and I would guess probably a hundred
7:53
Speaker 1: of those were affirmatives. That's amazing, and about seventy of
7:58
Speaker 1: those are women. Did you notice how much reached that postcott?
8:03
Speaker 1: Can you figure out, like roughly what percentage of people
8:05
Speaker 1: who saw that responded? Well, we could, but I didn't
8:09
Speaker 1: not take the time. Okay, this is still it's an
8:12
Speaker 1: amazing response. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot a lot
8:16
Speaker 1: of continent. That really wasn't that hard. But I think
8:18
Speaker 1: it's neat shows a lot of initiative. It is neat Um.
8:21
Speaker 1: I got a lot of responses. Um. Meredith said, it
8:26
Speaker 1: used to happen a lot, but now not so much.
8:28
Speaker 1: It's even worse when the baby is sleeping. Interesting because
8:33
Speaker 1: she's worried that the baby's fallen out of the bed. Caitlin,
8:36
Speaker 1: it happened only once. Um, yes, I have it frequently.
8:40
Speaker 1: From Melissa. Man, this is so bizarre, Lawrence said. I
8:44
Speaker 1: tried to explain it to my family and they thought
8:46
Speaker 1: I was crazy. Uh. It's more of a distant exploding
8:50
Speaker 1: noise for me, though, doesn't startle, so that may not
8:53
Speaker 1: be it. And a few of these made that might
8:55
Speaker 1: be the mining operation off the A County. Uh, Sue. Yes,
9:02
Speaker 1: it sounds like a gunshot, no paint or anything like that,
9:04
Speaker 1: but it is startling. Most people in here. Crack of
9:08
Speaker 1: a baseball bat hitting a ball from Christie Anne. Yeah,
9:12
Speaker 1: you're right. They are mostly women. Huh. Yeah, I mean
9:14
Speaker 1: there's dudes in here too. I'm just not reading those. Um.
9:18
Speaker 1: Here's a guy, Adam. Not well, not exactly, Jonathan, Yes,
9:21
Speaker 1: I live near a train all right, guys. Let's Jeffrey. Yes,
9:27
Speaker 1: I have it. I thought there was something seriously wrong.
9:29
Speaker 1: With me. But then I heard the term on a
9:31
Speaker 1: radio story and I realized what was happening. It's a
9:34
Speaker 1: huge relief. So what what all these people are saying?
9:37
Speaker 1: And this is this is astounding, right like it is.
9:41
Speaker 1: What you're reading directly reflects what we found in our
9:44
Speaker 1: research for this article. Right. They has been published here.
9:48
Speaker 1: They're very scatter shot in um in medical journals and
9:53
Speaker 1: look for Chuck study. By the way, in the lance
9:55
Speaker 1: at this fall um that that this is the or
10:00
Speaker 1: and this is the description or the experience of exploding
10:02
Speaker 1: head syndrome. Yeah, no pain, no, nothing more than an
10:07
Speaker 1: inconvenience really other than I guess I could like trigger
10:11
Speaker 1: a heart attack. Yeah, and and that's one of the
10:14
Speaker 1: associated symptoms. So you're falling asleep, you're almost about to sleep,
10:17
Speaker 1: suddenly there's a very loud, sharp noise in your head,
10:20
Speaker 1: but it's just in your head, but it wakes you,
10:23
Speaker 1: arouses you very suddenly and usually scares the but Jesus
10:26
Speaker 1: out of you for techycardia or very faster I regular
10:30
Speaker 1: heartbeat is is one of the reported symptoms um of
10:34
Speaker 1: exploding head syndrome. Yeah, they can. It can go on
10:38
Speaker 1: a bunch of knights in a row. It can be
10:40
Speaker 1: very sporadic, can happen once once, it never happened again,
10:44
Speaker 1: yea one of those. Yeah. Yeah, and it's unusual that, um,
10:49
Speaker 1: a few people said it happened when I was a kid,
10:51
Speaker 1: because it seems like it does not happen that often
10:55
Speaker 1: with children. No, there's but it can one reported at
10:59
Speaker 1: least one report in case of a ten year old.
11:01
Speaker 1: But apparently it mostly seems to on set in the
11:05
Speaker 1: fifties person's fifties, and that women tend to be at
11:10
Speaker 1: a higher risk for it, as your findings suggest. Yeah,
11:13
Speaker 1: and I did not, Um, I didn't like be a
11:16
Speaker 1: creep and trying to determine how old these people were. Okay,
11:19
Speaker 1: I wasn't like cool this. This dude looks like he's
11:24
Speaker 1: his lady's got to be sixty. Just left that one alone.
11:27
Speaker 1: You know, I thought you were gonna say like you
11:29
Speaker 1: weren't going to be a creep by being like you
11:31
Speaker 1: smell nice to like every response. This guy can't tell
11:34
Speaker 1: because he just has an avatar of Immortal Kombat character,
11:39
Speaker 1: which means he's like forty oh ouch, should we take
11:44
Speaker 1: a break? Yeah, all right, let's do it, all right?
11:56
Speaker 1: Where does all this come from? Sir, comes from your head?
12:00
Speaker 1: Where was his first described? Sir? Oh, back in the
12:04
Speaker 1: I think eighteen seventies. There's a guy for standby for
12:10
Speaker 1: the most eighteen seventies name you'll here today, Silas Weir Mitchell.
12:15
Speaker 1: And he was a physician who apparently was a magnet
12:19
Speaker 1: for exploding head syndrome. Well, he described several cases of
12:23
Speaker 1: his among his patients. Um and he was, as far
12:27
Speaker 1: as anyone knows, the first in the medical literature to
12:29
Speaker 1: describe exploding head syndrome. He didn't call it that though,
12:32
Speaker 1: he called them sensory discharges. But way he described is
12:35
Speaker 1: clearly what we now understand is exploding head syndrome. Yeah,
12:39
Speaker 1: he had one patient called Mr V. That's who he
12:42
Speaker 1: called it. It him right. The guy's real name was
12:46
Speaker 1: Mr V spelled v E, but he abbreviated his Mr VU.
12:51
Speaker 1: He said he experienced a quote sense of a pistol
12:54
Speaker 1: shot or a blow on the head end quote and uh.
12:57
Speaker 1: He complained of a noise in my head, which is
13:00
Speaker 1: sometimes like the sound of a bell which has been
13:02
Speaker 1: struck once or else I hear a loud noise which
13:05
Speaker 1: is most like that of a guitar string rudely struck
13:10
Speaker 1: which breaks with a twang. And I presume he did
13:14
Speaker 1: not live above a folk singing cafe. Man, you know
13:21
Speaker 1: what you do when you live above one of those?
13:23
Speaker 1: You move? Yeah? Uh so like you said, um Silas
13:28
Speaker 1: went on to say, it's a snapping of the brain.
13:31
Speaker 1: Then a little bit later and well a little bit,
13:36
Speaker 1: that's a lot of it. Neurologists from uh the UK
13:40
Speaker 1: named John MS Pierce of Whole Royal Infirmary. Man, that
13:45
Speaker 1: is a super British and in the Lancet. Yeah, one
13:49
Speaker 1: of the great medical journals. Uh, he is the one
13:52
Speaker 1: I believe that gave it its name. Correct. Yeah, we
13:54
Speaker 1: can really lay the misunderstanding at this guy's feet forgiving
13:59
Speaker 1: it this awesome name. He was like, that's I'm gonna
14:03
Speaker 1: celebrate finishing this paper and naming it Exploding head Syndrome
14:07
Speaker 1: by watching Miami Vice. That was still one. I don't know,
14:15
Speaker 1: did you watch that sometimes? It was a little a
14:18
Speaker 1: little old for me, Yeah, probably, Like I was like, man,
14:21
Speaker 1: that boat is so fast. Man, that guy's blazers so pastel.
14:26
Speaker 1: That was about the extent of Miami Vice for me. Yeah,
14:28
Speaker 1: that was kind of the extent of the show. It
14:30
Speaker 1: wasn't it was good? I watched it. It was Michael Mann.
14:33
Speaker 1: Wasn't it like a Michael Mayn movie every every week?
14:38
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Yeah, I mean he I think he
14:40
Speaker 1: got it going and then oh state executive producer. It
14:45
Speaker 1: might be wrong. I don't know, who knows. I think
14:47
Speaker 1: he did the movie version to like the remake years
14:50
Speaker 1: surely he did, which I did not. I mean, it's
14:51
Speaker 1: got him written all over it, so I think that
14:54
Speaker 1: was his best point. Oh yeah, good movie. Although did
14:58
Speaker 1: he do to Live in Diane l A? I don't know.
15:01
Speaker 1: I love that movie though. If he didn't, he should have.
15:04
Speaker 1: But that's a great movie. I think that might have
15:06
Speaker 1: been him. You're correct or no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Chuck.
15:11
Speaker 1: I know that this is a tangent. I'm trying to
15:12
Speaker 1: avoid it, but I just can't let it stand. I
15:14
Speaker 1: think that Michael Man accused whoever did to Live and
15:21
Speaker 1: Die in l A of ripping him off somehow. Yeah,
15:26
Speaker 1: is that correct, I'm pretty sure, which means not necessarily. Well,
15:32
Speaker 1: I had a great theme song, I know that. Yeah.
15:34
Speaker 1: Wang Chung Baby. They were one of those bands from
15:37
Speaker 1: the eighties where you're like, oh, these guys were actually
15:39
Speaker 1: way more talented than their decade. Give him credit for
15:42
Speaker 1: It's not Michael Man. Okay, so Michael Man accused whoever
15:46
Speaker 1: did that of ripping him off for some reason. William Friedkin,
15:50
Speaker 1: he didn't. He direct The Exorcist all over the place.
15:55
Speaker 1: He's got some cajones after Billy Freakin. Um, how do
16:01
Speaker 1: we get on that Miami advice? So let's go over
16:05
Speaker 1: some stats. It was a study in of BO we
16:10
Speaker 1: talked about bad studies, two hundred and eleven college students. Okay,
16:14
Speaker 1: so your study already trumps this one sort of. Actually yeah,
16:20
Speaker 1: not even sort of. I would say legitimately the study
16:23
Speaker 1: you conducted is better than the one you're about to
16:25
Speaker 1: talk about. Eighteen percent of people experienced it um according
16:30
Speaker 1: to this survey, But most experts say that's probably high
16:35
Speaker 1: because um, these are college students. They don't get a
16:39
Speaker 1: lot of sleep, and that can affect you know, whether
16:42
Speaker 1: or not you have this disorder or think you have it. Yeah,
16:45
Speaker 1: people who are sleep deprivate are more likely to have it.
16:47
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, psychiatric patients UM tend to have a
16:51
Speaker 1: little more and more. If you're talking about ten percent
16:55
Speaker 1: which is I think what generally people have settled on,
16:58
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, but just a little more like three
17:01
Speaker 1: percent more four percent more than the average healthy population.
17:06
Speaker 1: You know, something I thought was very weird that I saw, um,
17:09
Speaker 1: people with other sleep disorders have it less frequently. Yeah,
17:14
Speaker 1: it's about ten percent of people with sleep disorders have
17:17
Speaker 1: exploding head syndrome, but like tenot eight percent of the
17:20
Speaker 1: general healthy population has it. So if you suffer from
17:22
Speaker 1: the one that we dare not speak its name, then
17:26
Speaker 1: you are less likely to have this I guess so.
17:28
Speaker 1: But apparently it does happen in conjunction frequently, just not
17:32
Speaker 1: as frequently as people in the general population who have
17:35
Speaker 1: just exploding head syndrome. Uh what else? There's some people
17:41
Speaker 1: describe a physical sensation as well, like an electrical shot
17:45
Speaker 1: of sorts. Yeah, we should say, I don't know if
17:47
Speaker 1: we said it really explicitly enough, Like when you have
17:51
Speaker 1: this sound that wakes you up as you're about to
17:53
Speaker 1: fall asleep, and it is very clearly the sound of
17:56
Speaker 1: an explosion or symbols crashing or a gun shot like again,
18:00
Speaker 1: and you're you're not there's no associated pain, right like
18:04
Speaker 1: very most frequently the only physical symptom is your heart
18:07
Speaker 1: pounding because you're scared to death. It would just be
18:10
Speaker 1: like if someone came in with symbols in your bedroom
18:13
Speaker 1: and smash them together, but you would wake up and
18:15
Speaker 1: say you're a jerk, but you wouldn't be in pain.
18:19
Speaker 1: Go back to bed, Stanley. But I think like there's
18:25
Speaker 1: not even the attendant like pain in your ears. I
18:28
Speaker 1: think it's strictly in your head. So there's like almost
18:31
Speaker 1: no physical sensation except for the electrical thing you're about.
18:35
Speaker 1: The electrical shock just that, and that's only in some people.
18:39
Speaker 1: And it's literally just a feeling of a current that
18:43
Speaker 1: starts at your torso or so and torso or so
18:48
Speaker 1: I didn't even mean that, uh and it travels up
18:50
Speaker 1: to the head, but again not everyone. Uh So. I
18:57
Speaker 1: think it's the interesting part of this. I mean, that's interesting,
19:00
Speaker 1: but is where this possibly comes from? And like the
19:04
Speaker 1: process of going to sleep? All right? Friend? Oh, we
19:22
Speaker 1: definitely I think did a show on sleep, but as
19:25
Speaker 1: a recap, we we did. You're right, Um, it must
19:28
Speaker 1: not have been very memorable when you're when you go
19:32
Speaker 1: to sleep, it's not an instantaneous thing. As you likely know.
19:36
Speaker 1: You fall asleep and they call it that for a reason.
19:39
Speaker 1: It's a it's a process. Yeah, if your body kind
19:42
Speaker 1: of shutting down. This has never really thought about that before,
19:44
Speaker 1: but that's that's a pretty accurate description. Otherwise they would
19:48
Speaker 1: call it, Yeah, what were you going to finding yourself asleep?
19:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's probably not right either, or just
19:56
Speaker 1: becoming sleep, Yeah, there's inst to sleep. Are we doing
20:05
Speaker 1: good on this one? And not so much? All right? No,
20:08
Speaker 1: we are. We're fine. We're getting the facts out, we're
20:11
Speaker 1: just in in cloaking them with a lot of bs.
20:15
Speaker 1: That's fine, all right. So when you fall asleep, your
20:19
Speaker 1: your your body slowly shuts down. Um, and the brain
20:25
Speaker 1: is is kind of closing down each little store. Yeah,
20:29
Speaker 1: if it's a let's say your brain is a small town. Okay,
20:33
Speaker 1: it's closing each store. Your brain is Sam the night
20:37
Speaker 1: Watchman from Today's Special walking around shutting lights out? Right? Yes?
20:43
Speaker 1: Do you remember that show? Now? It was probably way
20:47
Speaker 1: too young for you. It's called Today's Special, Kitch And
20:52
Speaker 1: what was the idea that every day Special? Uh? There
20:55
Speaker 1: was like a mannequin that came alive and just it
21:00
Speaker 1: was weird. Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare. It took.
21:02
Speaker 1: It was set at at night in like a department store.
21:06
Speaker 1: I think, Oh okay, so I guess today's special might
21:09
Speaker 1: have been like what was on sale? I was kind
21:12
Speaker 1: of young. That reminds me of my favorite book as
21:15
Speaker 1: a child that I read, The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper.
21:19
Speaker 1: Well I don't I never read that one. It was wonderful.
21:21
Speaker 1: It was about three, I think three mice in New
21:25
Speaker 1: York City that broke into Macy's department store and lived
21:29
Speaker 1: there and had great adventures in the department store overnight,
21:33
Speaker 1: and Santa was kidnapped, and it's up to these mice
21:37
Speaker 1: to solve the crime. Oh wow. And it was my
21:40
Speaker 1: first like book, you know. It wasn't a ten page
21:43
Speaker 1: picture book. It was a book book, of course, one
21:46
Speaker 1: I really read and was like, wow, this is amazing.
21:48
Speaker 1: Were the mice up to the challenge? What do you think?
21:51
Speaker 1: I don't know. No, Santa died. I totally forgot about
21:59
Speaker 1: that book. What a great memory. That's why I'm glowing
22:02
Speaker 1: right now. Um, And you can enjoy it because you've
22:08
Speaker 1: been off the sauce for a little while, you've been
22:10
Speaker 1: getting good sleep. I'm lucid. Uh So when you are
22:14
Speaker 1: making that transition into sleep from being awake. Your your
22:18
Speaker 1: brain is closing down the little shop stores one at
22:20
Speaker 1: a time. And when you have exploding e h s.
22:24
Speaker 1: That is, there's there's something that happens. There's a glitch
22:27
Speaker 1: in the matrix essentially where somewhere along that path of
22:32
Speaker 1: your brain walking around shutting it down, it just sort
22:34
Speaker 1: of trips up. Yeah. Um. So the part of your
22:38
Speaker 1: brain that is responsible for shutting things down bit by bit,
22:42
Speaker 1: region by region, it's called the brainstem reticular formation, very
22:47
Speaker 1: ancient part of your brain, right, um. And they think
22:51
Speaker 1: that something goes wrong, like you're saying, when it's going
22:54
Speaker 1: through its duties and there's a glitch. And but the
22:58
Speaker 1: glitch that happens is the alpha waves that are associated
23:02
Speaker 1: with the beginning of relaxing for sleep are are suppressed,
23:08
Speaker 1: and suddenly there's a huge burst of neural activity in
23:13
Speaker 1: the region associated with hearing. So your your brain has
23:19
Speaker 1: a glitch. Your brain stem has a glitch while it's
23:21
Speaker 1: shutting your brain down for sleep, and you hallucinate a
23:26
Speaker 1: very loud sound that startles you awake. That's exploding head syndrome.
23:30
Speaker 1: Right as far as total hallucination, it doesn't exist, that
23:35
Speaker 1: you're the neurons in your in the region associated with
23:40
Speaker 1: hearing going haywire. Yeah, it's crazy. It is. What's crazy
23:44
Speaker 1: to me, though, Chuck, is that it's a glitch in
23:47
Speaker 1: in your system. But that's it. It can happen in
23:52
Speaker 1: different people. It's not like one person is like a
23:54
Speaker 1: malfunctioning like part of their brain stem. Like that process
23:58
Speaker 1: can malfunction and exact actually the same way across people.
24:02
Speaker 1: It says something about the architecture of the brain. What
24:05
Speaker 1: it says I don't know, but it surely says something
24:08
Speaker 1: that that that glitch can happen in different people in
24:11
Speaker 1: the same way. I just think that's fascinating. It totally is,
24:14
Speaker 1: And that theory that we talked about is well, first
24:17
Speaker 1: of all, they don't know for sure because it's so
24:20
Speaker 1: rare and it's such a non uh. I mean it's invasive,
24:25
Speaker 1: but it's not threatening. Uh. Yeah, that they You don't
24:29
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time studying stuff like this if
24:31
Speaker 1: it's not super threatening. No, but they used to think
24:34
Speaker 1: it's rare. They don't necessarily know if it's rare any longer.
24:38
Speaker 1: It's just it hasn't been studied for like there's been
24:42
Speaker 1: basically four five papers on it, so no one cares
24:46
Speaker 1: apparently not because it's not life threatening at all. It's
24:50
Speaker 1: not even harmful. It's a benign condition. It's just very
24:53
Speaker 1: surprising and apparently people learn to live with it at
24:56
Speaker 1: least once. On Facebook. Oh no, they all said there
24:59
Speaker 1: and live hell. Um, So that was that theory is
25:03
Speaker 1: the one that is most agreed upon right now. But
25:05
Speaker 1: some of the others over the years, um include a
25:09
Speaker 1: shift of the middle ear components or an ear dysfunction
25:13
Speaker 1: maybe at the root. No. Um, they've done e g.
25:17
Speaker 1: Testing to rule out which did rule out temporal lobe
25:22
Speaker 1: seizures epilepsy, but not in case. No. Uh, what's another one?
25:27
Speaker 1: There was one more of what could be a side
25:29
Speaker 1: effect of drugs, right, yeah, drug withdrawal, Yeah, specifically benzo diazepines.
25:35
Speaker 1: Or it could have to do with um calcium ion
25:40
Speaker 1: channels and calcium ion transportation, which I think we've talked
25:45
Speaker 1: about before, Like calcium does a lot of stuff in
25:47
Speaker 1: our brains, um and throughout our bodies. I think that
25:52
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily discarded. That could be the mechanism that
25:56
Speaker 1: it happens on the table. Yeah, for me, I'm a
26:00
Speaker 1: fan of that one. I don't think that they're mutually exclusive.
26:03
Speaker 1: The reticular formation and calcium ions could go hand in hand. Yeah.
26:10
Speaker 1: You know what's funny to me. I was thinking about
26:12
Speaker 1: when I was prepping for this out whenever there's a
26:15
Speaker 1: usually medical podcast where there's different theories you and I
26:19
Speaker 1: was like, well, this is the one. I'll come my
26:21
Speaker 1: money on this one, right, And it's just armchair you know,
26:24
Speaker 1: doctoring of course, But um, but I feel like I
26:27
Speaker 1: could heal somebody if I really try, just through my opinion.
26:33
Speaker 1: So what do you do if, um, you have this? Well? Um,
26:39
Speaker 1: one of the funny things in the Atlantic article which
26:42
Speaker 1: I sent in in our own article, they said, quite
26:45
Speaker 1: often simply being diagnosed and told by your doctor, yes
26:49
Speaker 1: you have exploding head syndrome and no, it will not
26:52
Speaker 1: hurt you at all at all, can cease the exploding
26:56
Speaker 1: head syndrome. Yeah, people will go into remission, which indicates
27:00
Speaker 1: to me that stress has something to do with it. Yeah.
27:03
Speaker 1: I could definitely see how if you if you worry
27:07
Speaker 1: about it, it could affect your sleep, and then once
27:09
Speaker 1: your sleep has affected, you're more prone to keep having it.
27:12
Speaker 1: A lot of people who this happens to um mistake
27:16
Speaker 1: it for a stroke or that they've developed epilepsy or
27:20
Speaker 1: something like that, and so they will go get um
27:23
Speaker 1: they will seek out medical help for that, and hopefully
27:27
Speaker 1: the doctor has heard of exploding head syndrome and can
27:29
Speaker 1: recognize the symptoms. Yeah, the very least you can self
27:33
Speaker 1: diagnose and take that to your doctor because I love that. Yeah,
27:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, tell him you google it, like when he
27:39
Speaker 1: starts to talk to be like, doctors love that. Uh.
27:43
Speaker 1: It is also not to be confused with PTSD. Uh
27:47
Speaker 1: something we did. I thought it was a really good show. Actually,
27:50
Speaker 1: I want to say, when he or she starts to talk,
27:54
Speaker 1: say yeah, um remember the PTSC. Yeah, yeah, that was
27:59
Speaker 1: a good one. That was a good one. And um,
28:00
Speaker 1: it's not to be confused with that. Even though similar
28:03
Speaker 1: things can happen with PTSD, it's usually um, some kind
28:07
Speaker 1: of a flashback, and with exploding head it's not associated
28:10
Speaker 1: with any anything like that, And it's just a straight
28:13
Speaker 1: up hallucination. There's no memory associated with it. Yeah, exactly.
28:18
Speaker 1: But what they will say is sleep hygiene, work on it. Yeah,
28:23
Speaker 1: brush your teeth while you sleep. I think hygiene's one
28:29
Speaker 1: of the most disgusting words in the English language. Interestingly,
28:33
Speaker 1: it is gross, even though that means it's like paradoxical
28:36
Speaker 1: to its meaning. Yeah, the word itself, it's sound, the
28:39
Speaker 1: feel of it, it's the look of it. I totally
28:41
Speaker 1: agree gross word hygiene sounds, I think because when I
28:44
Speaker 1: hear hygiene, I think you're usually hearing it because there's
28:48
Speaker 1: poor hygiene. Maybe people you don't just say like, oh,
28:51
Speaker 1: you've got some good hygiene going on, Yeah, you smell wonderful.
28:54
Speaker 1: I always think of it in relation to like eugenics,
28:58
Speaker 1: you know, like that kind of thought pattern hygiene. You know.
29:04
Speaker 1: So sleep hygiene is a weird, gross way of saying
29:08
Speaker 1: best practices to fall asleep, and that means um regular schedule,
29:15
Speaker 1: you know stuff. Yeah, like like draw the blinds, make
29:18
Speaker 1: it quiet, and this one not reading in bed. That
29:22
Speaker 1: one to me, it's like, no, if I read in bed,
29:24
Speaker 1: it's like I might as well have just taking a
29:26
Speaker 1: handful of valume. Well, reading a book book, sure, but
29:30
Speaker 1: a screen has been shown to keep you awake. Well.
29:33
Speaker 1: Some recommendations are that you don't even read books in bed,
29:36
Speaker 1: that you train yourself to associate bed with just sleep.
29:41
Speaker 1: When you get into book and I'm done. You're like,
29:44
Speaker 1: well I'm sleeping. Yeah. Not for all people, though, Like
29:46
Speaker 1: if you have bad insomnia, they'll recommend you don't do
29:49
Speaker 1: anything but sleep in bed. Yeah, I mean I get that,
29:53
Speaker 1: Like they'd say, take the TV out of your room
29:55
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Yeah, but no, I'd be like, you're
29:58
Speaker 1: a fool. I can just read the book instead. I
30:01
Speaker 1: will never have insomnia because as long as there are
30:04
Speaker 1: books bound books are around, I'm good. Um, what always
30:09
Speaker 1: kills me is when I see friends on Facebook like
30:10
Speaker 1: three am, total insomnia, Like put your phone down. Yeah,
30:15
Speaker 1: you're you're being counterproductive because it's not just keeping your
30:19
Speaker 1: brain engaged in thinking. Apparently that blue spectrum light really
30:26
Speaker 1: does something to your brain and it's not good. What else,
30:31
Speaker 1: No booze or coffee after five? Only booze before five.
30:35
Speaker 1: I was like, that's happy hour. I think they were saying, yeah,
30:40
Speaker 1: they no booze after five. I mean, if you've got
30:42
Speaker 1: to sleep a parasomnia, you're you're didn't go to great links,
30:46
Speaker 1: You're gonna skip happy hour maybe to get some sleep. Um,
30:51
Speaker 1: do we have anything else in here? We do? Not?
30:54
Speaker 1: All right? I think that's so great that you conducted
30:57
Speaker 1: a study. Hats off to you. I think it's funny
31:00
Speaker 1: that you thought that was so great. I'm just impressed.
31:03
Speaker 1: All right. Uh, if you want to know more about
31:06
Speaker 1: paris Omnia's like exploding heads into him, you can type
31:09
Speaker 1: those words in the search bar how stuff works dot com.
31:11
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,
31:16
Speaker 1: so instead of listener mail, conducted another study. Just kidding,
31:21
Speaker 1: all right, this is this was I thought, this is
31:23
Speaker 1: really neat. This is Chernobyl. Hey, guys, thanks for the
31:28
Speaker 1: fantastic podcast on radiation sickness and for talking a bit
31:31
Speaker 1: about the Chernobyl disaster. It really captured my imagination as
31:35
Speaker 1: a little girl. I remember one of my primary school
31:37
Speaker 1: teachers talking the class the disaster would mean the end
31:39
Speaker 1: of life as we know it, and it terrified me. Anyway,
31:42
Speaker 1: as the years went by, my interest grew and back
31:45
Speaker 1: in I finally took the plunge and booked myself a
31:49
Speaker 1: trip to Kiev to go and visit the disaster site. Wow,
31:54
Speaker 1: and she said something about I had to edit this
31:57
Speaker 1: because it was long. It was good, but something about
31:59
Speaker 1: how you know, I know that probably sounds weird, um
32:03
Speaker 1: as a vacation, but she I'm really like in awesome vacation.
32:09
Speaker 1: Uh The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is about ten miles
32:11
Speaker 1: in each direction, is largely deserted, although I'm surprised to
32:14
Speaker 1: find that there are still people living and working there.
32:16
Speaker 1: The nearby town of uh Prip Yacht is completely abandoned
32:21
Speaker 1: and very eerie, to say the least. We spent the
32:24
Speaker 1: day carefully walking on concrete and trying not to touch
32:27
Speaker 1: any of the moss growing between the concrete because it's
32:30
Speaker 1: highly radioactive. Uh yeah, I'd be a little concerned as
32:34
Speaker 1: a visit. Oh yeah, as a visitor, it's an extremely
32:36
Speaker 1: dangerous visit. We were able to get surprisingly close to
32:39
Speaker 1: the destroyed side as well. It was a very somber experience.
32:43
Speaker 1: There are a couple of very unnerving things that I
32:44
Speaker 1: learned that day that have stuck with me. The government
32:47
Speaker 1: of the then USSR tried to cover up the accident,
32:51
Speaker 1: didn't tell the people of Prip Yacht that they needed
32:54
Speaker 1: to evacuate for two whole days, inevitably causing many more
32:58
Speaker 1: deaths from radiation sickness than the inevitable. Um. There were
33:03
Speaker 1: several reactors at Chernobyl. Reactor four blew up Reactor four
33:07
Speaker 1: was right next to reactor three, which they thought was
33:10
Speaker 1: going to blow up. Had reactor three blown up, it
33:12
Speaker 1: really would have been the end of life as we
33:14
Speaker 1: know at Europe would have become completely uninhabitable. We all
33:18
Speaker 1: owe our lives to the unsung heroes. We sacrifice himself
33:22
Speaker 1: to save reactor three and save Europe. Much love. That
33:26
Speaker 1: is Kate, Nottingham, England And Kate, it's coming to see
33:29
Speaker 1: some Manchester. Awesome, Kate, thanks a lot for that email.
33:32
Speaker 1: It's a really cool um vacation. Yeah. She she took
33:36
Speaker 1: her mom her mom and sent photos and had a
33:39
Speaker 1: lot more to the emails. Super interesting, very cool. Thanks
33:42
Speaker 1: a lot, Kate. Um. And if you want to get
33:45
Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Kate did, let us know
33:47
Speaker 1: about your super cool vacation, Uh, you can tweet to
33:50
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
33:53
Speaker 1: us on Instagram too at the same handle. You can
33:56
Speaker 1: hang out with us on Facebook dot com, participate in
33:59
Speaker 1: our studies that Chuck conducts at Facebook dot com. Slash
34:02
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know. You can send us an email
34:04
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
34:06
Speaker 1: has always join us at her home on the web.
34:08
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know dot com for more on this
34:16
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it How Stuff Works
34:18
Speaker 1: dot com