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Comment by qubex | Hacker News Reader

I have, on occasion, inadvertently taken combinations of medication that caused extremely disorientating and apparently very loud "buzzing" in my ears as soon as I woke up, combined with a strange sense of immobility.

Of course that entailed no brain damage or loss of hearing, but it was a very compelling sensation, and it caused massive panic (the first time at least, the second time... somewhat less so, but I do get the feeling that I had an emotional response that was in some sense 'synthetic' and due to the pharmacological reaction).

Hence, a subset of these symptoms might be pharmacological, but not all of them. That leaves open the question of motive.

(Yes, I understand that a partial explanation of symptoms and no explanation of motive makes for a totally bankrupt theory, but hey, I just thought I'd throw in my anecdote - and I'd really rather not explain the particular combination of medications.)

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This doesn't explain the very local nature of the "attack".

From the first paragraph:

> The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.

Maybe rotating your head affects how you perceive the noise.

In my experience, yes: as soon as I willed myself to move my head, the sound disappeared. But unlike these people are reporting, it never reappeared in the same session. Nor did it have a "structure" in space: it just happened when I regained consciousness.

I remember one trick to get out of sleep paralysis was to turn my eyes (you're always able to open your eyes and look around) and head until the movement was big enough to snap out of it. Once I got out of it and I didn't move much (like if I just turn around in bed) it could easily happen again. The best way to avoid this is to try doing something that requires concentration, like getting up and do something that requires concentration for a minute and then go back.

As I mentioned, I am aware this does not explain everything, but I was trying to suggest that pharmacology could have some role to play in explaining this (though I could not account for all the symptoms, nor for the motive, which might be along the lines of some kind of truth serum or something like that... my experience involved benzodiazepines, which famously are supposed to relax you).

Also, I failed to mention that the intense buzzing sound continued only until I finally managed to convince myself I was not immobilised, and willed my head to tilt. Upon doing this, the 'sound' instantly disappeared. In my (probably unrelated experience) I was immobile because I was convinced that I could not move so I didn't "bother" trying to do so (for what felt like an eternity) not because I was unable to. These people on the other hand obviously wanted to move, and were very much able to do so... and apparently re-encountered the same local phenomenon in various static locations.

So my experience is probably unrelated, but something about this reminded me of it, so I decided to toss it out there.

Although maybe it's very unlikely you could be on to something. I used to have many experiences like this when I was younger (sounds like you're talking about sleep paralysis) and I remember loud buzzing when I also took some medication to help me relax.

When I was in this state I had vivid hallucinations and it often felt like sound was louder. I posted here about hearing my bad phone charger, and I've actually had an experience of sleep paralysis coupled with that once which made it sound louder than it really was in reality.

I tend to agree with you. It probably is unrelated. But the discussion here is so focussed on sonic or microwave beams, trying to finagle the evidence to match these theories, that I felt it useful to report a fairly orthogonal experience that involved no such origins.

It's possible that it is not locality of position but locality of pose. Perhaps the diplomat would only hear the sound while lying horizontal, but the exact position of the bed didn't matter. It might have something to do with contamination with an ototoxic substance (such as gentamycin) and blood flow to the inner ear.

It could be some high power RF field and either be a sidelobe of an antenna pattern, or just a "moire" reinforcement of multiple transmitters.

Sounds like sleep paralysis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Unlikely. The affected diplomats explained that they left their beds immediately when hearing the sound, which would have been difficult for someone experiencing sleep paralysis. Nor would sleep paralysis have inset again when the diplomats returned to their beds so quickly.

I believe the parent was referring to GP's experiences, not what happened to the diplomats. Indeed what GP describes sounds like a combination of Exploding Head Syndrome and Sleep Paralysis.

Ah, you are quite correct! I missed the parent comment! My bad.

I believe I've experienced this combination before. I don't know exactly what it was, but my experience matches the description. I thought it was some sort of seizure, but exploding head is a better match. (so thanks!)

I think it was caused by a medication I was taking at the time. It started a few weeks after I increased the dosage, and stopped when I quit.

This didn't happen a lot, maybe 5 times over 2 months, but it was terrifying. I'd feel a strange sensation throughout my body as I was falling asleep, then hear a pulsating noise that sounded "glitchy", like an old CD that was skipping. I couldn't move my body but my eyes could look around the room, and I'd "see" weird shapes and lights. I could kinda make the experience stop and wake up by moving my eyes a certain way, which I guess snapped me out of it.

I used to get sleep paralysis somewhat regularly, now just a few times a year. But it never included the symptoms of exploding head syndrome. Usually it's just the sensation of some malevolent entity standing in the room while I'm laying in bed, unable to move.

Side note: of course I was voted down! There's an article about unexplained buzzing sounds occurring to people in beds, I mention reproducible experiences I've had with buzzing occurring when waking up (admitting not to cover all the range of symptoms reported) and explaining how I got myself into that situation, and I get voted down. I just don't understand this dynamic. </rant>

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