Something weird happened last night

[TheFirstOHN]

At 1am (I checked the time just after it happened) I was woken up by a flash of blindingly bright white light in my bedroom. A bit like lightning, but we have blackout blinds and the light was filling the room.

It did not wake DH, but he is a very deep sleeper.

I have checked online maps of recent lightning strikes and there were none last night.

I have that when I fall asleep sometimes.

I think you received a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past (he took his cap off).
Prepare for a couple more visits.

Our energy saving bulbs sometimes flash for no reason when they’ve been turned off.

noonemournsthewicked that's reassuring.

If there's a loud noise as I'm falling asleep, I sometimes see the noise as a small flash of colour on the inside of my eyelids, so it could be that a very loud noise occurred when I was at a wakeful moment in my sleep cycle and my brain got confused.

Newsername it has never done that before, but I just googled and that has been reported in plug-in lamps with energy-saving bulbs (which is what I have next to my bed).

In my sleep-addled mind, it was more of a widespread phenomenon (I read too much science fiction) and I was half convinced it would be all over the local Facebook page this morning, if not the whole of Twitter. When the Buncefield explosion happened, the noise woke me up, so my subconscious had decided it was something similar.

If there's a loud noise as I'm falling asleep, I sometimes see the noise as a small flash of colour on the inside of my eyelids

This happens to me too. It's so weird.

• If there's a loud noise as I'm falling asleep, I sometimes see the noise as a small flash of colour on the inside of my eyelids

This happens to me too. It's so weird.*

synaesthesia. I guess when you're relaxed and falling asleep your brain is less on the ball about sorting the stimuli to the 'correct' senses. I know that my synaesthesia - which is mainly 'seeing' tastes and sounds - was much stronger when I was a child than now, and my most vivid experiences of it as an adult have been when relaxed, sleepy or a bit meditative.

Something weird happened to me too OP. There was a really loud noise around 4am, I wear ear plugs so couldn't be sure of what it was. Sat up quick and noticed the bluetooth sound bar on the TV was turned on when it automatically goes into standby (it had been off earlier). It went back into standby a little while later.

Must have been a night for it.

Police helicopter?