Do you ever get this thing when you close your eyes when you're trying to sleep, and you get lots of moving images, like a cartoon?

[AntiHop]

Sometimes, when I try to go to sleep, when I close my eyes, I get these busy and crazy images in my mind's eye. It is like a crazy cartoon. It's different every time. I can't control it. It is more likely to happen when I'm stressed.

It doesn't bother me too much. But I was wondering if anyone else gets this, and it it has a name.

Very occasionally I get this. Weird images I can barely even make out.

Have also occasionally been woken up by a loud crash/bang which is inside my own head.

Have experienced sleep paralysis once or twice too

Usually at the start of a migraine.
I once spent what felt a whole night with the scene of somebody opening a door and handing over a stack of paper with the words 'here are the copies' over and over and over.

@Whatwouldscullydo

Very occasionally I get this. Weird images I can barely even make out.

Have also occasionally been woken up by a loud crash/bang which is inside my own head.

Have experienced sleep paralysis once or twice too

I get the loud crash in my own head too! No idea what causes that.

I've only ever had the moving images on painkillers, once while taking painkillers for a migraine was quite intense as the 'show' went on and on and on.

Yes all the time. I also have Aphantasia so have no mind's eye.

Yes! And I get it a lot more if I've been doing a lot of one thing that day. So if I've done a lot of driving I can close my eyes and 'see' the road whizzing by as if I was at the wheel. If I was playing a video game I will "see" the characters/movement of the game as if I'm watching them on a screen. Same if I've been cycling, swimming etc. Anything that I've done for more than an hour or two continuously that day just carries on playing inside my head.

If I've done absolutely loads of that thing it even happens a bit without closing my eyes, like a see-though moving image laid over what I can actually see. It can feel a bit exhausting and impossible to turn off from but mostly I don't mind too much.

Have also occasionally been woken up by a loud crash/bang which is inside my own head.

Exploding Head Syndrome. I get it too, many times a year. It is a real thing and apparantely harmless.

www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/exploding-head-syndrome

I used to get this and it sounds a bit like a phenomenon called 'prisoners cinema'.

Kind of worrying to see it described as a sleep disorder 😳 I don't have any of the listed triggers. It only happens occasionally.

I do also get that thing where you feel like u are awake but you can't open your eyes and then your brain starts of with reality if what you can hear and fills in the gaps of what you see but I guess as you cant open your eyes you fall back asleep and then it just enters dream territory

Yeah I get this. I thought everybody got it actually

changeyourname

That crash is called exploding head syndrome.
I've had that. Scared the shit out of me!

I used to get this when I took ecstasy. When I closed my eyes at the end of the night, I'd have thousands of really clear images flashing in front of me in very quick succession. So a rose opening and then stars and then the ocean etc etc. It's never happened to me otherwise, but it's happened nearly every time after taking something. Maybe it's a version of hallucinations.

Never had the cartoon thing, but I get the equivalent in music (in my case brisk metronomic harpsichord music).

Exploding head syndrome that's a hilarious name for it!

All the time, I assumed this was normal!

I used to have this as a child. I have aphantasia also.

Only when very stressed and tired op, are you ok?

@banisher

All the time, I assumed this was normal!

Me too

I get this but it's always the same - a speeded-up black and white cartoon of a cat chasing a mouse, and I can't get the words "the Olympics" out of my head. So weird.

I get exploding head syndrome. I also sometimes wake up thinking I can hear my DC calling "Mummy" but when I check on them they're fast asleep and they don't call me Mummy any more anyway. I think it's a stress thing.

I also had it the other day being woken up by the cat miaowing in my face but when I checked the cat was shut downstairs as usual so it must have been a different version of exploding head syndrome.

I am stressed and anxious so I think that's why I get it a lot.

As soon as I close my eyes to go to sleep I get flashbacks of the previous night’s dreams!

Oh interesting… I used to get this when I was about 19/20 and at uni - I’d drift off just for a second in the lecture theatre and these really vivid, fast sequences of colourful pictures/action/animation would spool past my mind’s eye. Then I’d jerk awake again like you do if your head nods down too far when you’re drowsy and sitting up.

I also get the computer game continuing behind my closed eyes if I’ve been playing something for too long but that feels far more ‘normal’ to me; the flashing images felt peculiar. I did have a few other peculiar feelings at the time - like brief flashes of feeling ‘close to God’ (though I’m not religious and believe in no particular deity) and very vague feelings of somehow having left my body and surveying things from outside. No idea if that’s linked but all of that together did really unsettle me.

My children also seem to get versions of this - two of them have described episodes of seeing things every time their eyes shut when trying to go to sleep, and also seeing shifting colour/shape/patterns even with their eyes open when sleepy, although both of them seem to have grown out of the latter.

Interesting! I do get the moving images sometimes (I posted about it to someone long ago who asked the same question many years ago on MN)

Mine is nearly always in the form of an almost-sepia little film, a boat on a river or at a harbour, sometimes with a tiny person moving on deck. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen IRL and the detail of boat, etc, is clear and sharp.

Most intriguing. They don't last long. I almost enjoy it.

I sometimes get what I think of as a rapid cycling through single images. They are much clearer than anything I could voluntarily bring to mind. Sometimes it's unfamiliar faces, which is creepy.

Also I sometimes I just get black and white lines (like interference on an old fashioned black and white TV).

Oddest thing is that it only happens if I'm lying on my back, never my side.

I also have aphantasia.

@alsonotmyname isn't it weird when you find out something isn't normal when you thought it was! Properly odd feeling.

In case it contributes to any anecdata here, I'm autistic and have face-blindness.

Exploding head syndrome sounds a bit terrifying from the name of it!

I get sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations when I'm stressed. I also get suddenly woken up by a doorbell which is annoying. When I'm unwell or really really stressed, I sleep walk.

I also start dreaming as soon as I fall asleep but before I'm actually properly asleep which I think sounds like what a lot of what you experience. I was thinking about starting a thread asking what sleep cycle I'm in when that happens.

I get lucid dreams too, which are actually quite helpful as I can sometimes turn nightmares around.

I don't think I've got the hang of just sleeping.