|
We hate for you to find out this way, but you should know that your brain hates you. Even if you're perfectly healthy and have never had a mental illness or dropped acid, it can mess with you in a terrifying variety of ways. And some of them are downright diabolical. #5.
Exploding Head Syndrome
What Is It? It's a typical night. You've just set aside your glass of scotch and are reclining in bed next to yet another nameless groupie you've just had acrobatic sex with. You click off the lamp and are drifting off to sleep... And a fucking bomb goes off in your head. There's a horrendous noise, like someone is firing a handgun from somewhere inside your skull and then a flash of light ...
... And suddenly, it's over again. Your heart is pounding. You look around the room blinking, shocked to find that your brains aren't splattered all over the bedroom. Physically, you appear perfectly fine. Congratulations, you've just experienced a random occurrence of Exploding Head Syndrome and, yes, it's totally a real thing. Wait, What's Going On? Well, no one is really sure. Physicians think there's a link to stress or extreme fatigue (surely you've heard the common saying, "Man, I'm so tired, my brain is going to fucking explode!"). They think physically it may also be caused by an inner ear problem, or possibly a form of minor seizure in the temporal lobe. But don't worry, according to Wikipedia, "it is not thought to be dangerous [citation needed]." The noise itself can be an explosion, or a roar, or waves, or a gunshot, or an electrical zapping. But it will always be loud, like pants-shittingly loud, and it's not a dream. We're just barely exaggerating about the pants-shitting thing, too--the experience is said to be followed by a rush of adrenaline, an elevated heart rate and terror (well duh).
It may only happen once, it may happen several times. EHS is usually random, even happening when a person is fully awake. Whoa, what if it happened right when you were in the middle of defusing a bomb? Can it Happen to You? It's rare, and found mostly in those over age 50. It's a little more common in women than men, and seems to come along with pre-existing sleep problems. Otherwise, who knows? It's so rare and so random that they haven't been able to document many cases of it. If you're out there and this is happening to you every night, there's probably someone with a scalpel who would love to take a look under the hood. #4.
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
What Is It? It's the next day. You wake up with a terrible headache. You roll out of bed, stumble into the hall... ...only to find the hallway is about a hundred miles long, the end vanishing into the horizon. What the hell? You look down. Wait a second... the floor is only an inch away from your face. The hallway isn't longer, you're just tiny. Your cat trots by, and you are unsurprised to find it is the size of a woolly mammoth.
A moment later, everything is back to normal. We hope you enjoyed your bout of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. Wait, What's Going On? In this bizarre condition, you don't just see everything as if it's much larger or smaller than it actually is, you completely perceive everything as larger or smaller, including your own damned body. It's not a hallucination, and your eyes are working just fine. Everything you see and touch is really there. Unfortunately, you just became either Gulliver, or one of the title characters in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, or both at the same time.
Experts think it's due to a malfunction of a part of the brain called the parietal lobe, which is in charge of keeping track of where your body is versus all the stuff in your environment you're trying to avoid running into. When it goes astray, your whole spatial awareness goes berserk. Your front door can appear to be the size of your fist, a cockroach as big as a dog. Can it Happen to You? Yep. AIWS can be triggered by all sorts of things, including psychoactive drugs or the Epstein-Barr Virus (also known as "mono"). But it can happen even without that and, in fact, one of the most common causes is migraines. The bad news is there's no cure, the good news is it always goes away on its own after a short time. Though those words may not be as comforting coming from a doctor who's towering five-stories above you. #3.
Phantom Extra Limb Syndrome
What Is It? You've just sat down to watch the Ace of Cakes marathon. You rest your chin on your hand, thoughtfully. You look down at your other hand and notice you should probably trim your fingernails. You look down at your other hand and notice... that you seem to have three hands.
In fact, the hand that's touching your chin is invisible, even though you can feel and move it. You can now tell your friends you've experienced phantom extra limb syndrome. Wait, What's Going On? Meet the sensory homunculus:
That's a model that demonstrates how you would look if you were shaped the way your brain sees you. That is, your brain devotes more power to tracking sensory data from your hands than, say, your ankles. The brain devotes quite a bit of effort to tracking your limbs and the information gained from them. For instance, it knows how close your hands are to the woman's boobies, so that you caress them instead of slapping them, and transmits the touch sensation back to your brain accordingly. Regular old phantom limb syndrome happens when you lose a limb; the brain sensory cortex doesn't always come to terms with that news very well and goes into a kind of denial. The end result is you feeling sensation, mostly pain, in the missing limb. But then, in rare cases, you get phantom extra limb syndrome. This happens in people who have not had anything amputated and in those cases the sensory cortex is so messed up it just manufactures an extra limb out of thin air.
Some patients have felt an extra arm or leg branching off from their existing limb, others have felt a third arm growing out of their chest. One patient even claimed he could see a third hand. So you can't underestimate how freaking convincing the sensation is. As far as your body knows, you've got the extra limb. Some patients even accused the hospital of stitching on an extra leg (why? To pad the bill?). By the way, one woman said she had lost control of her third arm and that it was now trying to strangle her. Holy shit! Can it Happen to You? The regular variety of phantom limb syndrome, where you think a limb is still there after amputation, is extremely common in amputees (50 percent to 80 percent). The extra limb variety seems to only occur due to some kind of brain damage, such as in the aftermath of a stroke. So, if you get into a bar brawl and some guy cracks you over the head with a crowbar, make sure the fist you're hitting him with actually exists. Otherwise you'll just look ridiculous. |
6 Star Wars Characters Too Retarded for Film
6 'Brilliant' Movie Scientists (Who Suck At Their Job)
6 Magical Movie Items They Wasted on Bullshit
6 Movie Plots Made Possible by Bafflingly Bad Decisions
I had Sleep Paralysis. I tried to open my eyes but, they kept closing by their selves. One time I saw floating little, dark, balls that flew everywhere, and I saw a dog apper right in front of me!!! I haven't had Sleep Paralysis until I was 12 years old I think.
in the basement of a family friend's house, I awoke from my sleeping bag on the floor to see, in the mirror next to me, a full-sized lion perched on the top of a bookshelf. I yelled at first in terror and it gradually shifted into a sort of warning to the awful beast. weird thing was, my little brother, 2 feet away on the couch slept right through it, while my dad, sleeping two floors above me, was woken up.
I experience all of these things all at once at least 3 times a week. I thought it was normal
Join eRepublik! Change the world, rewrite history, become the president of your country, build the biggest company in the world, or lead your country to victory in battles. You can do whatever you want, the choice is yours. http://www.erepublik.com/en/referrer/Roflolmao
Guy, where the hell do you source your infromation from? To say "I'm on the pig's back" in Irish is synonymous with saying "I'm doing just f**king dandy/great.", and has no connection to any ailment/disorder whatsoever, almost the opposite.
It's a good thing I'm crazy as f**k. No worries for me.
I experienced sleep paralysis at least once every few weeks as a child, and I still do about once every few months. The lack of motor functions is extremely unpleasant, and coupled with the hallucinations, is downright unnerving. It just feels SO REAL... However, by far, the worst part of it for me is that when it occurs, I cannot speak. As a child, I would always try to cry out for help, to scream, anything... But no sound would come out of my mouth, no matter how hard I tried. So, I was resigned to simply lay there and attempt to go back to sleep whilst staring at the horrific images tormenting me. So, not pleasant, you could say lol. Unfortunately, there's little to do in the way of getting used to it... I think I've experienced a mild case of AIWS before - directly before falling asleep, everything seemed grossly out of proportion and I could not process any image or concept of anything correctly proportioned... Like I just couldn't quite put my finger on the correct dimensions...
I experienced sleep paralysis at least once every few weeks as a child, and I still do about once every few months. The lack of motor functions is extremely unpleasant, and coupled with the hallucinations, is downright unnerving. It just feels SO REAL... However, by far, the worst part of it for me is that when it occurs, I cannot speak. As a child, I would always try to cry out for help, to scream, anything... But no sound would come out of my mouth, no matter how hard I tried. So, I was resigned to simply lay there and attempt to go back to sleep whilst staring at the horrific images tormenting me. So, not pleasant, you could say lol. Unfortunately, there's little to do in the way of getting used to it... I think I've experienced a mild case of AIWS before - directly before falling asleep, everything seemed grossly out of proportion and I could not process any image or concept of anything correctly proportioned... Like I just couldn't quite put my finger on the correct dimensions...
Sometimes just before I'm about to fall asleep I experience a sort of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. My body feels completely out of proportion, and I have difficulty picturing a human in proper proportions in my mind. Also I feel like I'm being watched quite often. It's a little unnerving. Great article.
I've had auditory hallucinations and have felt a presence in a room that I was in alone. Also, as a child I used to experience Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. I read this article and immediately thought of me being a child and trying to fall asleep when all of a sudden everything in the room is enormous and I'm so small. I never knew what it was but it was always so scary to me and I'll never forget it so when I read this I knew exactly what it was. I looked it up further and discovered it is most common in, you guessed it, small children. And happens mostly during, you guessed it, the onset of sleep. It actually kinda makes me feel better that this is an actual condition and I'm not the only one.
This article goes over a lot of things I normally give scientific rants about, but since this is a just a comedy website no good would come from it (harm: possibly, good: no), so I must resist the urge to say something (though I obviously didn't do a good job as I have posted this comment).
My friends recommended me a very interesting place __AgelessFriends.com__ It's a nice and free place for Younger Women and Older Men, or Older Women and Younger Men, to interact with each other. Age gap is not a problem there. You may wanna check it out and tell your friends.
I sometimes think I hear my mom calling me when she doesn't also when I was a little kid for split second I saw my dad sitting in a chair when he wasn't actually there
dont talk s**t about scoresby's its the best $3.50 drink ever
#1 Exploding head stndrome. You guys have obviously been buying the cheap scotch. What is it Scoresby's? Try a single malt like the McCallan and you won't have this problem anymore.
I've had sleep paralysis quite a few times, although only once has it ever been truly frightening (I saw someone standing at the foot of my bed staring at me). And I get the sensory hallucination of not being alone waaaaaay too much. Especially in the shower, for some reason.
peacefist- that was such a sad memory :o(
I occasionally experience a mild form of #5, probably because I often don't sleep enough during the week. It's both visually and aurally reminiscent of being photographed with a xenon flash pointing right into your eyes from up close - except that there is no residual image afterward. Thankfully, the "sound" is not loud at all. More like an electric "snap".
I have #2 & #1 all the time.
I've had #5, and thought I was gonna die, or at least be missing a good chunk of my head. And yeah, sounded like a cannon going off out of my forehead. Sometimes I get a moderate #1 Random Hallucinations, but I aways write them off as just my imagination. Also, I really get a lot of low level hallucinations that are so frequent that I don't even notice them anymore. Also, I had a hallucination that my dead pet dog was floating down from the sky to me in my backyard when I was just a kid. I think I was praying for him to come back.
7 Horrifying Moments from Classic Kids Movies
6 Beloved TV Shows (That Traumatized Cast Members For Life)
5 Badass Movie Characters You Didn't Know Were Real People
The 5 Most Maddeningly Unresolved TV Plot Lines
The Men Who Stare At Goats: New Trailer
Curse of the Duck Hunt Dog
Copyright © 2005 - 2009 Cracked Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. CRACKED, CRACKED.COM and the "CRACKED" logo are trademarks owned by Cracked Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Digg
Del.icio.us
Fark
