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Electric/Energy surge to brain when trying to fall asleep.

Posted , 373 users are following.

GD10
GD10

Hi guys, I'm new to the site but glad I found somewhere to share my symptoms.

I'm getting a sort of electrical shock when trying to fall asleep. This electrical shock seems to be described on other sites as 'jumps' or 'zaps' or 'surges of energy'. It happens not when I'm sleeping but the moment I am about to fall asleep. Its like a sort of butterflies feeling in the stomach and then a rush/surge of energy to the brain which gives you a 'jump' and electrical feeling in the head and sometimes upper body. The more extreme they are sometimes produce a twitch in maybe the arm or leg. Its not painful but I guess is quite scary when it happens. These can happen numerous times a night.

Many friends/family I have spoken to say this is normal and they are familiar with the symptoms (I understand what they mean as it can be quite similar to when you suddenly wake from a bad dream) but mine seem to be a lot more often and extreme. I know my symptoms don't seem to be normal.

I've been having these for about 5-6 weeks now (some nights are worse than others) but generally its been more or less every night. This has turned into a vicious cycle because when you actually close your eyes at night to go to sleep you are actually waiting for the 'shock' to happen instead of trying to sleep. Obviously the less sleep you have, the less functional you are the next day and so on and so on. You then get sleep deprived which I believe also may trigger this.

The only other thing I can add to my symptoms is sometimes during the day I get a spaced out/empty/dizzy/cloudy feeling in the head (hard to explain). Sometimes this can turn into a sort of brain/head sensation where you feel you need to kind of 'shake it off'. Again, its hard to explain, something like if you have restless feet and you need to kick out of it but its in the head so you need to give yourself a shake to snap out of it.

I have read quite a bit about anxiety/stress and these symptoms may fall into this category but the issue I have with this, is that I have nothing to be anxious/stressful about! All is OK with job, money, house, relationship etc so I'm not sure how this all started. Could I be anxious about this illness? Again, a vicious cycle?

About me - I'm a fit and healthy 35 year old guy. I actually exercise quite a lot (go to gym/swim 4 times a week and have run numerous marathons over the past year). Although this fitness regime has stopped since I have started having these symptoms as I am feeling quite weak/tired due to not getting much sleep due to it. I have no major prior illnesses and I am not on any medication. I don't want to get in the habit of taking sleep medication.

I have been to the hospital and spent the night where they performed numerous blood tests/Heart ECG/X Rays/Urine and all came back OK. The only issue I had was slightly high blood pressure (but not high enough to be put on any medication). I have also been for an MRI scan and EEG epilepsy test. I will find the results with these in about 5 weeks time.

Anyway, that's my symptoms and hopefully someone might feel at ease that they are going through something similar.

Reading similar posts on the internet I don't think anyone has come to the conclusion on what in fact is causing these problems, even though a lot of the people actually been for tests and seen doctors. Has anyone experienced these issues?

Thanks guys, feel free to get in touch smile

27 likes, 695 replies

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  • thomas81156
    thomas81156 GD10

    Posted

    Adrenaline surges throughout the day that over-saturates the muscles... and stays. The Adrenaline manifests itself in many ways, most of which are not through conscious thought-processing. If you have normal stressors throughout the day, Adrenaline will surge. We have both good and bad stress triggers. For example: A new job, a new car, a new relationship, better weather, etc.. etc. ~ The bad stress: A cheating significant other, job loss, financial strain, death, life-setbacks, etc.

    All of these instances cause a reaction of some sort. Most people are aware of them, others are not. Results can vary: Depression, Anxiety, Panic, feelings of hoplessness, over-joy, over-stimulation, over-thinking... whatever they are, if you look into how the Sympathetic and Para-Sympathetic nervous systems work, you may see some logic in the sleeplessness and strangeness in how your body tries to negotiate stimulation of the Central Nervous System.

    Add a little Caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol, OTC and Prescribed Meds and you pretty much have the perfect concoction for inexplicable feelings that manifest themselves in the middle of the night or the middle of the day.. and loss of sleep and the addition of Sleep Apnea will definitely make you a bit woozy during the day, sometimes coming in waves of Vertigo... anxiety....fear.

    Our bodies and minds are so far from being thoroughly medically examined that all a Physician can do is take a stab at prescribing or evaluating something that may take year to resolve itself...

    I'm not a doctor, but I've been there, many, many times.. obviously, otherwise I would not have found this forum... right?

    • SMSsi
      SMSsi thomas81156

      Posted

      Hy Thomas, ok could be adrenaline. I expirienced this over-joy, over-thinking... For me I call this, hy emotionally expression or excitment because of something good happens .... 

      About the electric shocks if u say is adrenaline do you have any sujestion about how to balance?

      : )

  • brino99
    brino99 GD10

    Posted

    I just got on here because I am having the same symptoms and it appear I am getting the same answers from doctors and the same results from the tests as other folks on here.  They can't find anything.  Yet, I go to bed in fear of what the shocks are going to be like.  Fortunately, many of them are small, but the big ones that feel like I stuck my finger in a light socket are downright scary.
    • simon92408
      simon92408 brino99

      Posted

      Hi Mate. The key thing here is not to panic. These are natural occurances of some kind. They are not imaginary and do have a physical cause. Until we can find out what that is - what we are all suffering from try to be a passive observer of the phenomena and accept it for now. It may help of you look at my "questionaire" and see if there are any similarities in our experiences. I spoke to a psychiatrist last night who is a friend and he seemed pretty sure these were (at least for me) some sort of night time seizures. Not a nice thought I know but he said he had encountered other people who had had similar. (He has a lot of people refered to him who think they are going crazy but end up just haveing simple partial siezures). I had a load of these events last night starting at 5 and now I just get back to sleep as fast as possible. They are more of a nusance that a worry. If you felt so inclined you could always complete my questionarie above. If enough people completed it we might see an obvious pattern. If there was anyone out there who was better qualified to design a survey or get one going through survey monkey the collected info might be really useful. 
  • john80873
    john80873 GD10

    Posted

    Hi everyone,I've been following this thread for about a week now,in my desperation I came across it,I've been having these electric shocks now for over 2 weeks now,this has happened to me before,last year before these,they don't happen at night when I'm going to sleep,maybe because of the sleeping pills at night,I can't explain it,but if I was to try and take a nap during the day,without fail,it's gonna happen,today was the worst I can remember,was like a mini bomb going off inside my head,if I can recall correctly when this happened last year,other symptoms I had then are the same now,tingling in the hands and feet,sore head,ringing in the ears,last year when I went to the doc's and told her about it,after usual bloods and such,I was told I was suffering from a dystrophy of some sort,began with m,I can't remember,but apparently it was lack of folic and b12 in my system that caused this,I've an appointment to see her Tuesday,and besides telling her about the pins and needles and other things,I just don't know the words to tell her about the electric shocks,I never told her last year,mainly because I hadn't a clue what was happening to me and thought I was going mad,obviously I'm none the wiser as to why or what is happening,but regardless,I'm in fear every time I go to put my head on the pillow,such was the force that I threw my head up last week,I've hurt my neck,again,im just at such a loss as to what is causing this.

    regards john

    • SMSsi
      SMSsi john80873

      Posted

      Hy John.

      For what I can say, try to have nice deep round breaths when you are in bed. Good thoughts like. I m protected, nothing can happen to me, i m relaxed... whatever you feel, but nice thoughts to calm down you.

      I think for to start is the way. Not being afraid. Being afraid we attract more the phenomen, we don't sleep good....

      breath,focus in long inhales, exhale and if it's possible round, not cut.

      Bye

       

    • thomas81156
      thomas81156 SMSsi

      Posted

      These are all classic symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Seriously. So common, but so many people feel to embarrassed to speak on them. Common prescribed meds: Benzodiazapenes.
    • simon92408
      simon92408 thomas81156

      Posted

      Hi Thomas. A couple of things that don't fit though. 1. I'm not stressed or anxious in any way. I'm very level headed despite some pretty horrid symptoms. 2 They came on very suddenly after surgery.  They have no relationship with my conscious thoughts when I have them awake or when I have them asleep 3 they are a physical phenomena which (I think) people are reporting as very stressful not the other way round ie the physical problem is driving the stress not stress driving a physical response. 
  • timmy256
    timmy256 GD10

    Posted

    This all started with me about a month ago..started taking Viibryd (vilazodine). Scared to sleep Rush in my brain and paralyzing affects. Creepy feeling trying to go to sleep. The dr. told me to get off the medicine and now it's bad at night. All the same symptoms high blood pressure and stress. Even though I don't feel stressed. Even though I wish no one had this guess I'm glad I'm not the only person.
  • Ayeziza
    Ayeziza GD10

    Posted

    So I've done some research on this because I was worried that it was the onset of seizures. It is not related to seizures which is why MRIs or any sort of brain scans report a normal status.

    It is called EHS (exploding head syndrome) and it is harmless. There is a lot of speculation as to what causes it but nothing definitive. The following paragraphs are a description of my symptoms.

    It only occurs as I'm falling asleep and usually is triggered during the transition from conscious to unconscious while trying to sleep. First, I get a sudden ringing in my ears and then my heart rate slightly increases (not abnormally high but enough for me to notice). My cognition or sensual perception (sight, sound, touch) remains unaffected so if I were to stand up, I would not be dizzy or off balance. If I sit up, the ringing in my ears begins to fade and my heart rate quickly normalizes.

    If I try and ignore it, I begin phase 2 of the ordeal. I can sense that there is a build up of some sort, almost like a movie progressing toward a climax that includes a twitch or two of a limb. If I continue ignoring this, I eventually begin to get close to drifting to sleep but suddenly it feels like an EMP grenade went off in my head and I'm jarred awake. I don't feel dizzy or dazed afterward.

    Originally, I thought I was having a seizure but none of the symptoms of seizures matched the symptoms I was having. 

    Multiple sources say that it's harmless and that there is no known cure for this, though medication may be prescribed in an attempt to reduce the magnitude of the symptoms.

    At least you can rest assured that it's not serious.

    • SMSsi
      SMSsi Ayeziza

      Posted

      Hy.

      Just now i read about this in wikipedia. In my case is not this syndrome I have. 

      I m not hearing any sounds in my head. Only I feel electricity. Like you put the fingers direct into the plug in (like the films showed, this electrecity shock) for example.

      Im sharing with you when occurs this phenomenon, during the transition from conscious to unconscious while trying to sleep.

       

    • simon92408
      simon92408 SMSsi

      Posted

      Ive tread about Exploding ead Syndromeas well and the definition that I read was hearing a loud sound that woke you up. However I do think that in exactly the same way that we are trying to describe something that is very hard to put into words that perhaps the doctor that has given this syndrome a definition has had to approximate the symtoms. Perhaps Exploding Head Syndrome covers a range of similar sudden waking up issues that people writing on this forum have had, not just a loud noise waking you up. In other words perhaps EHS has a much wider defintion than just hearing a loud noise ie one person percieves it as a loud noise, another as an electric shock, another as a head rush etc 
    • Ayeziza
      Ayeziza SMSsi

      Posted

      Much like cancer, there are differing forms of EHS. I don't hear a large bang either but I do get ringing in my hears. There is a shock involved as well in EHS. In the wiki page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome, if you scroll all the way to the bottom it mentions that tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and hypnic jerks are involved. Hypnic jerks, as wiki defines them, are  "a peculiar sensory feeling of 'shock' or 'falling into the void.'" and it occurs in the transition from awake to sleep which seems to be what we all are describing.
    • SMSsi
      SMSsi Ayeziza

      Posted

      Mmm interesting. Yes it seems to me it could be that. The only thing is that they don't know where it comes from.

      I found also other EHS, form as, Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (also talk about tinnitus) Do you think could be a connextion with us the electromagnetic hypersensitivity? 

      And other possibility to me is that there something beyond us, our minds and doctors for explainnig that.

    • Ayeziza
      Ayeziza SMSsi

      Posted

      I don't think so, electromagnetic hypersensitivity seems to list stress, headache, skin effects, fatigue and headache but that's not what I experience.

      EHS may not seem like perfect diagnosis but if you review other sources and their descriptions of it, some seem to match our symptoms exactly. Especially since EHS happens as you try and go to bed but not at any other time of the day.

    • Ayeziza
      Ayeziza

      Posted

      Also, EHS is accompanied by a loud banging noise or tinnitus (ringing in the ears). I always get tinnitus right before the onset of the surge but if i sit up the ringing goes away.
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