Our mystery loud sounds are usually the sound of electrical transformers blowing.

We hear a boom every month or so, but it's aircraft or a test in the Gulf. Someone on NextDoor always asks "did anyone hear that loud boom?"

In the 70s, I remember waking up because my bed was shaking. I thought my sister had come into my room and kicked the mattress. I turned over to fuss at her and no one was there. The water in my goldfish's bowl was swaying. Turned out there was an explosion at a mine miles from our house.

No booms, but I have laid down on the bed and felt a cat moving around and getting comfortable at the foot of my bed, though there are no cats in the room...

It hasn't happened to me, but my husband's mother will swear strange things have happened. Once it was someone on her deck, she even called 911. Another time she said her bedroom light had "exploded" although no signs of anything, but she insisted my husband replace the light. It was something else recently, oh! her tv fell off the shelf, all by itself. The tv actually was in the floor (my husband saw it), but something had to cause it. There have been other things, we think she may dream something happening (particularly the light). She even had an electrician come check the wiring. ???

Our firecracker and cherry bomb season is now c five months of the year — not just for Independence Day. (Covid — boredom? — promoted more explosions in more months and it hasn’t lessened.) So hearing loud booms late at night or early in the morning is not unusual May - September. Then add in the week before and after New Years.

Exploding head syndrome. It’s a real thing — I have it.

Party music, that's the term I was trying to remember.

We have had Kabooms where our local fb group chimes in. Once, it was an actual explosion at a facility about 15 miles away owned by someone in town! Sometimes it's fireworks or a . Sometimes there's no definitive answer.

But now I'm off to Google exploding head syndrome.

I have exploding head syndrome, too. It's creepy when it happens!

DD2 has exploding head syndrome. The first time she experienced she heard glass shattering and a crashing noise. She thought someone was breaking into her house and called 911. It used to happen a few times a week, but a couple years ago, it went down to once a month or so. She usually hears thunder or crashing noises.

About six monts ago I woke up thinking I heard our pool alarm (loud high pitched if a first floor door or window is opened). Our grandson was here, so I checked on him and the pool. Nothing. I chalked it up to a dream, same with a few other random times I've woken up over the years from "a noise." But I do not think I have the syndrome.

A couple of years ago we had a fireball streak across the sky. We heard a loud boom, the outside metal spiral staircase shook and the next day it was reported that they were looking for meteorites in a field 20 kilometres away.

We also get birds slamming into our windows at this time of year, and spring, when the sun is lower in the sky. Some can really make a loud thud. ☹️

I worry that some morning I could wake up to a kaboom, attribute it to exploding head syndrome, only to find that it really was something!

Exploding Head Syndrome - I had never heard of that. I still think MIL's is dreams as she doesn't hear something every time. The time she thought someone was breaking in, she said she saw two people on her deck.

Annie, that happens to me all the time! Enough to make me look around.

Bpath, are you in a rural area with oil wells or gas plants? They let out booms. Or earthquakes? Always check your local news after you hear one and see if something happened.

Oakley, suburbia! We do have earthquakes, but the last time it was noticieable to me I was 11 and it was simply like a truck was rumbling past.

People do report occasional kabooms on the local Fb group, usually several people say they heard it, too (sometimes there are multiple posts within a minute of each other) and sometimes they are explained and sometimes not. But yesterday morning, i heard it and Dh did not. There is no way he could have missed it, if it were real.

Sometimes temperature inversions can create a boom or rumble from the airplanes. Bpath if you are near the airport or where planes fly over that can happen a lot.

Gscience, that’s very interesting! There used to be a naval air station nearby; when I was a kid we would occasionally hear a sonic boom! But it’s closed now. Planes do fly over, with a big hub 25 miles away, but that’s a very distinct sound, especially the full freighters that depart around 3 or 4 in the morning! Next time I hear a kaboom, though, I hope I remember to pull up Flightradar and see if something is overhead. (Our kids live right under the approach, I’ll have to ask how it sounds.)

I occasionally hear loud booms when I'm sleeping, as well. Took me years to realize that the problem was me and not something else.

Lately, I have had the pleasure of auditory hallucinations that bring me, for my listening pleasure, all kinds of music. It's never loud enough for me to quite hear it but I can usually discern the genre of music, a rhythm, sometimes a melody. It only happens when I'm wide awake. These musical interludes never last long, thankfully, and I'm not bothered by it.

Rhizo, that happened to my mom when she was in rehab. We thought she was hearing a radio in someone else's room, but she insisted that wasn't the case.

Years ago when we lived in a limestone house, we heard them. It was natural limestone, not veneer, but it needed some tuckpointing. In winter, rain/sleet would get in tiny cracks and freeze in the night. The expanding ice would cause loud cracks and booms.

Scared us silly the first time.

@petalique re: auditory hallucinations -- that happens to me! usually it's a high pitched beep, kind of like when the dishwasher is finished but I know nothing was running. it doesn't happen often, and it weirds me out every single time. it sounds so real!

OMG Rhizo, I get that too! I'll hear a melody - it's faint, but yet clear if that makes any sense at all. I'm not day dreaming, I'm wide awake when it happens - and I don't think I'm that far off my rocker (yet anyway). It does sound like a radio playing in the distance, except there is no radio playing and it's all in my head. I've gone in search of said radio before and found nothing.

Like you said, it doesn't happen often and it doesn't usually last very long either. No idea what my poor brain is hearing when it does happen. I've wondered if it's my own heart beat, or my brain turning some distant sound into a more recognizable melody. Who knows.

I've also had the loud crash wake me up at night. That too doesn't happen often thankfully, because THAT is terrifying. Most times I can never find anything, so I assume it's me dreaming it and waking myself up. However one time a large box did fall over in our attached garage...and so now that it was a real sound once, I'm forever concerned about what the heck blew up or got crashed into, etc. when it happens.

Fortunately I have dogs, so I take my cues from them. If they're still sleeping soundly I assume it was a dream. If we're all up looking at each other like WTH was that, then I know I have to go investigate. LOL.