Not sure if this is the correct forum or not, mods feel free to move if necessary.

Last night my wife experienced some stange and scary mental disturbances. She had laid down in bed after spending a few hours preparing some lesson plans for work the next day (she is a science teacher). Immediately, she realized that her mind was racing and it was going to be a bit before she could transition to a state of calm before she could begin to fall asleep.

Instead of her mind relaxing, she said it seemed to accelerate. Thoughts continued to race to the point where she describes it as, "feeling like all her nerve synapsis in here head were firing at an incredible rate, and it was loud...and even with my eyes open, it all remained...as if I could see the sounds,the sound was overwhelming...it was almost like a loud humming sound...I was scared because I didn't know what was going on."

Thats not all, there was something that she was able to hear during all of the "static". She says throughout all of the distortion she was able to hear voices, and they were the voices of her mother and grandmother. They were not talking to each other. One would talk, then the other, but in an unrelated way. She says, "I'm not sure what they were saying because of all the background noise, but I could recognize their voices...it was almost like trying to tune in to a radio station that is distorted." Both her mother and grandmother are alive and well.

She tells me that she was wide awake through all of this, that she was able to move, and she had just laid down. She wasn't tired, she was forcing herself to lay down because it was getting late and was past her usual bedtime. It all started as she realized it would be hard to sleep with her mind racing...then it all began to accerlerate out of control. I had fallen asleep a few hours earlier, as I have to get up earlier than her. She also estimates that the entire scenario lasted between 3-5 minutes..but I'm guessing that it may have just seemed like that long. I'm not sure..

She isn't sure what to attribute it to. She is in sound health as far as we know...Recent annual checkup was fine...Never any evidence of a mental disorder (other than marrying me), and never has anything like this happen.

Any suggestions, other than the obvious "go get checked out", not that its a bad idea. If it happens again she will, just curious if anyone else has experienced something like this before.

Thanks in advance...

-lions to lambs

How old is your wife? I am going to go ahead and say have her go get checked out if this happens again and in any way impedes her daily life. Sometimes before I fall asleep I'll hear things like my name being called, or sounds like I'm driving or in a restaurant. I think that's me being half asleep though.

Originally posted by Domo1
How old is your wife? I am going to go ahead and say have her go get checked out if this happens again and in any way impedes her daily life. Sometimes before I fall asleep I'll hear things like my name being called, or sounds like I'm driving or in a restaurant. I think that's me being half asleep though.

Reading the OP, the one question racing through my mind was - how old is your wife?

I was lucky enough to experience a manic episode with psycosis once, and in the beginning I heard voices in bed.

Does she have a manic personality?

Do the basics if you haven't already done them, check BP and heart rate. And check for any side effects of any meds she may be on.