Red Rain

This morning a little after 5 a.m. I awoke to the sound of three loud knocks.  I sat up in bed.  The dog wasn't barking.  Blitz who was asleep on the bed hadn't made a move.  Moonlight backlit all of the shades and there was no movement outside.  I realized those three knocks were just in my mind.   It also wasn't the first time I've 'heard' them.  They had started a couple of years ago but occur infrequently.  However, I've heard them often enough to know that they mean something.   So I looked it up.  I have 'Exploding Head Syndrome" - a very flashy name for a very benign issue.  Some people hear knocks, sometimes explosions, or crashes.  It's more common among women and people older than 60 but anyone can hear them (or think they hear them).  It occurs in that period where you are just transitioning between sleep and wakefulness.  Other than causing the person to be temporarily frightened, it doesn't seem to have any other ill effects and what causes it isn't known.  There are some medications to control it but are only suggested for people that have multiple occurrances per night.  Sometimes the syndrom just goes away.   All this info I gathered from looking at a few medical sites from well-known institutions (Mayo, Johns Hopkins, Oxford Clinical Psychology).  Many many more on-line sites said the knocks mean someone I know had recently died, that I was about to die, or my house is haunted.  Another case where just because a lot of people say it, doesn't make it true.