Pseudo-Auditory Hallucinations?

This morning, around 5 am - I woke up to hear the doorbell ringing. I was wondering who was at our door so early in the morning, but had no intention of answering (because it was so early, dark etc.) so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But the doorbell kept ringing...and ringing...and ringing...

So finally, thinking it was perhaps a neighbor with an emergency, I crawled (literally) out of bed, to my bedroom door to see if I was really hearing the doorbell and to find out what all the commotion was about. When I opened my door, I realized that the doorbell was not in fact ringing but I could still hear it ringing in my left ear.

I remember being a bit confused about it all, and laying back down but the ringing of the doorbell continued in my head. Knowing it wasn't the doorbell, I began to get a bit anxious (heart palpitations) but I didn't want to get up yet, so I tried to breathe through it. The doorbell sound started to get further and further away, and I noticed that I was only hearing it (the whole time) in one ear (left).

I thought perhaps, that it was just a hypnagogic hallucination but I'm pretty sure I was wide awake when I started getting anxious. By the end of today I concluded that I must have in some way, still been asleep.

Then, tonight I heard the ringing again but it quickly faded (the doorbell "only rang about 3 times") and it was in the same ear. Is this perhaps a ear thing (don't have ear problems that I know of); a temporary thing or what? Only new medicine is citalopram (tomorrow is 4 wks I think) - but hallucinations aren't one of those side effects.

Has this ever happened to anyone?

Not sure how to answer your question so I turned to Psych Central articles
Psych Central - Search results for Hearing auditory sounds in your head

Maybe one of those will shed some light on your experience.

Think the best thing to do is not to react. Be cool. Whatever it is is not life threatening.

Yes. In a way. Every so often I get ringing in my left ear. It doesn't sound like anything familiar though, so I have always taken it as a quirk of the ear.

I do hear things on the verge of waking that do no compute with what I see once fully awake. Sounds that, after a little thought, made no sense at all. The circular part is that I feel like it's the sound that woke up me up with which to begin.

Yeah, I frequently think I hear things when I'm in that half awake, half asleep state, both falling asleep and waking up.

The other morning, I thought I could hear a delivery guy banging on our door and calling my name. I jumped out of bed, to answer it, and of course when I got there, no one was there.

I think it's pretty common.

spliitmage

i hear things in my ear too, but i think i can tell the difference if it is real or not, probably because i know i'm on meds. i have tinittis too.

I had something similar once when I was taking a narcotic for a pain condition. The sounds went on for a couple of weeks (usually music). I thought there was a radio playing in my attic for awhile, among other things. The problem stopped when I stopped the med.

It's an unsettling thing to happen. I felt a little less disturbed when I realized that the sounds weren't real, but still, if they hadn't stopped when I stopped the meds, I'd have been seeing a psychiatrist about them!

I think that it is possible for doorbells to get an electric short and to ring on their own, but the timing of what you're describing doesn't make that seem like that's what's going on.

I hope you get it figured out. *hugs*

sounds like tinnitus... ive had it since i was like 8, i've learned to ignore it and tune it out now so it doesnt really bother me much. mine has a huge range of different sounds from the common ringing noise to something that sounds like tuneless bagpipes...

i dont think it can be fixed just ignored or play music/white noise to drown it out

Those led to a good bit of things. Thank you. Lol I'm trying to be cool about it lol, I really am. It hasn't happened again so that helps

Yeah, see - it wasn't that sharp buzzing sound that you sometimes hear. It was very clearly the doorbell which goes like -dun-DuN-DUN-DuN-DUN-Dun-dun-dun (very descriptive I know )

I totally felt like the sound woke me up. When you get like that - and actually wake up - does the sound go away?? How quickly??

I kind of laughed about the jumping out of the bed thing. Sorry. I've done that before though. I wouldn't have paid much mind to it if I hadn't still been hearing the sound after I woke up; and I could tell that it was specifically being heard in my head through one ear.

I could tell it was not real (after I woke up) but the knowledge didn't change that fact that it was still ringing. What do you hear with the tinnitis?

Thanks! This sounds a lot like what I experienced except i'm not on narcs. I felt better when I realized the sound wasn't real - until I could still hear it lol. If it was the doorbell like shoring or something, it could have been like one of those sounds incorporated into my dream that was stuck in my head like maybe a song stuck or something?

Oh wow! How long does an episode last? How'd you find out thats what it was? Does/did it freak you out?