I lie in bed drifting of to sleep but I hear random clicking and creaking noises coming from somewhere in the house.
What is actually producing those noises? I’m aware with heat and cooling, joins expand and retract but to produce a quick clicking noise, I would expect it would require some velocity between two objects colliding. How are these noises made when nothing of significant scale is moving?
In: Physics
The creaks are likely due to contraction of timbers etc when it gets cooler at night.
But I want to mention something else which may or may not be the case for you; it is for me. When you hear the clicks (not cracks), do they startle you, and make your heart rate race for a couple of seconds? This used to happen to me all the time, as I was just drifting off to sleep, I’d hear a big crack, which I always thought was TV discharging static or something, I’d get a flash of light behind eyes, it’d startle me and raise heart rate. Happens for years. Turned out it is called a sleep start, and more specifically in my case, exploding head syndrome (seriously!). It’s actually really common, and the reason I mention it is only as you asked about it when you are in bed and drifting to sleep.
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