I had something similar happen after sleeping a few times with my first-gen airpods pro. I think something must have gotten filled with earwax or something, because the noise cancelling got more and more broken and had more sudden sharp sounds until they were unusable

But since then I've had two pairs of airpods pro 2 and bought the 3s on the first day, and I've had no such issues with any of them, including sleeping, and flying twice with the 3's so far. YMMV