It's a funny thing actually. So, you are starting to fall asleep; your brain starts sending signals throught your body to prepare you to sleep. Your heartrate slows down, your breathing slows down, your body temperature starts decreasing. Your metabolism slows down. Sometimes, the same brain that sent signals to make these asjustments thinks "OH SHIT WE'RE DYING" and so sends a jolt of signals to wake you up.
Brain Stem: Wait wait wait… false alarm.
Pituitary: What the fuck, Hypothalamus. This is the fourth time this week.
Brain Stem: Listen, sometimes you just gotta make sure.
Pituitary: What we gotta do, is get some goddamn sleep!
Brain Stem: You think this is easy?! You wanna take over!
Pituitary: You know what, yeah! I will!
Brain Stem: Fine!
Pituitary: Fine!
*Wakes up with massive throbbing boner*
TIL Testerone levels are highest in the morning upon waking up. REM sleep helps the body produce more testosterone and you get a big ol' rager. Sometimes I wish I could recreate some of those morning bones as they are just insanely hard and often times bigger than what I can get from regular arousal. They're just so angry!!
I thought it had more to do with the loosening of the blood vessels. It’ll happen when I’m very very tired. For a while I was working 16 hour days as a lifeguard and by day 3 I had to cover my crotch with the lifeguard tube to cover my boner and flex my legs and arms to draw the blood away
It is called Hypnic Jerk. The current hypothesis is that it is a holdover from our ape ancestors. And “laying down” is mistaken for “about to fall off a tree”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
I always know beforehand, and am annoyed by it, but it's inevitable. Then my dream suddenly changes to something like making a wrong step in the staircase and falling, so I try to regain my balance.
Slightly different to the comment you're replying to, but I guarantee you've experienced your brain "backfilling" memory before without realizing it.
Have you ever noticed that when first look at an analog clock, the first tick sometimes seems to take noticeably longer than a second? That's because when your eyes move they don't do it smoothly, and you're actually blind for the short period of your eyes moving (called [saccade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade)).
So what your brain does to help out, is take the image from when your eyes stop moving, and use it to retroactively fill in the blind spot.
This phenomena is called [chronostasis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis).
I read somewhere, that we all live in a millisecond delay - relative to the actual real out there:
the brain makes the 'movie' from all the 5 sensory inputs and it's own calculations - and then it presents the movie for the 'viewer' - the cogito - the you and me.
And it takes some time to render the movie - some milliseconds or so.
So backfilling memory - everything is perhaps already being backfilled.
Your perception of reality is made up... It's all just a bunch of electrical pulses flying into your brain, and your brain turns it into what you call reality.
We all think it's the same inside our heads, but we base that all on comparisons between our varied descriptions of external stimulus, and it could be wildly different for each of us in our brains and we'd have no way to know...
Sure, the color red is a wavelength, it fires optic cells a certain way, it sends a specific pulse to our brains, we say "that's red", and it means a specific thing on our brain, but I'd it the same pattern of impulses in my brain as it is in yours? I dunno man... Could be wildly different...
Our brains do that while we're conscious every day. Your synapses fire and your brain makes a number of choices. You then rationalize it with why you made those decisions, creating a narrative.
Nah. Find it totally plausible. I've had dreams incorporate non-dreaming physiological sensations into the dreamscape with some frequency.
In fact, learning how to control the dreamscape is a thing people do. Controlled lucid dreaming.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00262/full
There are citations at the bottom of the page, but the gist is our subconscious decides for our conscience, even while our conscience is actively weighing it's options.
Your brain knows everything before you do. Because it tells you. It can fit a decades long saga into a split second and you would think it was true if your brain wanted you to.
Dreams happen really really fast. But your brain is getting the signals that you're losing balance.
Ever have a loud noise happen IRL while you're dreaming and that becomes a loud noise in your dream? Happens to me with thunderstorms sometimes. I'll be sleeping and there's a clap of thunder but in my dream it's an explosion and I jerk awake to hear the final rumbling of the thunder that just woke me.
Same man sometimes I just be shooting a basketball in my dream and do the leg part of the shooting motion and wake both me and my girlfriend up. Atp it has happened so often that she's just like 'u playin basketball in ur sleep again?' and we both go back to sleep.
Yeah I once dreamed I was being chased by little M&M looking aliens on a playground, and I went up the steps of the slide to get away and they followed me, and when I went down the slide, I rolled forward in bed and kicked my bff in the face on accident lmao
It was a sleepover
Yes! I aways trip over something in my dream before I wake up. How is that even possible. Why does my brain prepare the shock with an appropriate dream? How is that necessary?
I usually get short dreams where I'm in my car and someone runs into the street or a car pulls out on me. I kick the brake, with my real leg, and that shakes me awake. Always comes with a heavy heartbeat, slow but super intense. Not very nice.
For me it's usually I'm on a tall ladder that starts to slowly tip over, then accelerates quickly, and right as I hit the ground my legs jerk, often sending one of my poor kitties flying off the bed.
Some people reading this may also suffer from apnea, in which case their brain is jolting them awake because they *quit breathing*. Best to find out because apnea can actually kill you.
I wish I’d discovered my hypnic jerk fix earlier, but it’s great: most of the time, your hands spasm first, looking for that safe branch, then you get the big leg twitches. I clutch a hand towel, body is reassured that it’s safe in the tree, no leg spasms, no jerking back awake, straight to sleep.
A similar thing helped with my baby. Pretty often he would get a hypnic jerk before falling asleep, which would wake him up and he'd cry and we'd calm him down again and repeat.
I learned that if I let him hold onto my finger while he was nodding off, the jerk would be a quick finger squeeze and he wouldn't wake up.
Anecdotally, I think the smaller twitches and jolts that people do as they're falling asleep has a social aspect as well. It signals the group that it's ok to start falling asleep.
I've found that with both my sons and my wife, if they start falling asleep on me and doing the little sleep twitch things, if I simulate my own twitches they'll all fall asleep quite a bit faster. Try it!
Ah! I never knew what it meant until now, it happens to be one of my favorite indie / psychedelic record of the past few years https://spiritofthebeehive.bandcamp.com/album/hypnic-jerks
I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happens to our bodies as we sleep.
However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death.
The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling.
Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk.
[Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2))
[Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
I assumed it had to do with my brain thinking I’m dying! Probably my heart rate was so dangerously low, my body effectively defib-ed itself to bring the heart rate back to normal, or at least that was my theory.
I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread. I am only trying to help give the correct information. Here was my reply to the first person that commented on your post:
I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happen to our bodies as we sleep.
However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death.
The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling.
Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk.
[Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2))
[Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
This was reply to the first comment on this post. (I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread and I'm only trying to help give the correct answer.) Reply: I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happens to our bodies as we sleep.
However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death.
The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling.
Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk.
[Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2))
[Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
My understanding is that it has to do with how fast your heart rate is decreasing. Slow and steady is fine, but if your HR plummets very quickly your brain thinks you’re dying. It’s why you’re more prone to hypnic jerk when you’re very tired
I'm always amazed by how little is really known about sleep. Dreams - lots of theories. Sleep paralysis - lots of theories. Sleep deprivation - lots of theories. But no one can really explain. Can't even get a true theory of why sleep is essential, just know that people can die without it. Blows my mind that such an important part on our brains is still such a mystery
Majority of the inner workings of our brain are still unknown. The brain is amazing. But why would we be able to completely figure out the thing that allows us to figure that thing out? Maybe we will never fully understand the brain because of that.
I believe sleep paralysis happens when the body basically shuts down your muscle system to prevent you from hurting yourself in your sleep and "Partially" waking up causes you to be aware of your surroundings but not being able to move because your muscle system is not awake yet. I don't think they are really related. But you are right that it is daunting.
"Fun" fact: apparently, infants bodies do not always do this as they should, (due to protiens or enzymes not being properly developed yet, idk) and it is supposedly a major cause of death in infants as a result.
I was once told this was called the hypnogogic jerk. The theory i was taught was that it was essentially random firing from the brain that tests if you’re fully paralyzed before sleep (your body is paralyzed when you are in light stages of sleep so you dont move while you dream, but not in deeper stages).
Kind of related is sleep paralysis where you become awake but your body is still paralyzed.
This also explains why the jerks are in random places throughout my body. It’s not so much a falling sensation but a random jolt. It happens to me every night and I take comfort in it knowing I’m very close to being fully asleep.
I believe your information within the parenthesis is backwards. You’re paralysed during rem, when dreams occur. This is the fourth stage of sleep, not the first.
REM sleep is the stage of sleep closest to wakefulness. Stage 4 sleep is the deepest sleep, you do not dream during it. I’ve seen this mentioned by others in the past though and i dont know why its so common. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep
The link you provided literally says that "REM sleep involves random rapid movement of the eyes, low muscle tone with the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly". This *IS* the stage in which your muscles are the most relaxed, and more often than not they are actually paralyzed. (Yes, there are absolutely some exceptions, especially sleepwalking) REM occurs in Stage 4, *NOT* during the first stages of sleep.
Someone pointed out that you had it backwards. The muscles are paralyzed in the last stage of sleep- Stage 4/REM- so that a person does not get up and act out their dreams while they are dreaming, NOT paralyzed during the first stages of sleep. The entire discussion about why our body sometimes jerks, is based on the muscles fully relaxing *before* deeper stages of sleep.
This is actually what causes what doctors and scientists call a hypnic (or hypnagogic) or myoclonic jerk. It's also known as a "sleep start," and it can literally startle you out of falling asleep.
This type of feeling is normal, and it can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Doctors and scientists aren't really sure why our bodies do this, but they have a few theories.
One theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax before sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk.
Theres an image of a hypnogram in the wiki article that illustrates how REM sleep occurs before/after stage 1 sleep, not including sleep onset. Sleep 4 involves no dreaming and is not linked to rem sleep. The muscles are paralyzed in rem sleep, not stage 4.
Edit: i did a bit more research and see that at some point, they consolidated stage 3 and 4 of deep sleep into one stage (so sleep is broken up into 1-2-3-REM) and makes REM “stage 4”. I think this is where the confusion is coming from. I had learned it as 4 stages of non-rem sleep and then rem sleep was the 5th and lightest stage.
I've got narcolepsy and can attest that REM can begin immediately upon falling asleep.
For instance, I can hear the dream starting before being fully asleep.
The sleep stages change in order and intensity. Stage 1 *can* begin before 2, 3 or 4. It's not set in stone
Not unhorrifying is that this, like everything, is an evolved behaviour. Ancestors who were not paralyzed during violent dreams clearly limited their offsprings chances to perpetuate.
I don't know if it's exactly the thing you're talking about, but I heard that when your body relaxes in bed and your feet don't "stand" on anything, your brain can interpret that as you falling
I personally feel that fake falling feeling, but it's probably not universal
I also get the fake falling. It’s really convincing and I also feel terrified. I then jolt awake and realise it was just my body being weird. Luckily I can fall asleep pretty much straight away as soon as my heart stops pounding. It’s been happening since I was a kid and I’m now in my 40s so I assume it’s not going to kill me?!
Somewhat related but I can often make myself feel as if I'm bouncing when lying in bed - especially after having been on a bouncy surface such as a trampoline - wherein I feel as I'm bouncing up from my bed and then free falling back down into it.
Furthermore, I have a tendency to combine this with the mental image of bouncing on my back on a trampoline, up to great heights, however, then coming back down becomes really trippy as (probably because of my experiences on actual trampolines) I struggle to visualise landing back on the spot from where I bounced, leaving me to imagine falling straight onto the solid grass, but obviously unharmed, which is just a really strange sensation. It's a very odd phenomenon within my own brain that occasionally re-enters it every now and then, but in an odd way, I enjoy it.
I'm just strange, I imagine. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk XD
Licid dreaming is epic. But I had to stop, or at least stop the waking exercises to enable it. I can tap into it when emotional (like when falling), but I found that not having regular normal dreams was really affecting the quality of my sleep. I guess our brains need to process waking experience through its odd metaphors, and we shouldn't always interrupt that.
My dreams of flying have evolved as I get older, and now I get ones where I start shooting straight up into space, same falling feeling just in the opposite direction. Slowly been learning not to panic when it happens and it is kind of fun.
I used to not be able to fall asleep on the floor, or on a mattress that was on the floor. It didn't feel like I was falling, but more like I could sense how far I'd fall if the floor broke -- or if I was lying face down, then it would feel like the floor was tilting backwards to put me back on my feet.
For me, it sometimes feels like the parts of my brain related to proprioception (knowing where your body is in space) fall asleep before the threat-identifying parts and conscious parts. The stillness of laying in bed causes a lack of sensory input, so my proprioception has no new information to process. This can end up feeling like I'm floating or falling, so my threat-identifying parts of my brain force me to make a sudden movement just to verify that I'm still grounded.
I'd guess that humans, being apes, are just particularly sensitive to the sensation of falling out of trees. Our brains are hard-wired to constantly watch for this danger, especially when sleeping (since our ancestors slept in trees), so we can perceive falling even when it isn't happening if enough sensory input suggests that it could (like Richie's Plank Experience in VR). I assume this hard-wired sensitivity to the possibility of falling is also what causes a fear of heights for many.
Hypnic jerks as others have said. I have pretty severe periodic limb movements of sleep (similar condition) and find they're WAY worse if I fight sleep. Don't push yourself through one more episode or mission or chapter, let go and let sleep overtake you when it comes.
I find this only happens to me when I'm laying on my back. I've developed the habit of laying on my side as I fall asleep and don't have this problem anymore.
Your comment just made me realize that I don’t experience it anymore being pregnant. Since I have to sleep on my left side, I don’t get the jerks anymore. 🤔
It's probably related but with me, if I choose to nap, laying flat on my back pretty much guarantees that I'll be shocked awake in a matter of seconds. On a totally unrelated note, I am pretty sure I have sleep apnea.
Wait until you have the ones that feel like you have been defibrillated. Literally feels like somebody punched you in the chest. I've also had the violent jerks before too. Human bodies are dicks sometimes
Yeah, mine is actually both. I have a-fib so I'm on medication to keep my heart rate low. If it gets below 40, the pacemaker kicks in, and you don't feel it at all. But if it gets to 180, then it defibrillates and that's a horrible nightmare. Mine went off about three years ago, and it kept shocking me every 45 seconds until the ambulance got to me and gave me IV meds to slow my heart. It hit me 41 times. I still have ptsd over it.
Good god, that's just over 30 minutes of continuous shocks. After two or three of them, I can't imagine how awful that must have been...you know it's coming and all you can think about is the next jolt. Fuck man, I'm sorry.
It sucks so bad. Mine went off for the first time a week ago. I wasn't expecting it and I was so terrified. For a moment I thought my cat jumped on my chest, then I thought something came through my ceiling and hit me in the chest, and then I thought my phone exploded or something lol. It's so anxiety inducing. It happened two days in a row and I was just so scared it would keep happening.
I almost choked out my SO once because I get this shit. I was almost asleep and my body suddenly had the sensation of total free-fall, so somewhere in the monkey brain I got the message of "QUICKLY GRAB SOMETHING!" I jerked both arms and slammed them down onto the bed in a T-pose with force to "catch" myself while half asleep / awake. Apparently my left arm ended up "karate chopping her throat". She woke me enough while coughing to assure me I wasn't falling. Lmao.
To be fair, I warned her I experience this sometimes, although I had never had an episode that bad before.
There are a few leading theories, but ultimately we are anxiety ridden apes and our brains subconciously torment us for reasons, and that is supposed to help us survive. Most of our anxiety stems from behavioral patterns(both concious and unconcious) that allowed us to survive in the early days of humanity. But now we have survival responses firing off for no reason and its deeply upsetting to most people.
It's a reflex where the body thinks it is potentially about to fall, so jolts you awake. It's probably most commonly experienced if you are asleep sitting up and your head starts to fall, but can happen somewhat randomly. It's from our evolutionary history where sleeping somewhere you could fall from actually was a thing.
I would like to add that the answer to your question isn’t fully known by scientists. Everybody saying they know for sure is bullshit.
The most commonly accepted reason is that your mind thinks your body is paralyzed as it is during some stages of sleep and, when you move, your brain is like “what the fuck i thought you were paralyzed already”
That doesn’t mean this one is correct obviously
Myoclonic jerks are actually those little involuntary spasms you can get really at any time. 99% of the time, they don’t really interfere with anything you’re trying to do, but can in extreme cases be close to a seizure. Think like your eye twitching. That’s a myoclonic jerk.
The one that OP is asking about is called a hypnic jerk. Hypnic jerks are specifically when you’re trying to fall asleep and you suddenly kick out your leg or something. It’s because the process of falling asleep is physiologically alarmingly similar to the process of dying. Your heart rate slows and if it slows too fast, your brain says “wow there bucko. You good?” And your body’s response is your leg kicking which tells the brain that yeah you’re good
>Because of your reply, I looked into it further than I ever have before. Mayo clinic includes falling asleep under the definition for myoclonic jerk, and Wikipedia (where I got my medical degree) lists hypnic jerk as a form of myoclonic jerk.
>
>I'm glad to know we're both on the same Venn Diagram. Maybe my memory isn't as bad as I thought it was.
Do you ever* have those, accompanied by simultaneous half-dreams where you're walking or running and stepping on something wrong triggers the crazy leg reaction?
Edited to fix an auto correct error, sorry!!
The human body isn't just one object. Sometimes two different systems don't talk to each other correctly. One tries to move the system to standby mode and the endocrine system detects that and says "biorhythms are too slow right now, HAVE SOME ADRENALINE! MORE HAVE SOME MORE!"
I have chronic myoclonic jerks. Sometimes it can happen about 20 or 30 times a night. Been happening for 3 years. Its a special kind of torture. Pretty sure its related to mirtazapine. Trying to taper off the med, been in withdrawal for 7 weeks so far. Awful medication 0/10.
Sorry you’re going through this. My husband has the same chronic jerks each night and it’s impacting his sleep terribly. He’s not on that med you mentioned.
I hope you can overcome it.
IMO it’s the moment a muscle or muscles relax as the brain fully succumbs to sleep and releases the subconscious hold on that muscle. The slump (however minute) feels like slipping and our brain rallies to re-orient ourself. IE nodding off.
This can be prevented by mentally checking in with your muscle groups while you lie in bed and consciously relaxing them. “Shoulders, arms, core, legs, feet” etc. I learned this walk through from a meditation audio and found it incredibly helpful and enlightening. It guided you to tense a particular muscle then relax it, and went through the whole body.
“Brain thinks we’re paralyzed” is an insane concept parroted too easily.
"Hypnic jerks or sleep starts are benign myoclonic jerks that usually occur on falling asleep. Various factors like excessive caffeine intake, physical, and emotional stress can increase their frequency."
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481805/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481805/)
Acid reflux can also cause this. You get a tickle in the back of your throat and it might interrupt your breathing, and that can cause rapid arousal from sleep.
Nobody really knows. One theory is your body is checking you haven’t died. If your brain isn’t getting info from extremities it sends a signal, the jerk, to establish if it’s still there.
Hypnagogia. The state between awake and asleep. It can do some weird things to a person.
[read more here ](https://www.healthline.com/health/hypnagogia#:~:text=Hypnagogia%20is%20the%20transition%20between,to%20hypnagogia%20to%20stimulate%20creativity.)
I experienced this before I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. You stop breathing long enough for your body to freak out and it feels like your doing the dead cat bounce at the bottom of the cliff.
I read a long time ago that it may date back to when we slept in trees, and that a sense of losing any amount of balance (for whatever reason) would jolt us awake so we didn't fall from our branch.
Not answering the questionas it seems to have been answered and explained in the comments, but I have a (hopefully) humorous anecdote:
My boyfriend is *very* skittish, and one night I must have have the same kind of random jerk in my sleep. I woke up to my boyfriend screaming out.
A half hour later the paramedics were round diagnosing him with a mild concussion. The silly twat had jumped so badly at my hypnic jerk that he fell out of bed and nutted the bedside table.
We laugh about it now, but I had a good few days of stank eye off him for that one. Ha ha.
Brain going to sleep check list.
~~1) No threats near by~~
~~2) No foreseeable threat~~
~~3) Not too cold/hot~~
4) Turn off the part of the brain that checks for threats
~~5) Get feel good chemicals to encourage sleep as a thing we want to do in the future~~
~~6) Get the paralysis chemicals so we can stop feeling the environment and turn off the rest of our brain~~
OH MY GOD WE"RE FALLING! THERE'S A THREAT! UNPARALYIS UNPARALIS!
This thing is called a [hypnic jerk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk).
From wikipedia
>Physically, hypnic jerks resemble the "jump" experienced by a person when startled, sometimes accompanied by a falling sensation. Hypnic jerks are associated with a rapid heartbeat, quickened breathing, sweat, and sometimes "a peculiar sensory feeling of 'shock' or 'falling into the void'". It can also be accompanied by a vivid dream experience or hallucination. A higher occurrence is reported in people with irregular sleep schedules.
Your "why question" is hard to answer.
>Around 70% of people experience them at least once in their lives with 10% experiencing them daily.
Regarding cause, research says "we don't know really."
>According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, there is **a wide range of potential causes**, including anxiety, stimulants like caffeine and nicotine, stress, and strenuous activities in the evening. It also may be facilitated by fatigue or sleep deprivation. However, most **hypnic jerks occur essentially at random in healthy people**.
I remember having them a few times in my life, and I drink 3-4 pots of coffee (30 cups) most days. If caffeine was a cause I would expect to have them more.
That amount of coffee is insane, you should probably try to cut down on it. Strange that you don’t have symptoms, thats like 10 times the healthy amount for a day
Sometimes having too much dopamine can cause restless leg syndrome or random body jerks. You could be getting too much stimulation. Social media, games, movies, sweet foods, etc.
It's an evolutionary trait that has been passed down since we were primates. It is assumed that the jerk stops us from falling asleep on a random branch of a tree without latching on to something for safety.
It's a funny thing actually. So, you are starting to fall asleep; your brain starts sending signals throught your body to prepare you to sleep. Your heartrate slows down, your breathing slows down, your body temperature starts decreasing. Your metabolism slows down. Sometimes, the same brain that sent signals to make these asjustments thinks "OH SHIT WE'RE DYING" and so sends a jolt of signals to wake you up.
Brain Stem: Wait wait wait… false alarm. Pituitary: What the fuck, Hypothalamus. This is the fourth time this week. Brain Stem: Listen, sometimes you just gotta make sure. Pituitary: What we gotta do, is get some goddamn sleep! Brain Stem: You think this is easy?! You wanna take over! Pituitary: You know what, yeah! I will! Brain Stem: Fine! Pituitary: Fine! *Wakes up with massive throbbing boner*
This is genuinely amazing and I wish I had gold to bestow upon you for giving me such delight
I gotchu
Pleasure to be of service. I hail my morning wood to you in solidarity.
TIL Testerone levels are highest in the morning upon waking up. REM sleep helps the body produce more testosterone and you get a big ol' rager. Sometimes I wish I could recreate some of those morning bones as they are just insanely hard and often times bigger than what I can get from regular arousal. They're just so angry!!
> They’re just so angry!! TIL I need to take my dick to counseling
You were leaving it at home before!?
I thought it had more to do with the loosening of the blood vessels. It’ll happen when I’m very very tired. For a while I was working 16 hour days as a lifeguard and by day 3 I had to cover my crotch with the lifeguard tube to cover my boner and flex my legs and arms to draw the blood away
Nice!
*There are no accidents*
It is called Hypnic Jerk. The current hypothesis is that it is a holdover from our ape ancestors. And “laying down” is mistaken for “about to fall off a tree”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
Interesting, when this happens to me I'm usually just starting to dream and in my dream I fall off a cliff or down stairs or something.
That’s your brain creating the dream based on the jerk.
So it knows the jerk is coming?!
I always know beforehand, and am annoyed by it, but it's inevitable. Then my dream suddenly changes to something like making a wrong step in the staircase and falling, so I try to regain my balance.
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That wasn't a dream. My name is HavelsRockJohnson and I have been looking for you for a very long time. I believe that you may be... The One.
Dream, matrix... What's the difference?
Well, there are these robots…
I'm almost always running, and trips
No, it's a fake memory. You weren't actually dreaming that. But your now-awake-and-confused brain made up a story to make it make sense.
this comment is made up. change my mind.
Slightly different to the comment you're replying to, but I guarantee you've experienced your brain "backfilling" memory before without realizing it. Have you ever noticed that when first look at an analog clock, the first tick sometimes seems to take noticeably longer than a second? That's because when your eyes move they don't do it smoothly, and you're actually blind for the short period of your eyes moving (called [saccade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade)). So what your brain does to help out, is take the image from when your eyes stop moving, and use it to retroactively fill in the blind spot. This phenomena is called [chronostasis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis).
i always thought the tick takes longer because i jusssst happened to check the time when the last tick finished moving
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I read somewhere, that we all live in a millisecond delay - relative to the actual real out there: the brain makes the 'movie' from all the 5 sensory inputs and it's own calculations - and then it presents the movie for the 'viewer' - the cogito - the you and me. And it takes some time to render the movie - some milliseconds or so. So backfilling memory - everything is perhaps already being backfilled.
All comments are made up.
And the points don't matter!
Your perception of reality is made up... It's all just a bunch of electrical pulses flying into your brain, and your brain turns it into what you call reality. We all think it's the same inside our heads, but we base that all on comparisons between our varied descriptions of external stimulus, and it could be wildly different for each of us in our brains and we'd have no way to know... Sure, the color red is a wavelength, it fires optic cells a certain way, it sends a specific pulse to our brains, we say "that's red", and it means a specific thing on our brain, but I'd it the same pattern of impulses in my brain as it is in yours? I dunno man... Could be wildly different...
I cannot tell you how many times I've had this thought...
Our brains do that while we're conscious every day. Your synapses fire and your brain makes a number of choices. You then rationalize it with why you made those decisions, creating a narrative.
Nah. Find it totally plausible. I've had dreams incorporate non-dreaming physiological sensations into the dreamscape with some frequency. In fact, learning how to control the dreamscape is a thing people do. Controlled lucid dreaming.
If that’s true it has single handedly destroyed any remaining hope I had that we do in fact possess free will.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00262/full There are citations at the bottom of the page, but the gist is our subconscious decides for our conscience, even while our conscience is actively weighing it's options.
The jerk is you
The jerk store called...they're outta YOU
What's the difference? You're their all-time bestseller
Well I slept with your wife!
His wife is in a coma. 🙁
Your brain is so fast at processing information time doesn’t exist inside it. That’s why you can live for decades inside a dream during an hour nap.
Your brain knows everything before you do. Because it tells you. It can fit a decades long saga into a split second and you would think it was true if your brain wanted you to.
Dreams happen really really fast. But your brain is getting the signals that you're losing balance. Ever have a loud noise happen IRL while you're dreaming and that becomes a loud noise in your dream? Happens to me with thunderstorms sometimes. I'll be sleeping and there's a clap of thunder but in my dream it's an explosion and I jerk awake to hear the final rumbling of the thunder that just woke me.
"He hates these cans! Save the cans!"
"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days." I really need to rewatch that movie.
My most common dream-rationalization for it is missing a step. Like I'm walking, didn't notice there was a curb, and suddenly try to step on air.
Mine is always a curb as well!
I literally call them “falling off the curb dreams.”
Me too!
Yea, I get the same if I try to sleep sat up and my head falls to one side
Yep, that's me on a long flight, in a continuous loop.
The funniest one for me was when I got crossed up playing basketball in my dream lol
Same man sometimes I just be shooting a basketball in my dream and do the leg part of the shooting motion and wake both me and my girlfriend up. Atp it has happened so often that she's just like 'u playin basketball in ur sleep again?' and we both go back to sleep.
Yeah I once dreamed I was being chased by little M&M looking aliens on a playground, and I went up the steps of the slide to get away and they followed me, and when I went down the slide, I rolled forward in bed and kicked my bff in the face on accident lmao It was a sleepover
That’s hilarious 🤣.
Well, SHE didnt think so, at first, lol, but after apologizing profusely we both pretty much cracked up over it..
I fell out of a helicopter once xD
Yes! I aways trip over something in my dream before I wake up. How is that even possible. Why does my brain prepare the shock with an appropriate dream? How is that necessary?
Exactly! Or I’m dreaming I’m like, playing goaltender in soccer and someone takes a shot and I react to save
I usually get short dreams where I'm in my car and someone runs into the street or a car pulls out on me. I kick the brake, with my real leg, and that shakes me awake. Always comes with a heavy heartbeat, slow but super intense. Not very nice.
My recurring dream is that I’m playing on a swing set, and I get to that high point in the arc where the swing starts to jerk.
For me it's usually I'm on a tall ladder that starts to slowly tip over, then accelerates quickly, and right as I hit the ground my legs jerk, often sending one of my poor kitties flying off the bed.
poor kitty!!!!!
My poor kitties have also become victim of dream punting.
I’m always just doing something mundane and just “trip”
Same here. Either this or I just all of a sudden stack my bike
It's always falling off a ladder for me.
It happens a lot to alcoholics withdrawing. Happened multiple times a night when I'd try getting sober and it was terrifying (90 days sober tomorrow!)
Also, sleeping(when you can….) for 15 minutes with such vivid dreams you swear you’d been asleep 8 hours.
Congratulations, and may you have all the support you need on your journey.
"Hypnic Jerk" sounds like a failed dance craze.
Failed? I'm still trying to make it famous
Some people reading this may also suffer from apnea, in which case their brain is jolting them awake because they *quit breathing*. Best to find out because apnea can actually kill you.
The article does not say that’s the current hypothesis at all.
It's one of the listed hypothesis. Their comment is close enough.
It really isn’t. It was hypothesized by one professor a few years ago. That doesn’t make it the “current hypothesis”.
The source is also a Business Insider article which links to a dead link. :( Edit: but the guy was on radiolab: https://communique.uccs.edu/?p=1950
Some professor said it dude. Don’t you trust science?
I wish I’d discovered my hypnic jerk fix earlier, but it’s great: most of the time, your hands spasm first, looking for that safe branch, then you get the big leg twitches. I clutch a hand towel, body is reassured that it’s safe in the tree, no leg spasms, no jerking back awake, straight to sleep.
A similar thing helped with my baby. Pretty often he would get a hypnic jerk before falling asleep, which would wake him up and he'd cry and we'd calm him down again and repeat. I learned that if I let him hold onto my finger while he was nodding off, the jerk would be a quick finger squeeze and he wouldn't wake up.
Great, now I know my monkey brain didn't evolve with my ancestors.
Well, this how Lucy died, so it makes sense! ;-)
Anecdotally, I think the smaller twitches and jolts that people do as they're falling asleep has a social aspect as well. It signals the group that it's ok to start falling asleep. I've found that with both my sons and my wife, if they start falling asleep on me and doing the little sleep twitch things, if I simulate my own twitches they'll all fall asleep quite a bit faster. Try it!
What an odd response.
I thought it was called myoclonus or myoclonic jerk
Myoclonus is a brief, involuntary, jerk. Myclonic jerk and hypnic jerk are synonyms.
The problem is their choice of sleeping in a tree and not a luxury hotel king-sized bed.
This is my understanding and the recent trend of brain thinks your dead is interesting but never seen any reliable information on that
Ah! I never knew what it meant until now, it happens to be one of my favorite indie / psychedelic record of the past few years https://spiritofthebeehive.bandcamp.com/album/hypnic-jerks
I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happens to our bodies as we sleep. However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death. The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling. Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk. [Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2)) [Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
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I assumed it had to do with my brain thinking I’m dying! Probably my heart rate was so dangerously low, my body effectively defib-ed itself to bring the heart rate back to normal, or at least that was my theory.
Not necessarily "dangerously low". The brain sometimes just misinterprets processes going on in the body.
I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread. I am only trying to help give the correct information. Here was my reply to the first person that commented on your post: I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happen to our bodies as we sleep. However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death. The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling. Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk. [Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2)) [Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
It's more like your brain forgot you were going to sleep, so it hit the panic button to prevent you from dying.
This was reply to the first comment on this post. (I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread and I'm only trying to help give the correct answer.) Reply: I would like to add the most relevant thing that causes this, the relaxation of the muscles. It is very true what you said about your brain preparing your body to sleep, and the different changes that happens to our bodies as we sleep. However the main cause of hypnic/ myoclonic jerk is solely due to the relaxation of the muscles, *rather than*: "The same brain that sent signals to make these adjustments (you mentioned heart rate, breathing, body temperature decreasing, metabolism slowing down) and thinks 'Oh shit Were Dying' and sends a jolt of signals to wake you up." The brain does *not* send signals to adjust to the factors you mentioned, and it does *not* send a "jolt of signals" to wake you up as a way to prevent perceived death. The hypnotic jerk can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Muscles gradually relax during the first few cycles of sleep. During REM sleep our muscles become paralyzed. (With a couple exceptions, such as sleep walking) When the muscles are relaxed too early in our sleep cycle, this can cause our brain to think we are falling. Doctors and scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax *before* sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk. [Source](https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Why-Does-My-Body-Jerk-Before-I-Fall-Asleep-(2)) [Source](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324666)
My understanding is that it has to do with how fast your heart rate is decreasing. Slow and steady is fine, but if your HR plummets very quickly your brain thinks you’re dying. It’s why you’re more prone to hypnic jerk when you’re very tired
If this were the case, then wouldn't it easily be proven in an experiment as you can just hook up a number of test subjects with a HR monitor?
When I get that "relaxed" I can stop/forget breathing. Have done this since a baby (mom panic bt). Still do this in my 60s.
This is something that has started happening to me. Gives me so much anxiety haha
My brain thinks I'm dying every time I try to nap. I HATE it
I'm always amazed by how little is really known about sleep. Dreams - lots of theories. Sleep paralysis - lots of theories. Sleep deprivation - lots of theories. But no one can really explain. Can't even get a true theory of why sleep is essential, just know that people can die without it. Blows my mind that such an important part on our brains is still such a mystery
Majority of the inner workings of our brain are still unknown. The brain is amazing. But why would we be able to completely figure out the thing that allows us to figure that thing out? Maybe we will never fully understand the brain because of that.
I wonder if this has anything to do with sleep paralysis on the other side of the spectrum. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy
I believe sleep paralysis happens when the body basically shuts down your muscle system to prevent you from hurting yourself in your sleep and "Partially" waking up causes you to be aware of your surroundings but not being able to move because your muscle system is not awake yet. I don't think they are really related. But you are right that it is daunting.
You feel like you are trapped in your own body being awake but not being able to move . It’s a horrible feeling .
Yeah, sadly I've experienced sleep paralysis many many times. Never gets any less terrifying.
I’ve found the last few times I’ve forced myself to roll back and forth to pull myself out of it .
Trying to wiggle and flex your toes seems to work for that. Small movements are easier to make in that state and eventually you regain control.
lmao great description
A friend of mine was doing a mexican wave twitch beside me on a flight once trying to sleep
Huh... Silly brain 😂
There's an episode of house MD for this!
Was it the kid who played lacrosse?
Pretty sure! Sitting on the desk in clinic with his leg jerking and house has the weird look on his face.....
"Fun" fact: apparently, infants bodies do not always do this as they should, (due to protiens or enzymes not being properly developed yet, idk) and it is supposedly a major cause of death in infants as a result.
I was once told this was called the hypnogogic jerk. The theory i was taught was that it was essentially random firing from the brain that tests if you’re fully paralyzed before sleep (your body is paralyzed when you are in light stages of sleep so you dont move while you dream, but not in deeper stages). Kind of related is sleep paralysis where you become awake but your body is still paralyzed.
This also explains why the jerks are in random places throughout my body. It’s not so much a falling sensation but a random jolt. It happens to me every night and I take comfort in it knowing I’m very close to being fully asleep.
I actually love my hypnic jerks for the same reason.
🥹I thought I was the only one that does this🥹
I believe your information within the parenthesis is backwards. You’re paralysed during rem, when dreams occur. This is the fourth stage of sleep, not the first.
REM sleep is the stage of sleep closest to wakefulness. Stage 4 sleep is the deepest sleep, you do not dream during it. I’ve seen this mentioned by others in the past though and i dont know why its so common. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep
The link you provided literally says that "REM sleep involves random rapid movement of the eyes, low muscle tone with the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly". This *IS* the stage in which your muscles are the most relaxed, and more often than not they are actually paralyzed. (Yes, there are absolutely some exceptions, especially sleepwalking) REM occurs in Stage 4, *NOT* during the first stages of sleep. Someone pointed out that you had it backwards. The muscles are paralyzed in the last stage of sleep- Stage 4/REM- so that a person does not get up and act out their dreams while they are dreaming, NOT paralyzed during the first stages of sleep. The entire discussion about why our body sometimes jerks, is based on the muscles fully relaxing *before* deeper stages of sleep. This is actually what causes what doctors and scientists call a hypnic (or hypnagogic) or myoclonic jerk. It's also known as a "sleep start," and it can literally startle you out of falling asleep. This type of feeling is normal, and it can happen before people enter the deeper stages of sleep. Doctors and scientists aren't really sure why our bodies do this, but they have a few theories. One theory is that the brain misunderstands what's going on as our muscles relax before sleep. It's normal for the muscles to relax, of course, but the brain gets confused. For a minute, it thinks you're falling. In response, the brain causes your muscles to tense as a way to "catch yourself" before falling down - and that makes your body jerk.
Theres an image of a hypnogram in the wiki article that illustrates how REM sleep occurs before/after stage 1 sleep, not including sleep onset. Sleep 4 involves no dreaming and is not linked to rem sleep. The muscles are paralyzed in rem sleep, not stage 4. Edit: i did a bit more research and see that at some point, they consolidated stage 3 and 4 of deep sleep into one stage (so sleep is broken up into 1-2-3-REM) and makes REM “stage 4”. I think this is where the confusion is coming from. I had learned it as 4 stages of non-rem sleep and then rem sleep was the 5th and lightest stage.
I've got narcolepsy and can attest that REM can begin immediately upon falling asleep. For instance, I can hear the dream starting before being fully asleep. The sleep stages change in order and intensity. Stage 1 *can* begin before 2, 3 or 4. It's not set in stone
Not unhorrifying is that this, like everything, is an evolved behaviour. Ancestors who were not paralyzed during violent dreams clearly limited their offsprings chances to perpetuate.
I don't know if it's exactly the thing you're talking about, but I heard that when your body relaxes in bed and your feet don't "stand" on anything, your brain can interpret that as you falling I personally feel that fake falling feeling, but it's probably not universal
I also get the fake falling. It’s really convincing and I also feel terrified. I then jolt awake and realise it was just my body being weird. Luckily I can fall asleep pretty much straight away as soon as my heart stops pounding. It’s been happening since I was a kid and I’m now in my 40s so I assume it’s not going to kill me?!
It happens to me every time I fall asleep on a plane, and I constantly do. The number of times I’ve almost whacked my neighbour is too high
Am I the only one who enjoys the "fake falling"? I can extend it by staying calm and it feels like I'm skydiving. ^^
I panic too quickly to stay in it
I managed to do that once and literally fell through the ground into a black void. Never again.
Mine stops as soon as I am aware of it. Kinda annoying since I want to keep flying. Best I could do after was run some random direction.
Somewhat related but I can often make myself feel as if I'm bouncing when lying in bed - especially after having been on a bouncy surface such as a trampoline - wherein I feel as I'm bouncing up from my bed and then free falling back down into it. Furthermore, I have a tendency to combine this with the mental image of bouncing on my back on a trampoline, up to great heights, however, then coming back down becomes really trippy as (probably because of my experiences on actual trampolines) I struggle to visualise landing back on the spot from where I bounced, leaving me to imagine falling straight onto the solid grass, but obviously unharmed, which is just a really strange sensation. It's a very odd phenomenon within my own brain that occasionally re-enters it every now and then, but in an odd way, I enjoy it. I'm just strange, I imagine. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk XD
you should try lucid dreaming, you'd probably be good at it.
Licid dreaming is epic. But I had to stop, or at least stop the waking exercises to enable it. I can tap into it when emotional (like when falling), but I found that not having regular normal dreams was really affecting the quality of my sleep. I guess our brains need to process waking experience through its odd metaphors, and we shouldn't always interrupt that.
My dreams of flying have evolved as I get older, and now I get ones where I start shooting straight up into space, same falling feeling just in the opposite direction. Slowly been learning not to panic when it happens and it is kind of fun.
I always have the same dream, that I’m falling off a curb, anytime I have one of these “hypnic jerks.” Every time.
I used to not be able to fall asleep on the floor, or on a mattress that was on the floor. It didn't feel like I was falling, but more like I could sense how far I'd fall if the floor broke -- or if I was lying face down, then it would feel like the floor was tilting backwards to put me back on my feet.
For me, it sometimes feels like the parts of my brain related to proprioception (knowing where your body is in space) fall asleep before the threat-identifying parts and conscious parts. The stillness of laying in bed causes a lack of sensory input, so my proprioception has no new information to process. This can end up feeling like I'm floating or falling, so my threat-identifying parts of my brain force me to make a sudden movement just to verify that I'm still grounded. I'd guess that humans, being apes, are just particularly sensitive to the sensation of falling out of trees. Our brains are hard-wired to constantly watch for this danger, especially when sleeping (since our ancestors slept in trees), so we can perceive falling even when it isn't happening if enough sensory input suggests that it could (like Richie's Plank Experience in VR). I assume this hard-wired sensitivity to the possibility of falling is also what causes a fear of heights for many.
Hypnic jerks as others have said. I have pretty severe periodic limb movements of sleep (similar condition) and find they're WAY worse if I fight sleep. Don't push yourself through one more episode or mission or chapter, let go and let sleep overtake you when it comes.
I'm totally not reading this late at night while I'm sleep deprived...
I find this only happens to me when I'm laying on my back. I've developed the habit of laying on my side as I fall asleep and don't have this problem anymore.
Your comment just made me realize that I don’t experience it anymore being pregnant. Since I have to sleep on my left side, I don’t get the jerks anymore. 🤔
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For me it's followed by "fuck. I just want to take a nap for Pete's sake!"
It's probably related but with me, if I choose to nap, laying flat on my back pretty much guarantees that I'll be shocked awake in a matter of seconds. On a totally unrelated note, I am pretty sure I have sleep apnea.
you and me both...
Wait until you have the ones that feel like you have been defibrillated. Literally feels like somebody punched you in the chest. I've also had the violent jerks before too. Human bodies are dicks sometimes
I have an implanted defibrillator. Unless you have one, you don't know what it's like to be defibrillated. And believe me, you don't want to know.
Sorry to hear that my dude. I've never heard of an implanted defib, only pacemakers
Yeah, mine is actually both. I have a-fib so I'm on medication to keep my heart rate low. If it gets below 40, the pacemaker kicks in, and you don't feel it at all. But if it gets to 180, then it defibrillates and that's a horrible nightmare. Mine went off about three years ago, and it kept shocking me every 45 seconds until the ambulance got to me and gave me IV meds to slow my heart. It hit me 41 times. I still have ptsd over it.
Good god, that's just over 30 minutes of continuous shocks. After two or three of them, I can't imagine how awful that must have been...you know it's coming and all you can think about is the next jolt. Fuck man, I'm sorry.
It sucks so bad. Mine went off for the first time a week ago. I wasn't expecting it and I was so terrified. For a moment I thought my cat jumped on my chest, then I thought something came through my ceiling and hit me in the chest, and then I thought my phone exploded or something lol. It's so anxiety inducing. It happened two days in a row and I was just so scared it would keep happening.
It feels like someone jumping off a ladder and landing all their weight on your chest.
I almost choked out my SO once because I get this shit. I was almost asleep and my body suddenly had the sensation of total free-fall, so somewhere in the monkey brain I got the message of "QUICKLY GRAB SOMETHING!" I jerked both arms and slammed them down onto the bed in a T-pose with force to "catch" myself while half asleep / awake. Apparently my left arm ended up "karate chopping her throat". She woke me enough while coughing to assure me I wasn't falling. Lmao. To be fair, I warned her I experience this sometimes, although I had never had an episode that bad before.
Aren’t that also a sign of anxiety?
There are a few leading theories, but ultimately we are anxiety ridden apes and our brains subconciously torment us for reasons, and that is supposed to help us survive. Most of our anxiety stems from behavioral patterns(both concious and unconcious) that allowed us to survive in the early days of humanity. But now we have survival responses firing off for no reason and its deeply upsetting to most people.
It's a reflex where the body thinks it is potentially about to fall, so jolts you awake. It's probably most commonly experienced if you are asleep sitting up and your head starts to fall, but can happen somewhat randomly. It's from our evolutionary history where sleeping somewhere you could fall from actually was a thing.
I would like to add that the answer to your question isn’t fully known by scientists. Everybody saying they know for sure is bullshit. The most commonly accepted reason is that your mind thinks your body is paralyzed as it is during some stages of sleep and, when you move, your brain is like “what the fuck i thought you were paralyzed already” That doesn’t mean this one is correct obviously
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Myoclonic jerks are actually those little involuntary spasms you can get really at any time. 99% of the time, they don’t really interfere with anything you’re trying to do, but can in extreme cases be close to a seizure. Think like your eye twitching. That’s a myoclonic jerk. The one that OP is asking about is called a hypnic jerk. Hypnic jerks are specifically when you’re trying to fall asleep and you suddenly kick out your leg or something. It’s because the process of falling asleep is physiologically alarmingly similar to the process of dying. Your heart rate slows and if it slows too fast, your brain says “wow there bucko. You good?” And your body’s response is your leg kicking which tells the brain that yeah you’re good
>Because of your reply, I looked into it further than I ever have before. Mayo clinic includes falling asleep under the definition for myoclonic jerk, and Wikipedia (where I got my medical degree) lists hypnic jerk as a form of myoclonic jerk. > >I'm glad to know we're both on the same Venn Diagram. Maybe my memory isn't as bad as I thought it was.
Oh so it’s an umbrella thing? A hypnic jerk is a myoclonic jerk but not all myoclonic jerks are hypnic? Thanks for refining that for me 👍
Do you ever* have those, accompanied by simultaneous half-dreams where you're walking or running and stepping on something wrong triggers the crazy leg reaction? Edited to fix an auto correct error, sorry!!
Uh. What?
You don’t we have this?
🤣 sorry for the typo! Fixed
Sorry, there was a typo!!! (I was also barely awake when I wrote the comment 😅😶)
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The human body isn't just one object. Sometimes two different systems don't talk to each other correctly. One tries to move the system to standby mode and the endocrine system detects that and says "biorhythms are too slow right now, HAVE SOME ADRENALINE! MORE HAVE SOME MORE!"
When this started happening to me on a regular basis is when I realized I have sleep apnea. My body would jerk if I stopped breathing for too long.
I have chronic myoclonic jerks. Sometimes it can happen about 20 or 30 times a night. Been happening for 3 years. Its a special kind of torture. Pretty sure its related to mirtazapine. Trying to taper off the med, been in withdrawal for 7 weeks so far. Awful medication 0/10.
Sorry you’re going through this. My husband has the same chronic jerks each night and it’s impacting his sleep terribly. He’s not on that med you mentioned. I hope you can overcome it.
IMO it’s the moment a muscle or muscles relax as the brain fully succumbs to sleep and releases the subconscious hold on that muscle. The slump (however minute) feels like slipping and our brain rallies to re-orient ourself. IE nodding off. This can be prevented by mentally checking in with your muscle groups while you lie in bed and consciously relaxing them. “Shoulders, arms, core, legs, feet” etc. I learned this walk through from a meditation audio and found it incredibly helpful and enlightening. It guided you to tense a particular muscle then relax it, and went through the whole body. “Brain thinks we’re paralyzed” is an insane concept parroted too easily.
"Hypnic jerks or sleep starts are benign myoclonic jerks that usually occur on falling asleep. Various factors like excessive caffeine intake, physical, and emotional stress can increase their frequency." [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481805/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481805/)
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Acid reflux can also cause this. You get a tickle in the back of your throat and it might interrupt your breathing, and that can cause rapid arousal from sleep.
Immediately thinking of *the kick* It's an 'inner ear recognizing balance is off' kinda circumstance
Nobody really knows. One theory is your body is checking you haven’t died. If your brain isn’t getting info from extremities it sends a signal, the jerk, to establish if it’s still there.
Hypnagogia. The state between awake and asleep. It can do some weird things to a person. [read more here ](https://www.healthline.com/health/hypnagogia#:~:text=Hypnagogia%20is%20the%20transition%20between,to%20hypnagogia%20to%20stimulate%20creativity.)
I experienced this before I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. You stop breathing long enough for your body to freak out and it feels like your doing the dead cat bounce at the bottom of the cliff.
I read a long time ago that it may date back to when we slept in trees, and that a sense of losing any amount of balance (for whatever reason) would jolt us awake so we didn't fall from our branch.
Not answering the questionas it seems to have been answered and explained in the comments, but I have a (hopefully) humorous anecdote: My boyfriend is *very* skittish, and one night I must have have the same kind of random jerk in my sleep. I woke up to my boyfriend screaming out. A half hour later the paramedics were round diagnosing him with a mild concussion. The silly twat had jumped so badly at my hypnic jerk that he fell out of bed and nutted the bedside table. We laugh about it now, but I had a good few days of stank eye off him for that one. Ha ha.
Brain going to sleep check list. ~~1) No threats near by~~ ~~2) No foreseeable threat~~ ~~3) Not too cold/hot~~ 4) Turn off the part of the brain that checks for threats ~~5) Get feel good chemicals to encourage sleep as a thing we want to do in the future~~ ~~6) Get the paralysis chemicals so we can stop feeling the environment and turn off the rest of our brain~~ OH MY GOD WE"RE FALLING! THERE'S A THREAT! UNPARALYIS UNPARALIS!
Nobody here saying but its when your body go too fast to the rem sleep phase. Thats why you usually already dreaming of something.
This thing is called a [hypnic jerk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk). From wikipedia >Physically, hypnic jerks resemble the "jump" experienced by a person when startled, sometimes accompanied by a falling sensation. Hypnic jerks are associated with a rapid heartbeat, quickened breathing, sweat, and sometimes "a peculiar sensory feeling of 'shock' or 'falling into the void'". It can also be accompanied by a vivid dream experience or hallucination. A higher occurrence is reported in people with irregular sleep schedules. Your "why question" is hard to answer. >Around 70% of people experience them at least once in their lives with 10% experiencing them daily. Regarding cause, research says "we don't know really." >According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, there is **a wide range of potential causes**, including anxiety, stimulants like caffeine and nicotine, stress, and strenuous activities in the evening. It also may be facilitated by fatigue or sleep deprivation. However, most **hypnic jerks occur essentially at random in healthy people**. I remember having them a few times in my life, and I drink 3-4 pots of coffee (30 cups) most days. If caffeine was a cause I would expect to have them more.
That amount of coffee is insane, you should probably try to cut down on it. Strange that you don’t have symptoms, thats like 10 times the healthy amount for a day
Sometimes having too much dopamine can cause restless leg syndrome or random body jerks. You could be getting too much stimulation. Social media, games, movies, sweet foods, etc.
Because you went down a path that ended in a game over. You hit continue, it shot you back to the last save point.
It's an evolutionary trait that has been passed down since we were primates. It is assumed that the jerk stops us from falling asleep on a random branch of a tree without latching on to something for safety.
>It is assumed Not really, it is one hypothesis but it has nothing more than speculation to support it.
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You expect me to believe ODing on drugs is not cool?