Ever hear of the Hypnic jerk? What about the Myoclonic jerk? No? Well, I’ll bet you’ve experienced it before!
You know that feeling where you’re just at the onset of sleep and then suddenly and spastically jerk yourself awake? That’s called a Hypnic jerk. A friend on Facebook asked me about it and that is what prompted me to write this post.
It happens when you are in the first stage of sleep, the Hypnogogic state, hence the name Hypnic jerk. During this state the body completely relaxes and muscle control begins to fall away causing a falling sensation, which is why we call it “falling” asleep. If you have too much on your mind or if you are having a fitful night of sleep and are not fully releasing your worries, you are far more likely to jolt awake from the experience because a part of you is alert enough to go into fight or flight mode and try to catch your fall, which results in the Hypnic jerk.
Sometimes it will happen and you won’t even wake from it. If you watch a baby fall asleep, you’re likely to see it happen but the baby won’t wake from it.
Sometimes little mini dreams come along with it. Even though you aren’t in REM at this point, the hypnogogic state will cause dream-like visions because it is an hallucinatory state. My facebook friend had “dreamt” that she slipped on a wet sidewalk when she jerked awake. I once “dreamt” I tripped over a wrinkle in the concrete floor of the grocery store! My brother in law once jerked so hard that he kicked the wall. He actually went to the hospital because he thought he had broken his foot!
What about you? What are your experiences?
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what I am askin bought is not related to sleep. my hands arms and every part of my body jerks, yestarday I lost controll 2 times and fell to the floor and it is gettin worse,,,what can some one tell me. I am afraid ome of these falls will land me in the hosptital..
Yes, it just happened to me yesterday when I went
to bed, exhausted, after coming home from work. I
closed my eyes, and immediately was asleep and dreaming,
or I suppose not actually dreaming, but just having
hypnogogic imagery. In the imagery, I was walking
quickly around the corner of a building… there was
some landscaping around the corner, with plantings
bordered in with railroad tie type wooden things,
and as I came around the corner, I tripped over one
of those, and began to falling towards the ground…
as I was falling, I jerked awake with a big gasp!
Another thing about this hypnotic jerking is that my husb. says if you don’t “catch” yourself as you are falling, or as your leg jerks, you can willfully leave your body and do astral projection. He used to do that all the time, but not as much, now that he’s older.
This is a really funny story. I was on a plane one time and this happened to me. I was sitting between my husband and a stranger and I kept dosing off and then jerking myself awake. I felt really sorry for the stranger next to me as I kept hitting him!!
I have had these experiences, I am falling off to sleep, then I suddenly have this feeling that I am falling out of the bed, sometimes I feel that I am flying and I am falling and I jerk away. It used to be very frightening.
I have had this experience several times. It usually occurs when I first fall asleep. I have noticed that when this sensation occurs I am usually on the top of a building when I fall off.
I have the hypnic jerk nearly every night and it drives my wife insane. Most of the time I don’t have a mini dream (or don’t recall it), but sometimes I do have the sensation and/or dream that I’ve tripped, or I’m falling off a chair, building, etc.
Do you have suggestions on reducing the frequency or is it just something we (mostly my wife) will have to deal with? Thanks!
Yes, I have had this happen. I often will be climbing a ladder or a set of stairs, and I wake myself up as my legs move! I don’t think it’s a jerk that I feel, but I have often felt that too. My husband has it happen every single night, several times, makes it hard for the bed partner (me) to peacefully drift off!
I have to have atleast a sheet over me when sleeping. If not I will wake myself with this. I say it holds me down and I don’t feel like I’m falling. So I guess I am falling in my beginning sleep. Not with a sheet though, stops it.
I just had this happen this morning. I woke up about an hour early and I was worried that I would find myself sleeping through the normal ‘wake’ time. So about twenty minutes into returning to sleep – I jerked awake. I just got up! = )
definitely, usually right on the threshold of sleep. also, do you have dreams where you feel like you are awake and participating, almost deciding what is happening next?