Does anyone else experience that feeling when their about to fall asleep and then they “trip over” and suddenly come awake?
In: 6
It’s called a hypnic jerk, and the short answer is we don’t know why it happens. There’s evidence suggesting some factors which can increase their prevalence
>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
However the underlying cause is not understood. Theres 3 prevailing hypothesis:
1. A normal reflex caused by nerves misfiring when you’re falling asleep
2. For whatever reason our body actually interprets the sense of falling asleep as falling and jerks your muscles to wake you up so you can catch yourself
3. Your brain thinks you’re a monkey in a tree who is about to fall asleep and fall out, so it wakes you up so you can readjust your resting position
It’s called a myoclonic jerk. Sometimes you fall asleep too fast. Your heart rate drops a lot faster than your brain thinks it should, so your brain sends you a shock of adrenaline to wake you up.
Basically your brain thinks you’re dying because your heart slowed down too fast. It’s perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.
Babies experience something called the “Moro reflex,” which is a vestigial instinctual response to the feeling of falling. The baby is triggered to cast its arms and legs out to catch itself from falling. To babies, falling asleep literally feels like falling.
This reflex disappears after 2-4 months and matures into the Startle reflex, which is a myoclonic reflex (large group of muscles involuntarily twitching due to injury or stimuli). When falling asleep, it’s called a hypnic jerk, also a type of myoclonic reflex.
Basically, the brain registers sensations from your body and misinterprets it as either an environmental stimulus requiring sudden alertness (startle response) or as either dying or falling (hypnic jerk).
I read somewhere that your body realises that your Heart rate is falling too fast and believes your dying and basically spikes you with a rush of adrenaline. Don’t know about the dreaming part of it though.
Latest Answers