I keep seeing it popping up, whether that be in memes or comments. I don’t think I have experienced this ever. Is this some sort of genetic thing? I tried searching it on Google, and the first result mentioned something like
> What causes falling sensation while sleeping is the natural disengagement of the astral body
– and I just stopped reading when it mentioned astral body. Is this just another thing we have no idea about or is there something to this?
In: Biology
When you start to fall sleep your body tries to shut off movement of your muscles so that your brain doesn’t involuntary make you move around and do things while you’re dreaming (as dreaming is a very active state for the brain). Just before you are truly asleep your brain will ‘jerk’ the muscles it tried to shut off as a double check. If the muscles aren’t really shut off then that results in the jolt, a sensation similar to a split second of free fall.
As someone else already mentioned, caffeine and anxiety can make it harder for your brain to shut off the necessary muscles in those early stages of sleep. I would experience this very frequently in college, which led to me reading up on it as best I could. It’s been a few years, so I’m not sure I could find the exact sources again, but I believe the wikipedia page on Hypnotic Jerk had some good information.
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