Why does the human body jerk/shock itself awake sometimes while trying to sleep?
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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.
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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.
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!!
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
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.
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.
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.
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