So I’m about to snooze when all of a sudden before I drift off it feels like I missed a stair in my bed and I start to fall until I’m forcefully woken up by the shock. Like, WTH?! It’s not like a dream where you fall off a skyscraper, it’s more like before you start to dream when it happens.
It’s a hypnic jerk.
They’d no single agreed on cause, but they happen during the transition from wakefulness to sleep.
It’s more nuanced than this but something along the lines of your brain having more “awake” activity than your body, so your brain interprets the lack of response from your muscles as a possible sign that you’re falling.
No Idea why it happens, but there is a name for it! It’s called a Hypnic Jerk.
Discovering that this is a common occurence is comforting. I thought I was crazy or something.
I will raise you one. Sometimes I see lots of colors and patterns right before I sleep or wake in the middle of the night. Like I took some sort of psychedelic
Hypnagogic hallucinations, completely normal!
You’re right! But once it happened when I was partially off the bed with my head hanging off, so combined with blood rush to my head and a pounding headache! But the patterns were cool at least
