A quick sleep related question

rorybbellows · Post by **rorybbellows** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:24 pm

Does anyone know the name and cause of the phenomenon where by, just as you are on the verge of falling a sleep you suddenly and sometimes violently jump and are wide awake again ?

I always thought it was called an Alpha Jerk , but I goggled Alpha jerk and all I got was the band !!! so maybe it not that

RORY

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:27 pm

Hypnic Jerks (Edit: This link apparently requires a membership after letting you view it once. Grrr.)

More from Wikipedia.

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:23 pm

Ah, yes, the hyp .... hypni .... hup ... hup .... myoclonic twitch. Fortunately, there is no band called Myoclonus or Myolconic Twitch (yet).

djm

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:45 pm

The late, great Richard Boston, founder of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in the UK, once claimed he coined a word to describe the state of being half-way twixt wakefulness and sleep, neither one nor t'other, during which such strange things can happen. His word was "hypnopompic." You wouldn't think he'd coined it if you google it. But that was Richard.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:01 pm

I always feel like it's some last burst of electrical energy that has to be discharged before sleep can be restful.

WhistlingArmadillo · Post by **WhistlingArmadillo** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:11 pm

In the Deep South (of USA, that is) we called it "catching a possum", but I suspect that isn't the medically recognized term.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:17 pm

emmline wrote:I always feel like it's some last burst of electrical energy that has to be discharged before sleep can be restful.

I kinda go along with that bit of a theory.

I have been known to lie awake all night, with all sorts of thoughts having a rodeo in my head. The vast majority of those thoughts have little, if anything, to do with my day to day living.

I cannot keep up with the ceaseless procession of thoughts, any more than I can remember them once I eventuallly nod off.
A recent sleepless night I do remember was filled with strange and mysterious thoughts about the Polish economy..go figure.

Slan,
D.

BTW, when all of this is going down..the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band are providing a nice soundtrack..I hear that as well.

D.

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:26 pm

dubhlinn wrote: I have been known to lie awake all night, with all sorts of thoughts having a rodeo in my head. The vast majority of those thoughts have little, if anything, to do with my day to day living.

This happens to me all too often, especially as of late. I seem to have too many random thoughts for my head to process during the day, so it's does the bulk of it when I'm trying to get to sleep. I rarely get to sleep before 1am these days.

Although, I will admit, my random, sleep-preventing thoughts are not punctuated by music provided by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:13 pm

izzarina wrote:
dubhlinn wrote: I have been known to lie awake all night, with all sorts of thoughts having a rodeo in my head. The vast majority of those thoughts have little, if anything, to do with my day to day living.
This happens to me all too often, especially as of late. I seem to have too many random thoughts for my head to process during the day, so it's does the bulk of it when I'm trying to get to sleep. I rarely get to sleep before 1am these days.
Although, I will admit, my random, sleep-preventing thoughts are not punctuated by music provided by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

When the head hits the pillow, all fraught and sleep-defying notions may be banished simply by recalling the words of the good Lord himself: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. What a wise man! The eejits around him, and the ones who came after him in proselytising mode, were far more stupid.

Steve "rampant-atheist" Shaw

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:15 pm

I've always referred to them as "falling dreams" because there's a sensation of falling when I suddenly jerk awake.

Redwolf

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:31 pm

I never knew what that was called, or that it had a proper name, until today.

Redwolf wrote:I've always referred to them as "falling dreams" because there's a sensation of falling when I suddenly jerk awake.

Redwolf

Apparently, the falling sensation in particular may be from evolution:

the wikipedia article above wrote:A more radical explanation is found in The Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan. This momentary consciousness and physicality are related to the time when our ancestors still slept in trees due to nocturnal ground predation. If you could be awakened enough to keep yourself from falling out of a tree, then you would presumably outlive your less evolved contemporaries, thus reinforcing this reaction over many generations of higher apes through natural selection. This also provides an explanation of the falling sensation

TonyHiggins · Post by **TonyHiggins** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:14 pm

I've also heard it described as caused when your astral body is leaving your physical body at the beginning of sleep and suddenly gets jerked back in for some reason. Just saying what I heard. I live in California, after all.
Tony

A-Musing · Post by **A-Musing** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:31 pm

California Astral Backpressure.

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:48 pm

TonyHiggins wrote:Just saying what I heard.

Were they from LA?

I forgot about Napa...nevermind.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:52 pm

"Well I'm caught one more time..up on Cypress Avenue...."

Slan,
D.