At 01:30 PM 2/8/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Kirsten Rewey wrote:
>
>>Why is it that we sometimes dream we are falling and, at the moment of
impact,
>>jerk awake?
>
>Although he doesn't mention it in the context of dreaming, the sleep
researcher
>Peretz Lavie (1996) stated the following with regard to jerking awake:
>
>"The muscle relaxation that signifies falling asleep is sometimes
interrupted by
>a sudden start called a 'hypnic jerk' for which we have no well-established
>explanation, although we may assume that it results from a change in the
brain to
>decrease muscle tonus. Like the sudden forward jump a car makes after a
clumsy
>gear change, this could cause an 'error' in the activation of a group of
muscles,
>thus resulting in a sudden start." (p. 14)
>
>When this happens to me, I often have that feeling that I am falling. This
is how
>I explain it to my students when they ask the question: "We really do not
know,
>but it probably has something to do with changes in brain activity as our
muscles
>begin to relax during light sleep. It probably is related to the smaller
jerks
>you typically see in people as they first fall to sleep. Dreaming is very
>frequent in Stage-1 sleep (some estimates are as high as 50%). So it does not
>seem unusual that the feeling is associated with a dream of falling."
>
>Admittedly, this is speculative; but apparently there are no well-supported
>explanations.
>
>Jeff
>
Is this the same thing as a myoclonic jerk (which Dick Cavett once quipped
sounded like a high-brow insult)?
Bob
****************************************************************
Robert T. Herdegen III
Department of Psychology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943
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