Lately I’ve been haveing some increadibly strong hypnic jerks as I fall asleep. It seems now that every time I take a little longer to fall asleep (which has been almost every night now ), after a while of staying still I get one. The thing is they can be REALLY strong. Once I felt like I got electrocuted or that I almost fell out of bed. Another time I kicked the wall so hard that if I’d hit with my toe I just might have broken it
Anyway, I’m not worried or anything, specially as I just read that it’s more common with people with irregular sleep schedules, and since my sleep has been kinda weird, I guess that it can be expected.
Just wondering if anyone had any experiences/thoughts on this?
It’s normal, everyone gets them at one time or another, in varying degrees of strength. I also sometimes yelp at the same time I jerk, and try to cover it up with a cough!
I know it’s childish but I’d just like to note that someone that just reads that last sentence gets some very strange images…
But these hypnic jerks have always puzzled me… as every time I have them it really feels like I fall into bed from a feet or two. I know that’s just the illusion but still.
What I notice is that I only seem to have them when I’m not doing a lot of dreamwork, and my dream vividness and recall is down. Don’t know if it’s relevant but I thought I’d just post that.
Yeah, I used to have them every now and then, and obviously started noticing them more when I started LD’ing. But the last few months they have just gotten a lot more frequent and intense. Sometimes I feel like there are two kinds (although it probably just the same thing). There’s the one where you feel or see yourself falling and that makes you jerk. I’ve had many lately too where I just serk for no “aparent reason”. Anyway, I guess I just didn’t know how strong they could be.
haha, I’ve done that too! and that’s also how I get away with it. When I sleep on the bus sometimes, I have one and my arms go flying up in the air. That’s pretty hard to cover up when someone is next to you…
Oh god, this always happens to me when I take naps in the campus library; my arms and legs jerk up, and there is no way to cover it up or look sane. XD
I have them too, occasionally. Like once a fortnight, maybe. I don’t worry about it, it doesn’t seem to do anything other than set me back a bit in falling asleep.
I get them so strong I don’t even know if this is the right name for them.
Sure, when I was younger I used to feel like I was slipping over as a went to sleep.
For a few years I have had them really strong though. It was after an event in my life actually involving an accidental intake of a large amount of pretty nasty chemical. No, don’t worry, it wasn’t some sort of stupid suicide attempt, it was just a stupid accident.
Anyway, from that day it’d feel like somebody had put electrodes on my head and pumped about 25,000 volts through it. I would just react like I was slipping over, I’d react like a bomb had gone off.
It is usually really painful too.
As the years wore on they grew smaller in intensity but it still sometimes happens and it can be really hard and painful like lightning is going off inside my head.
It’s the same moment every time too: The very second a dream begins I get this huge jolt. This to me suggests the mind changes rapidly into a very different state at the start of a dream.
If anybody has this experience, or any knowledge of it, I’d be really interested to hear what you have to say about it.
I remember I had one so strong that at first I didn’t know what happened. Then I couldn’t stop laughing for 10 minutes, it was kinda awesome experience…
), after a while of staying still I get one. The thing is they can be REALLY strong. Once I felt like I got electrocuted 
or that I almost fell out of bed. Another time I kicked the wall so hard that if I’d hit with my toe I just might have broken it 
When I sleep on the bus sometimes, I have one and my arms go flying up in the air. That’s pretty hard to cover up when someone is next to you… 