I get the falling dream sometimes, where im on a bed (totaly diffrent from my own) and im falling through space, and im haveing a blast (rollercoaster type excitement stress LOL) and then it hits the ground, asphalt. and my whole body jerks and i kinda like bounce on the bed in real life and wake up, its cool lol. its fun, wierd but fun

I always wondered the same thing about this sleep-jerking stuff until I took psychology freshman year of college. It was then I found out your body actually paralyzes itself during the sleep process, and that sometimes if your brain overrides your need for sleep it will suddenly purge your muscles of the paralysis chemicals, causing the jerking reaction. I'm sure that's pretty much what all of those links said, but I'm a lazy American and I didn't feel like reading up on it more than I already have.

thats always kinda freaky.

i don't think i've ever tripped in my dreams, but i've fallen from a few cliffs or out of an airplane before and i always think to myself about halfway down, "wow, this sucks... i don't want to die like this, time to wake up..."

the weirdest thing i've felt was when i got shot in the stomach in one of my dreams... i woke up and my stomach really really hurt and i could've sworn i felt blood gushing out. it freaked the hell out of me.

I have a similar occurance, but the most notable one was when I thought a football was about to smash my face in...that wo0ke me from my half slumber

Once I was taking a nap on the bed while a friend was reading a book beside me. In my dream I was standing up in a bus and the bus hit something. I flew to the window and woke up" My friend was all freaked out cause the whole bed had moved.

This happens to me all of the time. One time I was in the hospital during one of my pancreatitis attacks and I was on morphine and I was sleeping. I was dreaming about crossing the mississippi river and all of the sudden the bridge stopped and my car was falling off the bridge and my whole body jerked. It scared the piss out of me.
Sometimes when my cats are sleeping I notice that they start to move there legs and I wonder if they are dreaming about chasing something.

Yea I do that shit all the time scares the hell out of me

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a cat who "dream runs". Mine also will start to purr and meow in his sleep.

On nights that I know I'm not going to sleep well I do the jerking awake thing. It just makes me angry because then I can't go back to sleep!

i have these often. in class, il fall half asleep, and suddenly freak out and make noise(kind of snort, and have a small thrash)to the amusment of my classmates. and teacher for that matter

I find that these dreams usually occur when I've had a particularly stressful or exciting day and haven't completely wound down before going to sleep.

Yes I hate it when that happens

I can always tell when my girlfriend is falling asleep because she jumps like 3 inches off the bed right before she dozes off.

I think we all have that falling off or tripping on something or nothing sometimes and then jerking your body. It is pretty wierd.

My puppy, he's a shih-tzu, starts moving and shaking while he's dreaming and then starts making little barking noises. Pretty funny stuff.

Does anyone have dreams where they die?

I have those a lot. I've heard them (I don't really know who "them" are) say that if you die in a dream you die for real. I'm hear to say that isn't true. I also dream in color.

I also have dreams where I am fighting satan or some demons and then have those jerky reactions and wake myself up.

my ex girlfriend is a psych major and we talked about this. her professor claimed that it is an ingrained reflex from when we were still tree-dwellers.

monkeys which didn't have the reflex to wake up like that would fall from the trees and die. (darwinism)

i'm not saying whether or not i believe it, because it seems kind of strange taht that reflex would be kicking in when you're in bed...

Yes I've had the 'jerk' reflex when falling asleep. Usually I'm running on some roadway (for an unknown reason) and running at 0.0002 mph (as if I'm running through molasses) and I trip. I wake up before I do a faceplant with a big jolt.


I've only died once or twice in my dreams. A variation to this is that if you are falling and 'hit bottom', you die in real life.

99% of the time I 'catch' myself before I fall and jolt awake. One time, however, I remember falling out a window (I think it's rather funny now) and I fall to my death. What an awkward experience.

i'm not usually falling in my dream when i hav the fall syndrome even......

it's almost as if i'm being plucked like a rubber band