Weird sleep sensation

[Dshadzz07]

So I’ve had this just twice in 7 weeks, but both times it’s been really strange. So it’s like when I’m falling in or out of sleep and suddenly like my heart jolts me awake and I feel really dizzy and disoriented for about 5-10 seconds then it stops and I feel ok just the overwhelming anxiety from it that I get. Like it makes me fear that it might be a heart arrhythmia however only experiencing twice and both in the exact same circumstances, I don’t know. Wondered if anyone had any thoughts on what it could be or a similar experience.

Thank you.

[cyberbarn]

I wonder if what you are experiencing are hypnagogic jerks. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypni...

This is common, and happens more frequently in some people, where as you fall asleep muscles contract and heart rate goes up and you are momentarily awake and confused. This is from the bottom of that webpage:

"some people may develop a fixation on these hypnic jerks leading to increased anxiety, worrying about the disruptive experience. This increased anxiety and fatigue increases the likelihood of experiencing these jerks, resulting in a positive feedback loop."

Do you know about the construction of emotions? Sometimes our heart rates go up, sometimes they go down. If they go up when we are doing something that is expected to make them go up then we label that as normal, for example when we run to catch a bus. But sometimes our heart rate goes up when we don't expect it. This has been labelled 'anxiety', we construct the emotion of 'anxiety' as how we feel when our heart rate goes up for no apparent reason. But is it really anxiety? Or is it just our heart rate increasing and we label it as anxiety? What happens if we don't call it anxiety but call it what it is, just our heart rate increasing?

So next time this happens, you will know what it is, and you won't need to feel 'anxious' about the increase in heart rate. You can tell yourself that this is normal, and maybe even enjoy it, which will help you relax and bring your heart rate down more quickly and hopefully break the feedback loop and help you get to sleep again.

And when I say enjoy, one of the things that sometimes happens is that you can get a flash of bright light. This is just some neurons in your brain firing randomly which we don't notice when I eyes are open and seeing things. It is like when the brain has no input from the eyes, it makes things up. When you know this, you can actually start to manipulate those flashes and have some fun with them. My son and I call it playing with our brains! (my background is neuroscience, and I wish it was taught in schools because the brain is really fun to play with!)

[NaturesArtist]

I have it happen all the time. It has never affected my heart. I have had my heart investigated recently and all is good.I think maybe to be on the safe side though, contact your GP and just check your heart is okay.