Violently waking up

I was wondering if anyone else wakes up violently. I used to wake up from my dreams with the feeling like someone hit me hard awake. Or someone yelled out my name really loud. Or I wake up with a volt with kicking my arms or body and legs. I hadn’t had the other things lately but I watched that spiral lucid induction site for a while and went to sleep at my PC and woke up violently jolting forward like when the doctor hits your knee and you reflex your leg kicking.

The only time I experience this violent jolt is when I’m just getting to sleep, not when I’m waking up. Often I’ll see some hypnagogic imagery in which I’m falling from a bike or something, then as soon as I regain control of my body, I usually slam my hand into the wall before realizing where I am.

Sounds like the Prelude to Stigmata! :eek:

Hmm, in the morning I sometimes wake up “violently” when I had a bad dream or something (doesn´t occur very often), but that isn´t a physical ting.It is just that I lay in bed wide awake cause I am shocked by something.
In the evening I also experience this jerking feeling.
Check out the “Between two worlds” topic in the Beyond Dreaming forum for more about it

Traumgänger

It’s normal to wake up like that. Whenever it happens to me it happens while I’m trying to go to sleep. I’ll have a short dream of someone punching me, getting it in the face by a ball, tripping etc. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure everyone has these kind of dreams.

Sometimes i wake up like i had just been levitating above my bed like 4 feet high, then fell and woke up just as i hit the bed. Its weird, but kinda cool! :eh: :neutral:

well I don’t have em when I dream, the last time I fell asleep while at the PC and slept for a lil bit and woke up with a bad jerk. Like no one hits me in my dream or nothing. Just always these things would be what wakes me up in a shock. Like I am sleeping and and the way someone wanted to wake me up is by shouting my name so loud or jerking me hard or I wake up like I had a bad reflex body jerk.

I only wake up violently when something violently happened in my dream.
for example; once I was standing next to house in a dream when it exploded. and I woke up feeling like I was exploding… pretty scary.

I’ve experienced this too. It happened very frequently, but when I was lying on my side. It was like somebody shook my bed from side to side. Most of the time it freaked the hell out of me, and after some time I decided to not sleep on my side again. Only recently have I started to sleep on my side again, and thus far I have no ‘violent awakenings’.

It seems like this thing where as you’re falling asleep you feel like you’re falling or being hit by something and then jerk awake happens to most people (including me). Does anyone know what it’s called, or why it happens?

The scientific explanation for the jerking feeling that you sometimes experience when you wake up after you just went to sleep:
When you got to sleep, you relax your body.Sometimes, when you are not fully relaxed yet but already dream, you can experience the complete muscle relaxion as a falling sensation, and wake up with the jerking feeling.

However, there are different explanation, as said before, have a look into the “falling between two worlds” thread

Traumgänger

It’s called a myoclonic jerk or hypnagogic jerk. Some information I’ve found about it:

This term denotes a common experience with sudden contractions of the big body muscles while falling asleep. This mostly causes a feeling of
stumbling, falling or similar and subsequently waking up again. The
exact cause is not known, it probably is some disturbance in the
brain’s functions in the first stage of sleep. Surely it is common,
and does not cause serious problems unless it stops you from sleeping
(but then you have general sleeping problems as well).

As Traumgänger already mentioned there are other explanations as well for this phenomenon (to me they sound far more interesting :alien: )
You can find the thread here: slagt.net/ld4all/viewtopic.php?t=2304

I’ve had the falling sensation before, but these violent wake-ups are usually caused by some kind of impact in my dream. I’ve also woken up in the middle of the night and heard an extremely loud and quick “DUN!!”. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it scared me crazy. I thought maybe a car crashed or something, but eventually, after waking up more, I concluded that it was just my imagination. Although I was still freaked for awhile.

And recently I woke up because I thought I heard a plane flying right near the house, but it was just my fan. That one also scared me immensely.

One time last year in biology class I fell asleep and had a sort of dream where one my friend kicked me in the nuts (I guess he thought it was funny) and I jolted awake and everyone just stopped what they were doing and stared at for a few seconds. It was very embarrassing.

On Sunday morning I had a false awakening where my husband came upstairs with a cup of tea. He handed it to me and I reached out for it. As I took it, it slipped from my hands, waking me up with a real shock!

I think i’ve had what you are describing.

Whenever i fall asleep in a chair (or in the morning before work when i should have been getting up) I violently wake. My theory is that my mind realises i am either MEANT to be awake or that i am not in a sleeping possition, which naturally says to me “oh hell wake up!” and i wake violently like i have been slapped or something and usually i am then instantly wide-awake.

though if you think about it that could be classes as a hypnagogic jerk as mystic said -

which i guess in a way is just what i said hehe.

I’ve woken up a couple of times by physically jumping out of my bed and running across the room - I think I thought I saw a spider or something whilst I was asleep and then did what I’d normally do - run like hell! :eek:

I have violent awakenings, but only when I’m falling asleep in church. Probably 'cause I know I should be awake but…well… once i had a dream ( in Church) that this kid I know ( who is a neighbor of a kid from church) was bugging the CRAP out of Me!!! and so I was extreamly angry, Then I JUMPED AWAKE, and i felt the biggest adrenalin rush I had ever had. Luckily, the kid wasn’t at church that night 'cause if he was, I would have wailed out on him in the middle of the sermon. I came pretty close to hurting someone.

well… sometimes… I think after I’m awake for a little bit… I’ll think I’m falling or something and then move quickly… it’s sort of scary because I think I’m falling and… stuff :neutral: