Hypnic Jerks – Living Up to Their Name

Set the scene with a dream state: You are driving down a winding road, with beautiful scenery all around you. It is a cliff-side road and a sheer drop down the side. You lose control of your car, it veers off the edge and you fall out the window. It is usually sheer terror for me, the falling seems to be never-ending. Suddenly the ground is coming closer at a rapid speed. In my dream state, I know for sure that I am going to hit the ground any second. I brace for impact and terror consumes my entire being, when suddenly my body is thrust into a hypnic jerk.

What feels like milliseconds and I wake up with a massive jolt. Turns out I did not hit the floor. Importantly, I did not die; however, now I am awake. Wide, wide awake. I look to the clock, I have been asleep for less than 30  minutes.

Here we go, another night – with minimal sleep.

Hypnic jerks and insomnia

After doing some of my own research I discovered that these are called hypnic jerks. They literally jerk you right out of your sleep state into an awake state. There are many schools of thought surrounding why hypnic jerks occur. The reason varies from spiritual, to lifestyle, and some people would even say that it falls under a sleep disorder.

As with most things, I think that you could find enough information to substantiate just about any belief. If you believe it is part of a sleep disorder, please have it checked by your doctor. For me, the why is not as important at the moment, but simply the fact that it is happening.

Return to sleep state

The main problem is that they wake me up completely. Leaving me feeling like I have had a power nap, as that is truly all that it is. Some people are able to fall asleep soon after, and they do not have any trouble with them. Others, like lucky 'ol me, are awake and we are prone to experiencing these more than once a night.  This can leave one with a very bad night and can be a big cause for insomnia.

Changing the narrative

One night after being woken up by hypnic jerks more than three or four times, I was reading up in various communities about how people who have this on a regular basis cope.  Because clearly I was not coping and this was keeping me up more than what it needed to. It would easily take me 2 hours to get back to sleep again. While awake, I came across a lady who said that she feared her falling dream and the anxiety of them made it worse and she believed strongly that this was part of the reason that she experienced so many of them.

So she made a concerted effort to change the way that she thought about the hypnic jerks. How exactly she went about it all was a bit vague, It seems though that she used them to welcome sleep. By reminding her brain before she went to sleep that it was going to happen. However, this is what welcomed some sleep for her. While this might not take them away, it sure seems that it has made a positive impact and that with some effort, she has been able to reduce them.

Her approach to changing the narrative leaves me wondering if this is something that is possible. Are you able to change how these hypnic jerks impact your sleep by changing your thoughts about them? I think it might be worth doing some more research to see if this is possible.