Why do we startle when we fall asleep, and other problems in a dream. Why does a person startle when falling asleep Involuntary startle when falling asleep

It would seem, what surprises can the body bring if a person is completely healthy? However, often people are faced with such a problem as a strong start at the time of falling asleep, which abruptly returns to wakefulness. Of course, in the daytime, when you need to perform any duties, this is very handy and is unlikely to cause anyone dissatisfaction, but at night this phenomenon can cause difficulty falling asleep. To top it off, before the awakening shudder, many feel an extremely unpleasant feeling of a rapid fall, which, in a half-asleep state, can be very frightening. There is a similar shudder for various reasons and cannot be regarded as a disease. It is most correct to consider this phenomenon as a physiological reaction of the body to any natural stimuli, which turned out to be too much. Even people who always fall asleep easily and quickly experience such an awakening sharp shudder from time to time. When it occurs, a visit to the doctor is not required, but only if there are no other negative manifestations from the body.

Reasons why a person twitches

In the process of falling asleep, the human brain goes through several stages, which doctors call sleep phases. In order for the body to completely relax and move into a state of complete rest (deep sleep phase), it takes about 90 minutes after falling asleep. It is during this period that the shudders that interrupt sleep predominantly occur. Most often, the fact that a person twitches in the process of falling asleep is explained by the following reasons:

• Viability check. For the brain, the process of falling asleep to a certain extent is similar to the process of its death. Because of this, in some people the brain wants to make sure that everything is fine and neither he nor the body is in a state of death. To this end, the brain sends impulses to the muscles, causing them to contract sharply, which becomes an indicator of the norm for the central nervous system. When this process takes place in a normal rhythm, it does not cause awakening and the person does not even notice it. When the brain suddenly experiences a persistent feeling of dying, which is usually caused by alcohol or drug intoxication, the impulses sent by it to the muscles become too strong. From such a shudder, awakening occurs.
• sound effect. When a person is in a state of falling asleep, his body goes not only into a rest phase, but also into a state in which it reacts with increased sensitivity to any sound effect. The reason for this mechanism lies in ancient times, when the first people lived surrounded by many predators and at any moment had to be ready for protection. As a result, today, when a person falls asleep - and especially after a day full of emotional stress, any rustle or even a strong gust of wind outside the window causes a sharp muscle contraction. This reaction is aimed not only at awakening, but also at bringing the body into a state in which it can quickly move on to active physical actions. Thus, the phenomenon can be called protective. Usually it does not occur if a person does not have emotional overload, which always provokes, albeit hidden, a sense of danger.
• Load shedding. In such a situation, a start at the time of falling asleep occurs in people who have received physical overwork or suffer from chronic fatigue. Startles allow you to eliminate muscle tension and relax as much as possible, using up the remaining energy in the muscle fibers. Most often, this reaction does not cause discomfort and does not interfere with falling asleep. If the condition disrupts normal sleep, this means that the body urgently needs rest, because in order to relax it has to use too much energy. big forces, and this is a symptom of overwork.
• Uncomfortable sleeping position. Sometimes a person in the process of falling asleep begins to twitch for the reason that the position chosen by him for sleep, or the bed, turned out to be uncomfortable for him. internal organs and in them there was a stagnation of blood or, on the contrary, its insufficiency is noted. As a result of this, the brain gives a signal that it is necessary to change the position, and after that it causes the muscles to contract strongly and sharply several times in order to activate blood circulation. It is these muscle contractions that cause awakening from a startle.

How to fall asleep without shaking

Most often, shudders in the process of falling asleep do not annoy a person, and he may not pay attention to them. If they still cause discomfort, you can resort to several methods to prevent them. Required for restful sleep.

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Startles when falling asleep or during sleep disturb many, and first of all the question arises of whether this is a norm or a pathology. In such a situation, everything depends on the cause of the phenomenon. In most cases, it is not a disease, but accompanies the natural physiological processes in the body, to which the body reacts. Treatments require startling, which are accompanied by convulsions, since the latter are not the norm.

Most often, the problem is faced by people suffering from constant nervous overload and chronic overwork, when the body does not fully relax even in a dream. In order to understand whether it is necessary to treat shudders when falling asleep, you need to find out their cause.

Possible reasons

The brain sometimes thinks it's dying when it falls asleep.

Doctors have been studying the problem of shuddering at the time of falling asleep for a long time. Today, 4 theories have been deduced due to which tremors appear in the body when falling asleep. They look like this:

• Dying states - during sleep, the brain determines changes in the body as dying and takes actions to restore active functioning. Muscle contractions occur in order to activate blood circulation in the body and the person shudders intensely. In the same period, the majority sees nightmares (more often falling from a height or diving under water without the ability to emerge). Such artificial stimulation of the danger projected onto a person is produced by the brain for the release of adrenaline, which should improve the condition. This explains most of the cases why a person twitches at night.
• The transition from the stage of superficial sleep to deep sleep - during the period of deep sleep, the human body completely relaxes. If there is excess energy in the muscles, at the moment of transition from one phase of sleep to another, they are reset by twitching. Very rarely, a spasm can occur.
• Stress - when stress is chronic, and negative thoughts and emotions accumulate for a long time, the brain begins to analyze them during the period of falling asleep, although consciousness is already turned off. Due to this activity, there is an increase in nerve impulses, which leads to tissue vibration before sleep. Most often in such a situation they wake up.
• Lack of oxygen - if the oxygen content in the air is low, then the muscle cells begin to experience its deficiency, due to which the brain sends impulses that cause them to contract. This is necessary because at the moment of shuddering, blood circulation in the tissues increases, and they receive the required amount of oxygen.

Startle most often has a one-time character and does not appear regularly. In this state, a person usually does not seek medical help, since he does not care about twitching.

Myoclonic spasms each time appear in different places of the body

Myoclonic seizures occur for a variety of reasons and are noted as irregular twitching of the arms or legs just before sleep or immediately after falling asleep. Cause myoclonic convulsions when falling asleep for the following reasons:

• brain asphyxia;
• abrupt end of sedatives;
• abrupt termination of the intake of hypotonic drugs;
• mental disorders;
• degenerative processes in the cells of the nervous system;
• depression.

Myoclonic spasm has no localization. Because of this, it is natural that one night the patient's leg twitches, and the next - his arm. In healthy people, a myoclonic attack can occur if the oxygen content in the air is very strongly and sharply reduced.

"Restless Legs"

Restless Leg Syndrome is another common cause of sleep jerks that can wake up the sleeper. More often it affects adults over 35 years old, although young people are not immune from this. The phenomenon is caused by unpleasant sensations in the legs that a person does not fix in a dream, but the brain gives a command to eliminate them. As a result, muscle contraction occurs, which improves blood circulation and eliminates discomfort. It also explains why the legs twitch.

It is unlikely that you will wake up with “restless legs”, but if this happens, then congestion is already strong

Waking up in such a situation does not occur often, since the sleepers do not startle much, and this does not lead to changes in the position of the body. However, the quality of sleep is greatly degraded as the deep sleep phase is constantly disturbed by vibration. Because of this, even after a rest of 8 hours, a person feels overwhelmed and general malaise. Such twitches take place mainly at night. Awakening in this situation can only occur if the congestion in the limbs is intense and the movement to eliminate them is strong.

The following is causing the problem:

• lack of iron in the body;
• kidney failure;
• diabetes mellitus - only type 2;
• Parkinson's disease;
• complications after surgery on the stomach and upper intestine;
• pinching of the processes of the spinal cord;
• varicose veins;
• severe hormonal disruptions in the body;
• venous insufficiency of the lower extremities;
• arthritis of the joints of the legs;
• pathologies of the cardiovascular system;
• disorders in the thyroid gland;
• traumatic spinal cord injury.

Quite often, the appearance of the syndrome of "restless legs" is associated with the period of pregnancy, when the enlarged uterus compresses the veins and disrupts blood circulation in the legs, which causes twitching. If there are no other pathologies, then the condition is not dangerous and is eliminated by itself after the birth of the child.

In those cases where, with a start during sleep, awakening occurs regularly, the cause should be sought in defects in protein metabolism or alcohol abuse.

Twitching in epilepsy

For patients with epilepsy, nocturnal shuddering is quite familiar. More than half of the patients suffer from it. Convulsive seizures occur at night with awakening. They tend to progress and intensify as the underlying disease develops. Gradually, tremors are completely replaced by focal seizures.

Startle when falling asleep in adults can affect both one muscle group and several. They have attacks and a tendency to migrate, when the contraction occurs, then in the leg, then in the arm.

Sleep paralysis is when you wake up but you can't move because your brain thinks you're still asleep.

People who suffer from shudders during sleep sometimes also have such an unpleasant phenomenon as sleep paralysis. With it, a person is unable to move, experiences an acute feeling of lack of oxygen and a strong fear of death. Not infrequently, visual and auditory hallucinations also appear. The fact that the victim at this moment cannot call for help, since the tongue is also paralyzed, makes the condition especially difficult.

There is a phenomenon due to the fact that the coordination between awakening and the beginning of physical activity is disturbed. In fact, a person wakes up, but the brain has not yet fixed this and does not give signals to the muscles to start active work. In order to eliminate the phenomenon as soon as possible, a person must be aware of what is happening to him. As soon as this happens, the brain actively turns on and everything returns to normal.

The problem is solved by normalizing the sleep and rest regimen and reducing stress loads. When the problem of sleep paralysis is eliminated, at the same time, night jerks also disappear.

Ways to eliminate flinches

It is necessary first of all to establish whether nocturnal shuddering of the limbs is associated with natural causes, or with diseases. To do this, if self-identification is impossible, you should first contact a therapist. After the initial examination, he decides whether the patient needs treatment and referral to a specialist, or his condition is not dangerous.

If the presence of diseases is established, against the background of which a shudder appeared, it is necessary to correct them. For this, a person is referred to a specialized doctor, who determines the method of therapy. For some, a mild sedative before bedtime is enough (with increased nervous excitability), while someone will need lifelong maintenance therapy (with diabetes etc.).

You need to drink more water - regular, not carbonated

Patients must establish a drinking regimen. This is due to the fact that if the body receives less fluid, a person develops chronic dehydration. Because of this, the blood becomes excessively thick and there is a nightly twitching of the body, legs or one leg, which should improve metabolic processes in tissues. Fixing this problem is the easiest. It is enough just to drink daily 6 glasses of pure water without gas, not counting liquid food, tea and coffee.

In case of epilepsy, the use of antipsychotics is indicated to eliminate nocturnal tremors or microseizures. They allow you to correct the state of the nervous system and eliminate the problem.

When there are no diseases

If a person who shudders regularly in his sleep does not show any diseases, it is necessary to carry out work aimed at eliminating the strong evening overload of the body, ensuring relaxation of the body and relieving nervous strain. There are many simple and pleasant ways to do this.

Take a bath half an hour before bedtime, you can use essential oils

1. Warming - when the body is warm, the body does not need to activate blood circulation, and, therefore, jerking is useless. In the evening, 30-40 minutes before bedtime, it will be useful to take a bath with essential oil. The temperature of the water should not be too high to avoid overheating, but sufficient for pleasant warming. The duration of the procedure is 20 minutes. You can’t lie down immediately after the bath, you need to sit for 10-15 minutes. This is necessary in order to restore normal heart rhythm.
2. Evening walks - when the twitching of the limbs occurs due to energy not wasted during the day, walking in the fresh air helps. They speed up metabolic processes and burn off the remaining energy, which, when falling asleep, will lead to problems. The walk should last 30-40 minutes. No need to load your body and walk fast or even run. It is required to dress in comfortable warm clothes according to the season, so as not to experience the cold.
3. Exclusion of screens before falling asleep - a TV or computer negatively affects the brain in the evening, overloading it with information and awakening with its intense light. As a result, when falling asleep, a person is not in a sufficiently relaxed state, which is why tremors develop. 2 hours before bedtime, it is better to read a book (only paper). You can also do needlework and drawing.

In the vast majority of cases, the problem of night startle does not pose a danger to a person, does not require treatment, and is effectively corrected when the rhythm of life changes. Sleep becomes normal, spasms, twitches and vibrations disappear.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Consciousness takes us far when we fall asleep

If you've ever wondered why people go to sleep and their arms and legs suddenly twitch, psychologist Tom Stafford has the answer.

When we give our body over to sleep, the brain sends out sudden impulses that make our arms and legs twitch. Some people are intimidated by it, others are embarrassed. These sleepy twitchings, they are also "hypnogogic convulsions", literally fascinate me. Nobody knows exactly what causes them. To me, they are side effects of an invisible power struggle over the control mechanisms in the brain. This battle is played out every night at the dividing line between wakefulness and sleep.

As a rule, we are paralyzed when we sleep. Even during the most vivid dreams, our muscles remain relaxed and motionless, almost nothing betraying our internal tension. The events of the outside world usually go unnoticed. Not that I advise anyone to do this, but experiments show that even if you sleep with your eyes open and someone shines a bright beam of light on you, it is unlikely to affect your dreams.

However, the door that separates the sleeping person from the outside world is not tightly closed. The sleeping brain emits impulses for two kinds of movements. We have something to say about each of them.

Combat in the depths of the brain

The most typical movements we make during sleep are rapid eye twitches. When we dream, our eyes move according to what we are dreaming. If, for example, we see a tennis match in a dream, our eyes move to see it in flight. These movements, originating in the dream world, elude the control of sleep paralysis, they belong to the waking world. If you see that the sleeper's eyes are moving, this is the surest sign that he is dreaming.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Children often startle when falling asleep

Hypnogogic convulsions are a different kind of phenomenon. Most often they are found in children whose dreams are quite simple and are not a reflection of what is happening in reality. If you dream that you are riding a bicycle, you do not make circular movements with your legs.

Hypnogogic seizures seem to be a sign that the motor part of the nervous system retains some control over the body when sleep paralysis begins to take over. Instead of a single sleep-wake switch in the brain that controls our sleep (i.e., ON at night and OFF during the day), we have two opposite systems. They balance one against the other during the daily cycle, and each of them tries to take over the control levers from the other.

Wake HQ

Deep in the brain, under the cortex (the most developed part of the human brain), lies one of these systems. This is a network of nerve cells, which is called the reticular ( from latinreticularis, "mesh" – Red.) activating system or reticular formation. It is located in the central parts of the brain stem, i.e. those parts of it that control basic physiological processes, such as breathing.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Stimuli from the real world come into our dreams and turn into something fantastic

When the reticular activating system is fully engaged, we feel alert and ready for action. This means that we are awake.

sleep center

The opposite system to that just described is called the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus. "Ventro-lateral" means that the nucleus is located in the lower part closer to the outer shell - the cortex - of the brain. The word "preoptic" refers to the location of the nucleus in front of the point of intersection of the optic nerves. In English, this system is called VLPO or ventrolateral preoptic nucleus. The VLPO system manages sleep.

The nucleus ended up next to the optic nerve, most likely in order to receive information about the beginning and end of daylight hours and thereby influence our sleep cycles.

When sleep wins

As soon as the mind retreats from its daily work of interpreting impressions from the outside world, the advantage in the battle between the recticular formation and the VLPO is on the side of the latter. Sleep paralysis sets in.

What happens after this is not entirely clear, but perhaps due to the fact that the struggle for control of the motor part of the nervous system is not yet fully completed. In an instant, victory is achieved in several battles at once. As sleep paralysis takes its toll, the remnants of daytime energy are excited and burst out in the form of outwardly chaotic movements.

In other words, hypnogogic convulsions are the last echoes of the regular regimen of daytime control over the motor system.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Animals also often twitch their paws in their sleep.

According to some people, they startle when they dream that they are falling or stumbling. This is an example of a rare phenomenon that manifests itself in the fact that external phenomena and stimuli, say, an alarm clock, are built into dreams, become part of them.

This absorption of real world objects illustrates the amazing ability of our minds to generate believable stories.

When we sleep, the areas of the brain responsible for planning and foresight are suppressed. This allows human mind respond creatively to everything that appears to him during his wanderings in a dream. This is how a jazz improviser reacts to the playing of fellow musicians, which serves as a source of inspiration for him.

While hypnogogic seizures occur during the struggle between wakefulness and sleep, our minds are also in transition. In the waking world, we must find meaning in external events. In a dream, the mind tries to find meaning in own activity which manifests itself in dreams.

When we fall asleep, a veil falls over most of the outside world. Sleepy twitches, being movements of our physical body, try to attract the attention of the sleeping consciousness to ourselves (and to the outside world). However, they are built into our dreams, turning into them, for example, into falls.

Thus, there is a pleasing symmetry between the two kinds of movements that we make in sleep. Rapid eye movements are dream traces seen in the waking world. Hypnogogic seizures seem to be traces of waking life that are visible in the world of our dreams.

Kalinov Yury Dmitrievich

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In the evening after work we hurry home. The day, as usual, was difficult: meetings and communication with many people who are not always pleasant for us, running around, accompanied by hassle, rush jobs, conflicts with management, and so on. The house is our safe haven, where you can relax, unwind, relieve yourself of the burden of fatigue, daytime negativity. And now, after a delicious dinner, we sit in our favorite cozy chair or lie on a comfortable sofa. As usual, the TV flickers, on the screen of which the heroes of the next series save the world, we plunge into a slumber ... And suddenly a sharp push, from which the legs tremble, makes us wake up. Similar sensations come from electric shocks. A familiar picture, isn't it? Where does this push come from, and why do the legs twitch when falling asleep?

Myoclonus: signs and characteristics of the syndrome

In medicine, the phenomenon of startling during sleep, in which involuntary sharp muscle twitches occur, is called nocturnal myoclonus. When the body reaches its highest level of relaxation, active muscle contractions can occur, which is called positive myoclonus.

The appearance of such a syndrome is also possible when muscle tone decreases. In this case, myoclonus is called negative. The described syndrome also has an alternative name - hypnagogic flinching.

Myoclonus can be affected by local areas of the body, for example: only the right leg or even one of the muscles of the leg. In more complex cases, all limbs can twitch, sometimes the facial muscles responsible for facial expressions. According to the nature of the course of myoclonic convulsions, they are classified into rhythmic, arrhythmic, reflex, spontaneous, asynchronous, synchronous.

What is the essence of myoclonus? The brain is the control panel of the body. The movements of each part of the body are provided by certain muscle groups. To start moving, muscle tissue must receive the appropriate signal from the brain, which comes through the channels of the nervous system. The result of such signals is the excitation of muscle fibers, followed by contraction. muscle tissue. If for some reason there is a simultaneous excitation of a whole group of channels of the nervous system, then the body or its individual parts begin to shudder. This phenomenon is called myoclonic seizures.

It's all the fault of the hypothalamus

In the intermediate part of the brain is a section called the hypothalamus. This area is formed by a large number of cell blocks and is responsible for the normal operation of many body systems. For example: it regulates metabolic processes, controls the endocrine, cardiovascular, and also controls the vegetative and many other systems. When a person is immersed in slumber, the first phase of sleep begins, there is a decrease in body temperature, a fall blood pressure. The mode of breathing changes: a much smaller volume of air is inhaled into the lungs and exhaled. This whole complex of changes in the performance of the body is similar to the processes characteristic of death.

The hypothalamus regards such a situation as dangerous, and in order to “resurrect” the body, return all its systems to an active state, it sends a discharge, shakes it up. Result: a sharp increase in muscle tone, expressed in a shudder of the body.

Hypnagogic wince has no age, social or gender restrictions. This syndrome can manifest itself in one form or another in each of us. How to determine: is it worth worrying and making an appointment with a neurologist if you find myoclonic seizures or not? The determining moment is the duration of the startle in a dream. If this phenomenon is short-term, sometimes present in the initial phase of sleep, then you should not worry. This level of myoclonus is within the normal range, does not threaten health and good sleep.

Everything is much more serious if myoclonic convulsions accompany sleep throughout the night. Such a pathology does not allow you to sleep, the body does not recover. Pathological myoclonus indicates significant health disorders and can provoke the emergence of new diseases. In such circumstances, without qualified medical care, of course, is indispensable. The sooner treatment begins, the more effective the results will be.

Human sleep is divided into several stages. Their scientific name is sleep phases. Even if you have accumulated severe fatigue during the day and it seems to you that you instantly fall asleep, in fact this process occurs gradually.

On average, it takes about one and a half hours for a person to enter the phase of long sleep. It is at the moment of transition that a shudder can occur, or otherwise a contraction of the muscles of the body.

One theory suggests that winces are side effect a hidden struggle for control in the brain that occurs on the threshold between wakefulness and sleep.

Usually a person is paralyzed during sleep. Even if a person sees the most vivid dreams, his muscles remain relaxed and calm, showing no signs of his inner excitement. Events taking place in the outside world are usually ignored.

Experiments have shown that even if a person sleeps with their eyes open and someone flashes a light in front of them, this is unlikely to affect their dreams. However, the doors between the inner and outer worlds are not completely closed.

Hypnagogic twitching during sleep is completely normal, says James C. Walsh, executive director and senior researcher at the St. Louis Research Center. When this occurs, muscle contraction occurs, and the body twitches. As a rule, this happens during the transition from the waking phase to sleep. This process literally momentary.

Most researchers of this problem assume that hypnagogic twitching occurs because the body enters a phase of rest and relaxes.

The main causes of uncontrolled jerking in sleep are overexertion, physical exertion, fatigue, stress, etc. Vegetative nervous system does not always cope with such phenomena, and during the transition to the phase of long sleep, the muscles contract involuntarily, trying to relax. The same factor is the reason why legs twitch in a dream. Also, at the subconscious level, shudders can be accompanied by dreams in the form of flights or falling from a height.

The best recipe for restful sleep is well known, it is:

First, you need to relax before going to bed, for example, you should have dinner before 6 pm, avoid smoking and caffeine.

Secondly, if possible, you need to develop a strict sleep schedule - that is, falling asleep and waking up at about the same time.