Dreams when you fall and feel it: Anyone know why it's caused?

over couple of years i get an odd dream where im sound a sleep an i fall or trip an i feel it an my leg actually does the reactionnas to brace yourself an you wake up puzzled like wtf just happened? anyone else have this happen or a similar expiernce an maybe why it is or has any meaning?

Mod edit: title


[edit on 3-11-2005 by sanctum]

Thats called Astral Projection or OBE, or OOBE.

Basically its when you "spirit" leaves your body to replenish while you are sleeping.. you became somewhat aware before u was suppost to. You can also become fully aware just look for Robert Bruce, Peterson, and Monroe on the internet and you will get a wealth of info on what happened to you.

Originally posted by ThichHeaded
Thats called Astral Projection or OBE, or OOBE.

Do we all "Astral Project" while we are sleeping?

It happened to me too. In the past it's like happening every nite when i sleep. Now it still happens but it's like once a month. You got that "free fall" feeling and yes, my body will reacts to it and i will wake up immediately.

OBE? Seems that i muz read about it...

I'm sorry, but I have to try to debunk the OOBE theory here. I've had many dreams where my body reacts to things, including falling. Its a dream phenominon called "Sleep Starts" or "hypnic or hypnagogic jerks". If you'd like more information on the subject I found a page here:

www.sleepeducation.com...

Its apparently pretty common (about 60% or 70% of folks get it), but most people don't remember them because they are, well, asleep.

Hope this helps clear things up.

~Sera

Haha, finally I can say "this also happens to me" !

Yeh, occasionally like....when I'm asleap I get a feeling that I'm falling (never scared of it though, feels kinds fun ), something from the ceiling of my room onto the bed, then I wake up, and I'm all like wtf lol!

The interesting thing is, my body feels like it was dropping through air, like...adreneline levels are sort of up, you know?

Weird, but I assumed it's nothing unusual....guess I was right

Though reading this:
www.sleepeducation.com...

I totally disagree. It doesn't happen when I'm falling asleep....happens some time when I'm asleap and ends in the morning, when I wake up, usually as a result of my "internal timer" telling me to get my butt out of bed lol.

Of course in my dream(s) only lasts a second, if that, and then I'm awake.

I get it too, always have. When it happens, it's just after I've went to sleep.
Isn't it just your body's reflex from hitting the ground in your dream?

Hi there,

I often have these falling dreams or twitches (probably due to bad spinal posture) normally I'd be dreaming and walking along then all of a sudden I'll trip on a rock and suddenly have a twitch. Though its great to automatically think OBE or something else supernormal. Here's what science has to say about it;

NCBI

During development, information about the three-dimensional shape and mechanical properties of the body is laid down in the synaptic connectivity of sensorimotor systems through unknown adaptive mechanisms. In spinal reflex systems, this enables the fast transformation of complex sensory information into adequate correction of movements. Here we use a computer simulation to show that an unsupervised correlation-based learning mechanism, using spontaneous muscle twitches, can account for the functional adaptation of the withdrawal reflex system. We also show that tactile feedback resulting from spontaneous muscle twitches during sleep does indeed modify sensorimotor transformation in young rats in a predictable manner. The results indicate that these twitches, corresponding to human fetal movements, are important in spinal self-organization.

Hope this helps

~Peace ~

[edit on 3/11/05 by Hunting Veritas]

it's called myaclonia or more specifically a myaclonic jerk (maybe spelled myoclonic) It's actually considered an epileptic type event in medicine, however it's quite normal and harmless, of course if it happen's repeatedly...in terms of brain function, i think it's a mild disturbance of the electrical activity between the left and right hemisphere's, whether that disturbance is caused by astral travel or some such thing is an interesting theory, though.

Originally posted by SeraphimSinger
I'm sorry, but I have to try to debunk the OOBE theory here. I've had many dreams where my body reacts to things, including falling. Its a dream phenominon called "Sleep Starts" or "hypnic or hypnagogic jerks". If you'd like more information on the subject I found a page here:

There isn't anything on that site to debunk the OOBE theory. It just explains the symptoms and says that it is a fairly natural, common thing. Since people who support the OOBE theory would say that everyone leaves their body every night in sleep, the falling and jerking sensation could be the separating and consequent re-joining of the two bodies (astral and physical). People who astral project often say that they "snap back" much like these 'sleep starts'.

I personally used to get these a lot. Like several times a night for a week straight at one point. Not so much any more. In fact, the last time I distinctly remember this happening was in the summer. In some ways it feels really cool, and in other ways it's really weird.

I wonder if you feel like you're falling and you do nothing, if you will have a concious Out of Body Experience. Because I believe what is happening is that your body is falling asleep before your mind does, and your mind doesn't like this so it triggers a falling sensation and snaps you back. Perhaps if you just lay there and ignore it, you will "Fall asleep, awake" so to speak.

Common Myth that we can hopefully all agree is false: If you feel the falling sensation in your sleep and you don't brace yourself in time, you will die in your sleep.

[edit on 3-11-2005 by Yarcofin]

Mod edit: quote clarity

[edit on 3-11-2005 by sanctum]

Originally posted by Yarcofin

I wonder if you feel like you're falling and you do nothing, if you will have a concious Out of Body Experience. Because I believe what is happening is that your body is falling asleep before your mind does, and your mind doesn't like this so it triggers a falling sensation and snaps you back.

Or different parts of the brain approach sleep states quicker then other bits. To use a computer analogy, it would be like going to access your printer, the printer's not ready(asleep) and crashes, it "snaps" back a message, or more precisely, the computer recognises a fault with the printer (jerk back into awareness/reception of event). To expand a little more, imagine you've had a full on day both mentally and physically, you get into bed, your minds racing, your body's exhausted, all you want to do is sleep but you can't get x off your mind. After you hit the matress you finally start to relax. You get comfortable physically, but you've stiil got x on your mind. Your brain picks up on the autonomous signals your body's sending back to it saying "relax, relax" triggering the onset of sleep. But that rotter, x, persists in your concious mind, "if only they.., why did they say.." Here's where the conflict happens, the concious activity parts start "bumping into" the unconcious brain parts that are already sleeping (and poss. dreaming).

what really sucks is the reverse of the situation. When you wake up and parts of your brain "stay asleep". This is what happened to me and I was medicated for it. That's a can of worm's more suited for the medical forums, suffice to say, it was not nice sitting down to a cup of tea in the morning, spilling it on myself and having people laugh at me.

Dreams fall i know it's not gonna hurt...

Yes - i know that dream..

Im falling from giht.. Sure i would break my neck or be trashed when i land on the ground - But i know it's just a dream and i just let it happend.. And most of times just wake up-

thanks for all the feed back guys now i have an understanding sorta

To agree with Yarcofin, the site does not debunk physical movements caused by astral projection.

There is a Silver Chord connecting the physical and astral bodies. In case of a sudden awakening this chord is used to quickly pull the astral body back into the physical. When we fall in a dream, and such an event causes us to rapidly awake, our silver chord pulls the astral body at extreme speeds back into the physical body. The astral body may be moving so fast that it enters on one side of the body (causing physical awareness) and leaves out the other momentarily (losing physical awareness), before coming back in for good.

The above phenomena which causes a sudden gain and loss of consciousness usually results in rapid physical body movements, and confusion.





[edit on 3/11/2005 by AkashicWanderer]

The best is when you're falling in your dream, and when you land, your entire body bounces on the bed. I've had this happen a couple of times.. everytime I wake up, it's like I just fell a foot or so onto my bed.. still can't explain it.. maybe I throw myself up right before I wake up..

Fun nonetheless

I've heard a theory on this that makes sense to me at least, although for the life of me I can't remember where I heard it. As you fall asleep, your bodily functions--breathing and heart rate most importantly--slow down. Sometimes they slow down to the point where your body thinks it's about to die, and it lets loose with something (adrenaline? brain activity? forget which) to give everything a "jump start".

I don't have any sources, so don't think I'm trying to portray it as gospel or anything, just throwing it out there.

I'm surprised no one here thought to look in an encyclopedia.

www.britannica.com...

what you are feeling is the delayed result of going from a vertical position to a horizontal position. The 3 semicircular canals in each ear act as the body's gyroscopes. Without going into too much technical detail, think of it like one of those childhood science experiments where you have a closed plastic soda bottle full of water, and an eyedropper inside of it. If you squeeze the bottle, the eyedropper fills with water and sinks, releasing it causes the eyedropper to rise. This analogy mainly deals with pressure, but hopefully the visual now suffices for the next explanation.

Now, taking that soda bottle, and instead of water, use some sort of thick liquid, like shampoo. Tilting the bottle 90 degrees, gravity rotates eye-dropper relative to the ground, but at a slower movement rate than water. Perhaps it even sticks for a bit.

The same thing is happening within your ear, more or less. Imagine if that eyedropper were covered in little tiny hairs, and each of those hairs triggered a nerve impulse in the brain telling you the air pressure, your orientation vs. gravity, and relative height. When you lay down, it's like taking the bottle and tipping it sideways. Sometimes, that eye-dropper sticks in the wrong position for a while and suddenly unsticks to correct its position, causing a RAPID flurry of nerve impulses from all the hairs, which makes you feel like you're falling.

I hope this clears up the mystery. There's nothing supernatural about it.

Originally posted by Yarcofin

There isn't anything on that site to debunk the OOBE theory. It just explains the symptoms and says that it is a fairly natural, common thing. Since people who support the OOBE theory would say that everyone leaves their body every night in sleep, the falling and jerking sensation could be the separating and consequent re-joining of the two bodies (astral and physical). People who astral project often say that they "snap back" much like these 'sleep starts'.

Sorry, what I meant to convey was that in this instance, there are more reliable scientifically proven causes for such occurances, next time I'll try to make myself more clear

Its just your body/muscles contracting suddenly.. before you fall asleep.. nothing to be concerned over.

Originally posted by QuietSoul
The best is when you're falling in your dream, and when you land, your entire body bounces on the bed.

I've had this happen a couple of times.. everytime I wake up, it's like I just fell a foot or so onto my bed.. still can't explain it.. maybe I throw myself up right before I wake up..

Fun nonetheless

LOL thats what i had i think you jolt as you wake which gives the sensatiion that your dropping into your bed. so cool aint it. its not astral projection, just a feeling brought on by an intense dream. its the same thing when you get in those rollercoaster simulators. the whole thing leans forward, you see on the screen that your falling and your brain tricks you into feeling like you are.

i get an big tingley feeling in my tummy, dead funny! you usually only get this dream when your extremely happy, extremely well rested and at ease. which sadly is not very often for most people.

[edit on 3-11-2005 by Shadow88]