Strangest hypnic jerk you've had..

What's the strangest hypnic jerk you all have had? A hypnic jerk is that sudden jerk you sometimes get right before you fall asleep. Most often, the imagery I see in my head is that I'm walking down stairs and I trip and begin to fall, and am jerked back awake.

However,

I had a very strange hypnic jerk about a year ago. As I was laying in bed, falling asleep, my mind sent me to a park. I was sitting on a bench just looking at nature around me when I noticed something in the sky. I recognized it as a UFO and I jerked awake.

It was the most involved, most "advanced" hypnic jerk I've ever had. And it was a little strange too.

Any interesting ones you all can share?

The only ones I have had that don't have to do with falling or tripping or the like, are I am standing in a hallway (always a hallway) and someone calls my name. I turn my head quickly and then wake.

I remember being in school sleeping.

Woke up jumping out of the desk like a flailing fish......

Took me a while to pick my pride up off the floor.

Yeah I've had some crazy ones throughout the years.

The classic: about to hit the ground then wake up.

A soccer ball headed towards my face then I wake up.

Hearing a whisper in my ear then jolting awake. This just happened to me a couple nights ago and it was creepy.

MIne are always from tripping or stubbing my toe. The most unusual was a wave hitting me when I was swimming in the sea. I must admit I do enjoy them.

I've had the falling ones a lot, I also get ones like a ball coming straight at my face, or a bird or insects maybe. - or a car / motorbike pulling out on me, some sort of accident that would happen in a split second..

I suppose the strangest ones I can remember a the loud noises (in dreams) like maybe a car door slamming something like that, at the precise moment of the noise and the jerk there is also a flash like a camera flash from somewhere behind me (not directly in the eyes, lust lighting everything up).

Also I have pretty bad tinnitus and sometimes when the ringing leaps right up to full volume like someone flicked a switch in my head, I quite often get a jerk then as well, they are the most annoying ones... The other sort with the accompanying dream are usually quite funny tho.

Originally posted by SolarE-Souljah
Hearing a whisper in my ear then jolting awake. This just happened to me a couple nights ago and it was creepy.

Oh yhea forgot about those - they are seriously freaky!

[edit on 11/5/2010 by Now_Then]

so that is what they are called, hmmm, i always wondered. Mine are usually a gunshot in a dream or a really loud noise. I have actually pulled a muscle because of those in my sleep..owww.

Ive always wondered what those were called. There's times when I will have them a few nights in a row, and then not have any for an extended period of time.

The most common kind I get is where I am sleeping and seem to wake up, but Im not sure if Im actually awake because it just dosent feel right, almost everything around me in "frozen" in time, and I cannot feel anything until the jerk hits me. Everything will be the same in my room as if I was really awake, so its like im right above my body or something like that.

It'll be anytime during the night, but my vision is clearer, kind of like a clear light somewhat lighting the room up a bit. I get the feeling of stale/nothingness, and then there's an "electric kind of" flash that blinds me and it feels like lightning shooting thru my body. It feels like my entire body jerks up almost off the bed, and I can literally "feel" the electricity flowing thru me for about 2 seconds.

That same process usually repeats itself in the exact same way for sometimes 5 times in a row, going thru all the same steps.

It scares me initially, but once I am 100% actually awake, I am so energized, no matter how many hours of sleep I got, and the entire day after just has an "awesome" feeling about it, kind of like the entire day is a dream state, but I feel like I can do anything and nothing bad ever seems happen. It's somewhat like an entire day of "bliss with no fear of anything". Everything seems to just work out all throughout the day basically.

Thats the most common hypnic jerk I get, but there are times such as hearing whispering, and then bam, it hits me, or just a split second flash of darkness, but the electrical one is by far the most intense and entertaining.

I hope there's nothing bad about these jerks, because after they happen, its just awesome.

Edit - The other common one I have other than the dreamy/electric one is - Ill hear a extremely loud bang/explosion and I just bounce off my bed almost. Ill have ringing in my ears and adreneline flowing thru my body it feels like. I know there was never a noise because of how intense and loud it was, the people sleeping next to me would 100% of heard it, or atleast moved around. The sound is like where you hear it in your head, not outside of your body. Kind of hard to explain to someone who hasnt had it happen to them before.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by buni11687]

I once dreamed I was starting an old ratty lawnmower. Ya know the kind that you pull the cord for 30 minutes to mow for 5, and the it dies, and you pull on the cord for 30 more minutes to start it again. I was so mad, and yanked so hard in my dream that I had a hypnic thrash, too big to classify as a jerk. I nearly knocked my poor wife unconscious. It is funny now, but at the time I had some 'splainin' to do.

The funniest one I've seen was this time where I had to wake this old dude up who we were working with... This guy had worked in all the rough areas of the world in his various jobs (lots of mining and drilling type jobs) and he was always telling us storeys.

Any way is a seriously heavy sleeper, I banged on his door, then entered the room, and banged on the wall calling his name... He jumped out of his skin and started pulling his bed apart!

Any way turns out he was looking for his gun! - Gawd help me if he actually had one!

Is that a jerk? Or more of a bad dream?

Sometimes i got this:

Exploding head syndrome

Exploding head syndrome is a condition that causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as originating from within his or her own head, usually described as the sound of an explosion, gunshot, door slamming, roar, waves crashing against rocks, loud voices, a ringing noise, or the sound of an electrical short circuit (buzzing). In some cases an instant flash of what is perceived as video "static" is reported.

Scared the sheesh outta me the first time, I thought somebody walked in, put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.

reply to post by Jbalon


I don't remember what mine are about mostly, but they are very violent, often leaving me on the floor next to my bed. A couple months ago, they began happening almost every night. I was worried, and even thought of seeing a doctor. Since then, I haven't experienced any. I thought maybe it was sleep apnea, however, often they would happen while I was still conscience of being awake, usually right at the time of feeling that going under feeling of sleep, then bam, like a sudden rush of anxiety, they hit full force, often jolting me out of my bed onto the floor. I thought I was the only one that had this. Good to know, I am not.

I have been scouring the internet the last few years to try and figure out what it is that happens me sometimes when I am just about to fall into a deep sleep. I dont really want to go to a doctor about it incase they think im crazy as everyone I tell hasnt got a clue what I be talking about

Sometimes just when im dozing off I get an electric shock/zap in my head, i can hear the buzzing noise of electricity, it seems to run right through my head and I feel it in my mouth aswel which scares me and is kinda painfull, it happens over and over again some nights, its bad because i be really really tired and then too afraid to sleep because its a horrible feeling and scares the crap outta me.

I have found other people who describe the exact same problem on certain medical help sites, one american guy who described exactly what happens me went to a sleep clinic, got lots of scans CAT, EEG MRI ect, and everything showed up normal. Noone who I have read about describing the same symtoms have yet got any explanation from a doctor as to what it may be, or any diagnosis. Its very frustrating.

Im not, nor ever have been on any medication for anything, as far as I know i am healthy.

I was trying to punch something in my dream and actually felt my fist hit my headboard of my bed. But then I awoke afterwords and felt pain in my fist.

My strangest was so strange that I don't believe it was a hypnic jerk at all. My fiancee had just gotten up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night which stirred me to partial wakefulness. Almost immediately the bed directly beneath me (I was lying on my stomach, face down) started to "punch" me. It was as if someone were forcefully shaking the mattress vertically underneath me. It was very rapid, perhaps four or five "punches" per second. It continued until she came back. Into the room. I asked if she could see or feel it, so she touched the bed, and it suddenly stopped. She said she didn't see anything (it was dark anyway) but said that she had heard a strange buzzing sound. I had heard nothing, only felt the jolts. To this day its the only thing like it that I have experienced and is a total mystery to me. All I know is that it was not a dream.

When I was 4 years old I used to have long, vivid dreams about walking around in the downtown area of my hometown. A place I'd only actually visited a couple of times.

My ego in these dreams was vague - I would be by myself and just sort of wandering around carelessly and aimlessly for what seemed like hours. Now it seems that if I was 4, and by myself in the busy business district, I'd be scared to death, but I was always ok with it.

I experienced my first hypnagogic jerk during one of these dreams - I was just truckin' along when all of a sudden I was back in my bed in my PJs. I remember actually taking a few steps, treading bedsheets and blankets until I realized I wasn't where I thought I had been.

Jump forward about 10 years (and pretty much ever since - and I'm 39 now), and walking around in that same area is something I do quite regularly.

I've always wondered if I wasn't experiencing some sort of glimpse into my future, and the "jerk" was a side-effect of some sort of time-displacement.

Most of those dreams were plotless, wandering strolls, but I do remember in one of them there was some sort of rodeo type event happening in an area that's now the main transit center. There were vending machines that dispensed some sort of gamepieces in the form of cards. This was many years before The Arizona Lottery existed - and a long time before I'd really experienced much of anything at all.

I've read that the hypnogogic jerk is the consciousness physically returning to the body after an OBE, and lately I've been considering the idea that all dreams are a form of 'out of body experience.'

[edit on 5/11/2010 by Teratoma]

Maybe it was because I read this thread, but last night I experienced hypnic jerk. This time though, I wasn't in a dream when it happened, it was just I woke up with a jolt. Yeah, it was a pretty simple one, but strange it happened right after I had read this thread.

The only ones i really get, which isnt very often anymore is the feeling that i'm about to fall out of my bed.

I occasionally am aware that i am about to fall asleep and i jerk myself awake again, almost like i'm scared to fall asleep.

Its very bizarre!!

I get that loud electric zap thing quite a lot when I've just fallen asleep. It's horrid, and spooky.

I've also had the "exploding head" thing. Exactly twice. But each time, it sounded as a gun shot. Glad the previous poster and some others have had it too. I really thought I was crazy.

My ex said the jolting in sleep, was my spirit coming back from an out of body experience. I kind of miss her, she was as nuts as me, almost!