Thread: Waking up scared for no reason?

Man,I used to just about fall asleep when"WHAM",something would jerk me awake and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.This went off and on for months.My wife was scared more than I was.I don't know why it stopped,but I am sure damn glad it did.
If this is anything like what you are going through,I too would like to hear from someone ,with more experience than me.

Originally posted by nighttrain
Man,I used to just about fall asleep when\"WHAM\",something would jerk me awake and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.This went off and on for months.My wife was scared more than I was.I don't know why it stopped,but I am sure damn glad it did.

I occasionally have that happen to me. On rare occasions, I'll be just falling asleep and my body will suddenly jerk for no apparent reason, which startles me awake. It doesn't startle me much, though--last night it happened, and I don't recall my breathing or heart rate go up at all, although I did inhale quickly in surprise. On more rare occasions, I'll suddenly feel like I'm falling and get startled awake. I've had this happen since I was little, and I always assumed it was normal, so it doesn't bother me. I just forget about it and go back to sleep. It's rare for me, probably no more than once every several months to a year.

I think I remember when I was young, there were a couple of occasions where I would wake up feeling really sad, but I didn't know why. I can't remember for sure if it happened. I haven't had anything like that since. My guess it it's probably an emotion-provoking dream I had that I simply couldn't remember. It seems common to forget dreams instataneously upon awakening.

I think you just had a bad dream... Since I am intrested in LDs and dreams, I frequently wake up in the middle of the night. No Idea why, I think becouse I had a dream, but I can't recall it <=/

Sometimes, I wake up feeling scared or uncomfortable, but usually this is due to the fact that the bits and pieces of the dreams I had were strange, or frightening. This happens more often when I take naps in the daytime. Perhaps you are just having a bad dream you cannot remember...

Originally posted by Travis E.
I'll be just falling asleep and my body will suddenly jerk for no apparent reason, which startles me awake.

Happens to me seldom. It's jerking from the onset of hypnagogic imagery to the waking state though I don't recall the hypnagogic imagery to be anything that would result in fear so, at least for me, it is merely a reaction to becoming to aware while drifting off and doing so too fast.

[quote]

I occasionally have that happen to me. On rare occasions, I'll be just falling asleep and my body will suddenly jerk for no apparent reason, which startles me awake. It doesn't startle me much, though--last night it happened, and I don't recall my breathing or heart rate go up at all, although I did inhale quickly in surprise. On more rare occasions, I'll suddenly feel like I'm falling and get startled awake. I've had this happen since I was little, and I always assumed it was normal, so it doesn't bother me. I just forget about it and go back to sleep. It's rare for me, probably no more than once every several months to a year.

I think I remember when I was young, there were a couple of occasions where I would wake up feeling really sad, but I didn't know why. I can't remember for sure if it happened. I haven't had anything like that since. My guess it it's probably an emotion-provoking dream I had that I simply couldn't remember. It seems common to forget dreams instataneously upon awakening.

i also get that feeling that i am falling off my bed and i wake up really quick scared just like you. Also when i was a kid, i would wake up at night (not from a dream) and just be angry at my brother for no reason at all. I was suprised when he told me the same thing happened to him when he was a kid and probably on the same night too. (we are twins)

Well, the last time I had my body jerk awake was a few nights ago, and I don't remember seeing or hearing things, but instead it seemed like just before I jerked, I was simply thinking thoughts in my mind while in very light sleep. The thoughts seemed completely automatic, as if my mind were thinking for me. But I couldn't remember the thoughts at all (even thought it was only seconds ago I was having them), though I had a sense that they were very interesting (but not scary). I guess I can't totally rule out the possibility of something else occurring, such as hypnagogic imagery, since I'm not remembering much.

This actually happened very often during the last few nights when I woke up after being asleep for a few minutes. I never remembered the thoughts, just knew that they were there.

Originally posted by Travis E.
Well, the last time I had my body jerk awake was a few nights ago, and I don't remember seeing or hearing things, but instead it seemed like just before I jerked, I was simply thinking thoughts in my mind while in very light sleep. The thoughts seemed completely automatic, as if my mind were thinking for me. But I couldn't remember the thoughts at all (even thought it was only seconds ago I was having them), though I had a sense that they were very interesting (but not scary).

That is the exact description of it and my last "jerking awake" event was just two nights ago. It always happens just as you describe and logically reasoning I really have to say that it must be hypnagogic imagery in the very lightest state. That is the state that one needs to learn to not jerk awake from but observe passively. That's exactly, in my opinion, why guides to WILDing state to observe as passively as possible: we jerk awake because we suddenly gain too much concentration on reality. Thus, some training is needed to passively observe the hypnagogic imagery (though the word imagery really doesn't fit in my opinoin, more like hypnagogic thought) and not jerk awake.

I think it could be that your imagination is just getting too tactile(touch oriented), causeing you to try and react to it, but since you are sort of alseep and you are not sure how to move, so the signa getts messed up and just kinda jerks you awake, At least this is what was happening to me when I had a kind of jerking.

I'm forever tripping over cobblestones as I'm falling asleep. Cobblestones.

I trip over them and as I fall over I jerk forwards out of bed.

I'm not always asleep when it happens, as someone said, it happens when my thoughts are just beginning to run away with themselves. I can see the street in front of me, but I'm awake.

I don't really know what causes it. It's really weird.


Also, the same thing happens to my brother. He even gets cobblestones too. We aren't twins though

Originally posted by JEBOman
I think it could be that your imagination is just getting too tactile (touch oriented), causing you to try and react to it, but since you are sort of asleep and you are not sure how to move, so the signa getts messed up and just kinda jerks you awake

Hmm, very possible. The reason is most likely physical in some way.
There's really no other explanation for the event itself except for hypnagogic imagery. The only logical deduction is just that - hypnagogic imagery sets on.
However, the reason for the jerking...well, as quoted above, seems pretty logical.

Personally, whenever I do remember the thoughts that lead to this they are usually of falling (whether it be falling into an empty space or tripping).

Okay, last night was rather unusual for me. (Not too scary, but it made me rather nervous, anyway.)

The last couple of nights I've been going to bed much later than usual and they were those rare times where I could fall asleep almost within seconds as long as I wasn't daydreaming or moving around. (For some reason I can't seem to tell when I'm tired anymore without trying to fall asleep.) Anyway, I was still thinking about stuff and not ready to fall asleep just yet. Each time I would stop moving for a few moments, voices were beginning to appear in my mind automatically (but I didn't actually hear them since I was still awake). In this case, they weren't really scary; they were just random voices saying random, fairly ordinary phrases or sentences that made sense alone, but didn't have much meaning due to lack of context. They were in my mind but amazingly clear, and it seemed that I could just barely actually hear them. In fact, a couple of times when one occurred I tried replaying it in my mind right after that, and noticed that when I replayed it it didn't seem quite as clear as when it first occurred.

I don't remember many images popping up in my mind; there might have been a few but the only one I remember looked like a flashlight swung in a circle, making a brief, bright flash at the point where it would be aiming right at me. Again, it was in my mind but seemed to border on being able to actually see it.

The weirdest part was when I was experimenting by seeing if I could hypnotise myself. I was lying still and saying a sentence in my mind that I would have a really great lucid dream and have dream control, etc. Each time I finished thinking that sentence, this robotic "duck-like" voice in my mind involuntarily started replying to it and making remarks like "What?" and "In English, please!" I stopped and sat up a little bit, because I thought that was pretty weird.

Then, when I actually started falling asleep I think I actually did have HI/HS, but I don't remember any of it. I don't think it was scary, but I'm uncomfortable with this and WILDing for right now, so it kept waking me up. It took a few attempts to fall asleep without consiously experiencing it.

I remember a few very brief sensations that also caused me to wake up: twice (once that night, and again later in the morning) my legs felt like they were straightening a bit by themselves, as if something were gently tugging on them. On another occasion I woke up because, although I couldn't really recall clearly, I felt that my consiousness picked up on a hint that it felt like my body was moving when it shouldn't have been.

Maybe I'd better start going to bed earlier again.

killamanjaro, I think it's because you play to much CS
Serously though, I have had same experiences, only I have had my body paralized in the process, which is quite disturbing to say the least.

The weirdest part was when I was experimenting by seeing if I could hypnotise myself. I was lying still and saying a sentence in my mind that I would have a really great lucid dream and have dream control, etc. Each time I finished thinking that sentence, this robotic \"duck-like\" voice in my mind involuntarily started replying to it and making remarks like \"What?\" and \"In English, please!\" I stopped and sat up a little bit, because I thought that was pretty weird.[/b]

That is actually quite common. This is because you probably feel that hypnosis is some "magical force" that will dramatically change you and you sort of don't want that to happen so your subconcious(even posibly superconcious) tries to prevent you from doing it. When the duck says something respond to it in a polite way and tell it that you will be successful anyway or ask yourself if you can/may do it.

P.S. did you try to enduce the trance first? Or did you just keep saying that over and over?

Originally posted by JEBOman
That is actually quite common. This is because you probably feel that hypnosis is some \"magical force\" that will dramatically change you and you sort of don't want that to happen so your subconcious(even posibly superconcious) tries to prevent you from doing it. When the duck says something respond to it in a polite way and tell it that you will be successful anyway or ask yourself if you can/may do it.

I sort of thought about responding to the voice just to see what would happen, but it didn't occur to me at the time.

P.S. did you try to enduce the trance first? Or did you just keep saying that over and over?[/b]

I'm not sure. I tried to become relaxed and say it over and over, possibly while focusing on the meaning of the sentence. To be honest, I really didn't really know what I was doing. I'd like to learn a bit more about how this works.

Edit:Oh yeah, another thing I noticed was that at the point where I was almost asleep, repeating the sentence became difficult because my mind was sort of automatically modifying the sentence so that it didn't make much sense. It seems that I was losing concentration or something.