Conference hydra::dejavu

    Carl, As it's been explained to me, whenever we dream of falling,
    there is an instinctive reaction to wake up.  The idea here is that
    our tree-dwelling ancestors who slept on branches _had_ to wake
    up if they felt themselves start to fall, or they wouldn't usually
    wake up -- period!  A few thousand years of evolution would make
    waking-up-from-falling-sensation genetically imprinted.  So when
    you dream you fall, you _ought_ to wake up.
    
    On "falling" asleep: first I've heard the connection.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    RE:.0
    
    The same thing happens to me every so often.  When I'm jolted back
    to consciousness I usually remember that I had been dreaming and
    that I had just slipped or something (in the dream).
    
    I vaguely remember hearing something about when you let your astral
    body out for the night sometimes it "snags" and, whomp! you're back
    in your body.
    
    But how could I have been dreaming (of slipping) when I wasn't "out"
    yet?
    
    More fuel for the fire.
    
    Tom

    
    On the same line, perhaps:
    
    
    Several times, though not recently, as I'm drifting off to sleep,
    I get the distinct impression that I've been hit in the face,
    as though with a soft object like a pillow.  I check to see if
    my wife's playing tricks, but she's always sound asleep.
    
    Thoughts?
    
    - John

  RE .0:
  
  I read that this funny feeling of falling has to do with a heart
  irregularity.  
  
  /Kathleen

    RE 0:   I've been experiencing the same feeling ever since high
    school - meaning that's as far back as I remember having them. I
    finally just learned to ignore them and not worry about it. There
    may be something to  .4's explanation as I've got a documented heart
    irregularity, mitral valve insufficiency or somesuch term. However,
    I would be willing to wager that people without heart irregularities 
    also have the same experience.
    
    My own personal belief is that the astral body is returning from
    and OBE and there is a glitch getting back in and you sort of drop
    back in versus sliding back in. It would tie in with the earlier
    explanation about our ancestors sleeping in trees, you're close
    enough to your physical body at that point that the drop is 
    experienced physically and you wake up immediately.

    I've noticed that the feeling of falling happens quite a bit when
    I try to sleep during the day, usually when I'm sitting on a chair
    or couch.  I'll just start doze off and I'll be startled awake by
    the falling feeling.  I have a heart irregularity but I don't know
    how that would affect it.
    
    		Dave

    Try this one.  Whenever I remember the short time just before I
    fall asleep, it's always a feeling that I'm moving either deeper
    inside my body or either I'm drifting off in a random direction
    from my body.  It's like my center of perspective is changing. 
    Is this a typical pre-sleep experience?

    I vaguely remember something about this from a Psych class I took
    several years ago...  The sensation you get of "falling" when you
    are drifting off to sleep, is indeed that.  The moment that we 'lose
    consciousness' all of our muscles physically relax, sometimes abruptly,
    and however slight our instincts take over as if we were really
    falling.  This is the same reaction you see when you notice someone
    (or yourself) 'twitching' as they are falling asleep.
    
    Again, hence the connection; "falling" asleep.
     
    
    

Re: 83.0 Falling Asleep

	The sensation of falling has been linked to some of the
various sleep disorders. The are clasified under the term narcolepsy.
	Narcolepsy is the main title for several different disorders
that affect peoples sleep habits.
	I suffer from one of those called cataplexy. This shows itself
during the day as periods of extreme weakness and disorientation. Usually
a five minute nap will alleviate all symptoms.
	One of the other symptoms is exactly what you are talking about,
and is part of the normal sleep cycle. The problem is that instead of 
your body going into sleep in the normal sequence, the muscular "shutdown"
or relaxation happens a little early, hence the feeling of falling.
	It took about 12 years to get diagnosed with this problem, but with 
a reduction in stress, some diet changes, exercise, and medication the 
problem can be controlled.

**** That's the medical description for what is occurring, but I don't
feel it is the only explanation. It is not considered to be hereditary, but 
they can't explain why two people in my family have the problem. I am or
at least consider myself to be a "sensative", which is why I recently started
reading this notesfile. I have had several of the types of experiences I have 
read here and am now of the opinion that maybe it may be connected to the
status of being "sensitive". Well I guess it's just a thought.
	Maybe the way we enter our sleep cycles helps us use parts of our 
brains that others haven't found yet.

	Nuff said for now, anyone had any thoughts regarding this?


							AL Maynard

    I've been meaning to reply for a while to this topic, but hadn't gotten
    around to it.  Al Maynard's note (83.9) has spurred me to answer.  This
    fills in a few more details on his explanation.

    Falling asleep is a complicated process.  An important part of that
    process involves something called the "reticular activating system."  In
    the simplest terms (beyond which my knowledge of the subject doesn't
    extend), the RAS is a complicated series of switches.

    One set of switches cut down on the intensity of environmental stimuli.
    For example, we are not aware of soft sounds while we are asleep.

    Another set of switches cuts off the connections from the brain to the
    muscles.  This is so that dreaming that we are walking does not cause us
    to actually walk around.  This is partially, temporarily turned off when
    we wake up enough to turn over.

    There is not one switch, but many, and the switches are not simply on or
    off.  The whole "shut down" procedure has to be rather carefully
    orchestrated.

    This is why many people tend to twitch as they fall asleep: the muscle
    connection is turned completely off just a tad too late.  This is no big
    deal since the twitching is not likely to do any harm, and the sensation
    of position is damped down enough at this point so it rarely disturbs
    the sleep process.

    I have heard the following explanation for the "falling asleep"
    phenomenon, but I don't know how sure sleep scientists are about it.

    At some point during the shutting down process, the sense of balance is
    turned down.  When this happens there is *normally* a momentary
    sensation of falling.  The reflex to right oneself is automatically
    triggered.  Generally though, the muscles have been pretty much shut off
    by this time, so nothing happens, and like most of what we experience
    during sleep, the event is forgotten.

    Sometimes, however, the muscles have not been completely shut down.
    They therefore react strongly, causing us to jerk our entire body.
    This is enough to wake us.  Because we have awakened during the "fall"
    we are able to remember it.

    Many of the problems which go under the name "narcolepsy" seem to be
    related to problems in the RAS.  For example, Al's weakness and
    disorientation during the day might be due to partial activation of the
    RAS.  The five minute nap would give the system a chance to
    resynchronize.

    A certain amount of variation, is, however, normal.  Everyone I have
    spoken to has had the "falling asleep" sensation at times.  Similarly,
    "twitching to sleep" is not a problem as such (unless it keeps your
    partner up, in which case its their problem, not yours :-).  Even an
    *isolated* case or two of the potentially scary sensation of waking up
    momentarily paralyzed (the RAS failing to deactivate promptly) is not
    generally considered to be an indication of anything wrong.

    Occasional, or even moderately frequent, occurrences of "falling asleep"
    are not a "sleep disorder," in the usual sense of the word, and
    therefore would probably not be considered a case of narcolepsy.  Of
    course, if it occurred frequently enough to significantly interfere with
    sleep it would then be considered a problem.  Also if it were
    accompanied by other symptoms, such as Al's cataplexy, or by sudden
    brief spells of extreme daytime sleepiness, then it might well be
    considered a symptom of the whole problem.

		    Topher

    DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, nor even a sleep scientist.  I am simply
    someone who has done some reading in this area.  If you have *any*
    serious questions, you should see a doctor, preferably at a sleep clinic
    (most doctors know next to nothing about sleep disorders).

Re:83.10

	I would be very interested in doing some more reading myself
about sleep disorders. What sources are available?
	As an addition to the RAS phenonenom, it is thought that people
who suffer from forms of narcolepsy don't progress well into the REM (RAPID
EYE MOVEMENT)sleep or go into it out of sequence. One of the symptoms is the 
speed with which the affected person falls into "deep" sleep. Usually the 
person that falls asleep quickly is a victim of one or more forms of nacolepsy.
	One statistic I read a year ago estimated that around 50-60% of
Americans suffer from one of the types of sleep disorders. This is brought 
on by the stress and diet that is particular to our culture.
	Most people are diagnosed as having a virus, a form of diabetes called
hypo-glycemia, or a mental disorder.
	People that say they don't dream or don't remember them usually have 
only short periods of REM sleep. To support what Topher said regarding my
cataplexy during the day, it is believed that people that experience this
just drop off into one of the sleep cycles because they don't get a chance
to during their night sleep.
	Sleep centers are a new breed of medicine, and they don't have
all of the answers yet. We as a race don't fully understand sleep or it's
function in our lives. This ties into the fact that we also don't have
an in depth picture of all there is to know regarding the brain and
the extent of the powers we have there.




							AL 
 

>    One set of switches cut down on the intensity of environmental stimuli.
>    For example, we are not aware of soft sounds while we are asleep.

Actually, it is the importance of the sound that helps to determine its
ability to awaken us. Most LOUD noise indicate something you had better
be awake to deal with and MOST soft sounds don't. However, mothers (and
fathers) are extraordinarily sensitive to a babies cry in another room
(usually, but not always, a soft sound). I would guess that there is
some wort of processing of the enviromental sounds going on and if the
importance is high enough, we are awakened. 

>		    Topher

DDA

#include appropriate disclaimer

RE: 83.11

    >	I would be very interested in doing some more reading myself
    >about sleep disorders. What sources are available?

    That's a good question.  Wish I had a good answer ready.  Most of my
    reading on the subject has been either popular or semi-popular
    magazine articles (e.g., New Scientist, Science News, Scientific
    American, even (blech) Psychology Today), or has been part of a more
    general topic.

    I would like to know an answer myself so I'm going to post a request for
    suggestions to "net.med" (a bulletin board about medical issues which
    operates on the USENET, a UNIX based national telephone computer
    network).  When I'm pretty sure that all the responses have come in,
    I'll post a summary here.

		    Topher

    What happened to the list of books on sleep disorders?  I'm interested
    because I also  experience the "falling" and "twitching" sensations.
    I also have a minor heart irregularity.

    Mike Baker

RE: .13   How'd that survey go ?  Can you post a summary ?

	- Bill

RE: .15

> How'd that survey go ?  Can you post a summary ?

All to easily I'm afraid.  I got no replies at all.  I'm now looking
elsewhere for recommendations.

		Topher

"Wide Awake at 3:00 A.M.: By Choice or by Chance" by Richard M. Coleman;
ISBN 0-7167-1796-4; W.H. Freeman and Co. New York.  Trade paperback about
$10.00.

    "Richard M. Coleman is one of the nation's leading sleep experts
    and industrial consultants, specializing in the application of
    circadian principles (biological cycles) to the workplace.
    Formerly co-director of the Stanford University Sleep Disorders
    Clinic, he is currently a member of the clinical faculty at
    Stanford University Medical School.

    "Dr. Coleman divides his time between the practice of clinical
    psychology, in which he treats individual patients with sleep
    disorders, and consulting with major companies to improve
    round-the-clock schedules. ... As consultant to the U.S. Olympic
    Committee, Dr. Coleman has studied ways of reducing jet lag and
    its effects on athletic performance..." 

		From the "About the Author" Note page 187 

Overall the book is quite good.  I felt that a little more technical detail
could have been incorporated without decreasing its readability.  I also
felt that the coverage was a little uneven, making this more a book about
Dr. Coleman's interests rather than the field of sleep research and
therapy.

There are eight chapters covering: (1) biological clocks (introduction),
(2) synchronization of biological clocks, (3) shiftwork, (4) jet lag, (5)
sleep deprivation, (6) dreaming, (7) insomnia, (8) other sleep and
alertness disorders (narcolepsy, sleep apnea, snoring, normal sleepiness,
drug effects).  There is also a questionnaire to rate yourself on a
Lark/Owl scale (morning person/evening person).

I was annoyed when he dismissed the results of research on ESP in dreams as
being due to coincidence.  While, with some vague rationality, the results
of these experiments could be argued with on some grounds, coincidence is
simply not one of them.  I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,
however, and assume that he has been mislead by the psychological
literature which consistently misrepresents the experiments.

Overall review -- recommended but I'll keep looking for a better one.

				Topher 

    Being a new noter I'd like to enter a reply to this
    subject even though no one has been here for a while.
    I frequently experience the "falling asleep" syndrome.
    Even though I know that I am not fully asleep when
    this happens I always seem to be experiencing an 
    "actual fall" in my mind.  Just the other night I had 
    one that ocurred when I was walking across a driveway
    slipped and fell and suddenly jerked awake before I
    hit the ground.
    
    One other thing I heard on this topic.  If you are
    actually having a dream that you are falling and jerk
    awake, it's your brain's way of saving you from the
    "shock" of actually hitting the ground.  My friends
    from school used to tell me that if I ever "hit" I 
    would scare myself into having a heart attack and
    die.(?)
    
    Any fresh ideas or new info on this subject?
    
    lori

    I have the falling sensation, however it is a bit different. I am
    usually in a deep sleep (generally I'm in a coma) and I suddenly
    feel as though I'm falling real fast and real hard. When I open
    my eyes I'm in a state of panic and I hit my pillow face first 
    pretty hard. The second I open my eyes I can see myself a few 
    inches from the pillow heading for it. When I was a child I thought
    I stood on the edge of the bed, in my sleep, and fell forward.
    But since I've bought a water bed and I know this couldn't be the
    case. I usually have to take a little while to calm down since
    it is so unexpected. I don't remember any dream of falling or 
    anything. It all happens in a second, about once or twice a month.
    
                                Anyone else?
    
    

    Sounds like OOB to me.

    
    Sounds like levitation to me!
    Tananda
    

    Sounds like a dream to me.
    
    
    
    JOhn M.

    
    Could somebody explain what OOB is?
    
    Thanks.
    
    Wivine

    "OOB" is what a gost from a backwards dimension says in order to frighten
    people.
    
    (I don't believe I even want to sign this one)

    These spirits are also known for dropping the "h" in their titles.

    An OOB is an Out Of Body experience, not to be confused with astral
    projection or soul travel which is often confused with dreaming.
    Are you not confused_:-)_?

    I certainly am.

 I have not experienced the falling,but have woken up after spinning at
a tremendous rate.It is my GUESS that the body shuts down or the conscious
mind disconnects from body sensations during some stages of sleep.You might be
waking up before your body does.I had a similar recurring problem I would
wake up before my body did,I would feel like I was out of my body because of
the lack of sensation .This was very scary. I didn't realize it at the
time but my sensations were very susceptible to what I thought, and for a long
time when this occurred I felt that someone was trying to pull me out of my
body.I finally got mad one night when it happened and kept myself from panic,
I imagined feeling different sensations and I felt them.I have usually been
frightened when I experience waking up out side of myself, once I woke up
floating in an art studio I had never been in before.I went back after I woke
up to check it out and it was like I had seen it.Did I really go there or
was that my minds interpretation? I don't know.I would like to get some
insight into out of body experiences from those who have more experience
with them.Are they real or the minds interpretation?

   P.S. note 22 talks about this also.


                      :^)   

    
    > When I was a child I thought I stood on the edge of the bed, in
      my sleep, and feel forward. 
    
    I have had the exact same thing happen a while ago when I was about
    10 or 12 except I actually jumped. I happened to be at camp both
    times and in a bunk bed on top. (though these were not the only
    times that I ever slept on a top bunk) The first time I stood up
    and apparently(sp) fell or did the Nest-tea plunge (like in the
    commercial) while I was asleep. The only thing that saved me from
    breaking my back was one for the campers left a suitcase out from
    underneath the shelf so my back didn't hit the shelf, but my but
    was sore for a few days.     
    
    The next time I did something like that was when I was a few years
    older and I tried to jump from the top bunk of my bed to the bottom
    bunk of the other set of beds next to mine. Maybe I was dreaming
    that I was a bird, but I didn't remember then and I don't remember
    now just what I was trying to do.
    
    Has anyone else ever done anything like that, I don't know if that
    is common or not. By the way, I don't sleep walk.
                                                     
    

    re: 29
    
    I have not "tried to fly" while I was sleeping, but a couple of
    years ago, a close friend of mine had a similar experience. He,
    too, slept on the top bunk. Something in his dream inspired him
    to leap off his bed. I spent the next day at the hospital with him
    - final result - a broken leg. (He is not a sleep walker, either.)
    
    As I understand it, usually, when we sleep, there is something which
    shuts down our physical responses to whatever is going on in our
    dreams. I wonder what it is that causes this "mechanism" (or whatever
    you want to call it) to fail to do its job, thereby "allowing" leaping
    or sleepwalking to occur? Could it be some very strong emotion?
    My friend, as he jumped, said "I'll save you!"
    
    			-Amy.
    

    
    RE:  .30
    
    What exactly _is_ sleepwakling, anyway?  When I was a youngster
    I used to sleepwalk.  Then I went for many years without any known
    episodes (though I lived alone for much of that time, so I suppose
    I could have continued to sleepwalk withoug knowing), but now it
    seems I have started to sleepwalk once more.  I sort of
    think of sleepwalking as a twisted OOBE - you know, when your
    consciousness stays in the bed sleeping, while your body leaves
    it behind and goes forth to explore.  I wish I understood more about
    it, though, because I *desperately* want to stop sleepwakling! 
    I'll spare you the details of my latest "midnight stroll", but lets 
    just say that I'll never spend an overnight with friends again without 
    a nightie.
    
    Marion

RE: .31
    
    We normally dream somewhat all night long.  The dreams we are most
    likely to remember though are the dreams during REM sleep, which
    are strong and relatively coherent and the dreams in stage 1 sleep
    which are refered to as "hypnogogic imagery" ("hypno-" has nothing
    particular to do here with hypnosis, it is simply the Greek for
    sleep).  The latter has the general character you most often find
    throughout the non-REM sleep cycle.  Incoherent little thoughts
    and individual images (there was a note recently which described
    them as occuring just before they had an OBE, demonstrating that
    they had not yet fallen asleep.  They are instead an indication
    of the first stage of sleep).
    
    During REM sleep the body is paralyzed preventing coherent dreams
    from being physically acted out.
    
    Some people, however, occasionally have more or less coherent dreams
    at other sleep stages when the body is NOT paralyzed.  This results
    in night terrors (as opposed to nightmares which occur during REM
    -- there are some notes on them somewhere), talking in ones sleep
    (which may also be produced by less coherent dreams) and sleep walking.
    
    Or at least, that's the way I understand it.
    
    					Topher

    to 83.11
    
         Hypoglycemia or in a more general term Low Blood Sugar may
    be one reason why some people suddenly fall asleep very fast, causing
    them to twitch and feel like they are faaling, and also making REM
    sleep quite short.  My husband happens to have Hypoglycemia and
    almost always, I would say 99% of the time, 1.) falls asleep when
    his head hits the pillow, and then immediately thereafter, actually
    jumps, (his whole body goes into a spasm) and in most instances
    continues to twitch all night long while sleeping, and 2.) hardly
    ever remembers dreaming.  I would bet on this premise alone, that
    many sleep disorders, i.e., the so called feeling of falling when
    the body goes into sleep, the not remembering dreams/enetering REM
    sleep, and quite possibly other symptoms of the like are probably
    due to a physical disorder of some nature.  I have experienced these
    occurrances when I have had problems with my blood sugar and have
    difficulty sleeping sound.  When these things happen to me it is
    usually when I say, have a few drinks and then also have a cup of
    coffee late in the evening thus wreaking havoc with my blood sugar
    causing me to "crash" so that I wake up with my heart pounding and
    need to get some sugar into my system.  Based on my experiences
    I would say this is one possibility.