A popular psychologist revealed that it is perfectly normal when sometimes your whole body suddenly jerks awake before falling asleep.
According to Dr. Joan Woodworth, the said phenomena is called “myoclonic jerk.” She explained that our muscles sometimes relax faster even before the oxygen can gain access to them.
Woodworth has been touring the U.S. for the past years to explain in detail her studies on sleep and dreams. She came up with 5 types of sleep: Stage 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.
It is on the fifth stage or REM sleep that most of our dreams occur, according to Dr. Woodworth. In fact, when we wake up a person who’s currently on the REM stage, that person will likely recall the dream.
Dr. Woodworth added that the fifth stage of sleep usually takes place 2 hours during our sleep and the body goes to a sleep paralysis in order for us not to act out the dream. In some cases, people go to another stage where they can sleep-talk or sleep-walk.
She added that all of us do amazing things in our sleep but we are not in an articulated state.
Tags: dreaming, myoclonic jerk, sleeping