Rock on Patriots. Rock on.

This past weekend was enjoyable. I drove everywhere. Friday I zipped up to Worcester and saw a few people, Saturday I visited the lovely Jill and we saw ‘Sideways’ and went out to a nice dinner, and Sunday I went down to RI and went running with my sister Theresa.

While we were running, Tree (whose birthday was on Friday, happy b-day t!) told me about all sorts of cool psychological stuff. She’s getting her PHD so she knows what she’s talking about. We discussed mental health, common symptoms of psychological breakdowns, and then we talked about sleep. And I learned some awesome stuff which I will now convey to you.

There are a number of stages that the body goes through before reaching REM sleep. By the time the body goes through the whole process and reaches REM there are certain specific things that happen. First, you lose the ability to sense temperature changes. Second, your body falls into a temporary paralysis. Third, your brain gets crazy with activity and you start to dream. and I think there was a fourth thing too, but I don’t remember it.

ANYWAY, you know how every once in awhile as you start to fall asleep your body jerks violently and you wake up all startled? Often times it’s accompanied by a strange dream where you’re falling, or tripping or something? well! When you’re stressed, or extremely tired, your body will sometimes skip the first stages of the sleeping process. You’ll go straight to REM. Then your brain gets crazy with activity but your body has yet to fall into temporary paralysis. So your brain ends up sending messages to your muscles to contract and jerk violently. Thus waking you up thinking that you had just fallen off of the edge of a giant bowl of custard and landed angrily on a pile of wooden shutters. isn’t that interesting?

I hope that little story made your Monday morning that much more bearable.

5 thoughts on “Rock on Patriots. Rock on.

  • 2/7/2005 at 11:25 am
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    Yep, you totally got it. The experience of muscle jerks when falling asleep is called Hypnic Myoclonia.

    Great run yesterday, by the way. That was totally fun and I’m looking forward to our next run together! Wooohoo!

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  • 2/7/2005 at 1:38 pm
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    Interesting…this happens to me A LOT.

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  • 2/7/2005 at 4:19 pm
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    my jerk awake thing happens frequently too. but it is not about falling or tripping. It always has to do with Bees. Like getting stung by a bee, or a bee hitting me with a bat.

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  • 2/7/2005 at 5:58 pm
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    I had a dream about a bee once. In my dream he had got himself under the covers and then stung me right behind the knee. Then I woke up all in a frenzy throwing the sheets off the bed thinking there was a bee under there.

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  • 2/8/2005 at 9:14 am
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    man that must have stunk something fierce.

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