MINNEAPOLIS — It takes 15 to 20 minutes for most adults to fall asleep. During that period, an odd sensation can occur which about seven out of 10 of us experience: bedtime twitches.
Dr. Ranji Varghese, head of one of the original sleep centers in the country at Hennepin Healthcare, explains what happens in the transition from being awake to being asleep.
“The brain sort of slows down. These different electrical activities start to be busy, and then less busy, and then we sort of consolidate into different stages of sleep,” Varghese said. “Sometimes there’s a misfiring of neurons and we can have what we describe as arousals or awakenings, and sometimes on occasion, hypnic jerks, where the tracks don’t necessarily meet on time, there’s sort of a friction, and people suddenly awaken with this involuntary muscle contraction and the sense of falling.”
Hypnic jerks are defined as a physiological phenomenon that accompanies sleep-wake transitions.