Why is falling asleep, we experience the sensation of falling?

Surely you have repeatedly experienced strange sudden feeling of falling in falling asleep, that makes you wake up abruptly. In fact it is not a dream of the fall, which happens in deep sleep, according to many people, and instant physical sensation that awakens us, and which is accompanied by a hallucination, not a dream.

To better understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms of sleep.

The dream begins in a part of the brain called the reticular formation, sends signals to the spinal cord to the muscle relaxation and inhibition of incentives. Push that you feel when you wake up, does not lift you when you sleep, as the body puts out his own consciousness. With this everyone agrees. But then the opinions of scholars differ.

1. The signal is gone in the wrong direction

One group of scientists noticed that the signal from the reticular formation of the switches in some people. Rather than suppress the contraction of the muscles, it enhances a decrease of almost any stimulus. In science, it is termed "hypnagogic twitching." When a person cringe upon awakening, the sudden change of position without direct support under the arms or legs can cause a person to believe that the feeling experienced by them this fall.

2. The body is relaxed and the brain works

Other scientists believe that there is a sensation of falling from the relaxation action, especially if a person is anxious and can not get comfortable. As soon as the muscles relax during sleep, the brain is awake, watching the situation. Flaccidity of muscles and the fact that people like to "settle", interpreted by the brain as a sudden sensation of falling and the brain tries to wake the person.

3. Stress caused hallucinations

And what about the hallucinations? Contrary to what people think a lot of people, hallucinations - this is not something out of the ordinary, and many of us in varying degrees, experienced hallucinations. Hallucination - it's just experience, in which the brain misinterprets some incentive group. For example, you may suddenly appear that you can see the edge of the eye cat is following you, and suddenly it turns out that this is actually a pile of garbage near the post. The brain just makes a hasty conclusion and creates an image that is not quite true.

Such hallucinations intensified under stress, when the brain is quickly making hasty conclusions, and fatigue, when the brain does not automatically handles as much information as it does in other circumstances. When you fall asleep, experiencing anxiety, being hypersensitive to stimuli, uncomfortable situation leads to the fact that the brain receives a signal about the danger of a sudden (body drop), and tries to discover the reason why it falls. It produces drowsiness, which we remember when we wake up, where for example you go and just slipped. See also: