A hypnic jerk isn’t the body “thinking it’s dying”. It’s thought that it’s just the muscles transitioning from an active state to a state of relaxation, and the brain becoming confused during the transition; which makes sense because hypnic jerks occur more frequently in people who are overtired, or who have poor sleep schedules.

What’s more interesting is that people usually have “dreams” during these twitches, but a lot of times they aren’t full on REM dreams; you aren’t even really asleep. I used to have them all the time when I was little. I remember this particular one where I was walking outside my apartment and tripped over a tricycle, I fell in the dream, and felt the fall in reality, which startled me awake.

I assumed I was “astral projecting”, until I took Intro Psych.

(Source: le-creepy-pasta)