In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 361 of 1154
Huh, interesting sleep problem SIX. I can imagine a couple of things that it might be, the first thing that comes to mind is hypnagogic (myoclonic) jerk.
Usually the jerk involves the arms or legs but sometimes the trunk. You say this sensation is in your chest - I guess the question is, does it involve the voluntary muscles (your back, chest, abdomen) or your heart? If it involves your heart that is something else, but if it DID involve your heart I suppose you would feel some sort of cardiac disturbances (racing heart, uneven beat, abnormal pounding going on for many minutes afterwards) and I think you would have said something about that if it occurred, so you're prolly in the clear heart-wise. Still, it puts a real damper on the whole "going to sleep" idea, and sounds like it's interfering with good sleep.
You might find this video interesting (embedded in article)
https://www.sleepadvisor.org/hypnic-jerking/
They relate hypnogogic jerking to late-day exercise, too much caffeine, stress, irregular sleep habits etc. I think you've checked all of their checkboxes, except drinking! In addition to finding some sort of good routine that avoids these stressors, I suggest a couple of things. Try some magnesium, most people are somewhat deficient, if you're not taking any. Try a Rolaids before bed, it has both calcium and magnesium in it, and (if your problem is triggered by acid reflux) would quell that problem. Another thing is that because of repeated jerks falling asleep you may have developed a significant "flinch" reaction based on bad experience, which ups the stress level of falling asleep.
Pick several activities that are reliably soothing ... taking a hot shower, reading an interesting book, drinking a hot chocolate, meditating, or WHATever. Change up your bedtime situation ... if you fall asleep watching Youtube, try going to sleep in bed with a dim light. If you were sitting up, lie down. If you were lying down, sit up. If you were clothed, undress. If you were in a bedroom, move to the living room. If in a couhc, move to a bed. Whatever. Just make your situation as different as you can from previous negative associations. Practice one soothing routine at bedtime one night, another the next night ... this is so you don't build up additional negative associations. And try to uncheck those checkboxes if at all possible!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!
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Strange violent sensation in your chest - like a BIG thump? It could be a PVC - when the heart has a small extra-fast beat (a PVC, sometimes called a VPC) and then waits an extra long time for the next one, that late one feels like a huge thump. It could be obstructive sleep apnea, when you finally relax your jaw and tongue slip backwards and block your windpipe, and you end up with a waking up with burning chest and a BIG panicked need to breathe. It could be a hypnagogic jerk, as Signy suggests.
FWIW I've had all 3 of the above. And I've had them repeat over and over and over at night, like you. (But I had each type separately during different time periods of my life.) For some reason, when I was in my 30s thru 40s the process of down-regulating to sleep was very fraught, as I was trying to slip down to a lower rhythm.
In any case, Signy has a lot of good suggestions.
But if obstructive sleep apnea is the issue, I've found positioning myself semi-on my side/ face down to let my jaw relax forward instead of backward, helps.
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Thanks for the info, both of you. That might be what I'm experiencing (the hypnic jerks). Sadly, I'm not on the mild end of twitching fingers and toes, but I'd say I'm on the extreme to violent end of that spectrum. I'd imagine if there's a camera on me at night it would look like something out of The Exorcist. Most of the time I don't sit bolt upright, but I do bounce straight up if I don't go fully into a sitting position and fall back down. Usually these days followed by a rather loud "fuck" because it happened again, especially if it's going on a half dozen to a dozen times in one night. (Just imagine how great that was when my back was jacked up a few weeks ago).
I couldn't say if it was the heart or not. I'm guessing it's not because I'm still here to type this. The stomach is right there too. When it first happened, before I got "used" to it, the sensation was like my heart exploded but there wasn't any pain. I know that probably doesn't make any sense to somebody who hasn't experienced it before, but that's about the best I can do to explain it.
Stress has almost always been a part of me. It's really the only thing on the list that I can say has always been there. I know I drink way too much coffee these days, but it happened all throughout the second half of my life, and much of that I hardly drank coffee at all or in much more moderate amounts.
It's nice to hear that it's not a serious condition, other than the fact that I don't sleep well because of it.
I doubt it's sleep apnea. I don't snore at all, not even slightly. My brother suffers badly from that, and before he got the machine he needs to wear every night, he used to snore so loud he could wake you up through the walls in separate rooms. I don't know how his wife managed to put up with that before he got treated.
I can't sleep on my sides at all. I used to every night when I was a kid, but around my early to mid 20's when I put on a lot of muscle mass from working out, on top of the fact that I smoke, I can't sleep on my sides anymore because my arms will fall asleep. I mean full-out. I've woken up and had zero feeling from my shoulder to my fingertips and I have "flop" my arm into the wall until I get the pins and needles and regain control of it. I've only slept on my back for the last 20 or so years.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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So... uh... how long have we all known each other here?
A new "project" of mine is going through my old emails, as painful and embarrassing as that is. I need to purge a lot of stuff from my old life and make amends with those who I feel it is worth doing so. It's "Step Two" of my Two Step recovery program that I'm finally getting around to. I honestly have no idea what the other 10 steps those other people do and don't really have any desire to learn about it.
Lot's of interesting stuff I'm uncovering.
I don't know what I would have guessed, Kiki, if you had asked me that same question first. I certainly wouldn't have said since at least 2013. And I would have been wrong. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Oh... and if the hypnic twitches weren't enough, I get this too...
My "shadow person" is actually a "smoke person". No hat. No clothing. Just a moving cloud of black, grey and white smoke swirling around in a humanoid shape with glowing white eyes and a hint of small black horns on its head. That's what it's been every time, all dozen or so times it's happened.
It also doesn't move toward me like other people see. It doesn't hang around where I'm sleeping. It just stands there in the corner staring right at me.
The abject fear throughout your entire body and mind is the worst part of it. It feels as though you're completely awake. Your eyes are open. You can move them around and see everything in the room around you, but your body is still asleep and it's as if your mind cannot control it. Imagine the feeling of being in a terrible nightmare and that feeling like you're fighting for your life to get out of it. That's how this feels, but it seems to go on for minutes at a time before you can finally break free and "wake up", but the only changes that occur are that you can move again and the "smoke person" is gone. You're still in the same room you were already in, because you weren't dreaming in the first place and your eyes were wide open.
And it gets better...
Don't lay back down right away, because you will immediately fall back asleep, but not a real sleep. You're back in the sleep paralysis almost immediately and the "smoke person" is right back there in the corner of the room staring right back at you, and the intense feeling of fear comes right back and now you're fighting for your life to claw your way out of it all over again.
I've actually been able in certain circumstances force myself into that state. I can't explain how, but unlike the first times that it happened all on its own, I made a mental effort to put myself into that state after I found out that this was something else that a lot of other people have experienced before. (I used to keep this to myself because I thought people would have thought I was crazy).
I can't control it all the time. It's kind of like lucid dreaming (which is essentially the opposite of this experience, but is AWESOME when you can achieve it and be in a dream while knowing full well you are dreaming and just doing amazing things like flying anywhere you want or lifting impossible objects). I can't do either of these things on command, but there is some sort of mental trigger where I happen to be "conscious" enough at just the right time in the sleep cycle where I can make an effort to push myself in either direction. I don't believe that it is an either/or thing, like you could ever make the choice to do one or the other, because I don't think that either one is possible at the same time during sleep cycles.
I can't explain any of it better than that. Trying to do so is like trying to explain to a blind person what the color blue looks like.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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If I were to take a guess, SIX, I'd say your brain has a hard time handling that whole sleep-wake transition. As I understand it, different parts of the brain go offline or into a different state at different times. Usually its a smooth sequence, kind of like a shutdown sequence for a computer, but it sounds like in your case certain things happen too soon, or too late.
It doesn't help that you're jacking up your pathway towards sleep ... The way it's suppposed to work is that the light gets dim, your physical activity slows down, your body temperature falls, and your thoughts unwind. And it is really REALLY helpful if this happens at more or less the same time every day so your body and brain know what is supposed to happen when. So kind of free-wheeling your way thru the day, powering thru late-night work on coffee ... while it might be productive and address some of your anxieties about the future, it really plays havoc with your circadian rhythm. Unless you're willing to try and moderate that behavior I think you'll just have to put up with the myoclonic jerks because I haven't found any sure-fire fix that will overpower all of the other factors pushing in the wrong direction.
But I do have a thought about how to unwind. "They" say that journaling is a very powerful tool. "They" say that it is helpful to spend about 15 minutes at the end of every day focusing on what is making you most anxious. Yanno, REALLY awfulize it! (If I don't get this done then that bad thing will happen, and if that bad thing happens then something worse will happen, and then ... I'll be out on the street with no job, no home, no family, no friends) ... and WRITE IT DOWN. Then, CLOSE THE BOOK. I don't do that, exactly, but I have a diary that I keep ... if something pops into mind that I need to do I write it down before it skitters away. I record what I did, who I called, what they said, appointments I've kept, symptoms that I or the family seem to be having which I find helpful in dealing with doctors ("How long has that been going on?") ... it's a place to "dump" all of those nagging thoughts and also a record of accomplishment, and if I had to keep all of that bubbling at the top of my mind it would really make me anxious. Posting online seems to be a good record for your accomplishments but a private space for personal worries might be helpful.
Another possibility is melatonin about an hour before bedtime. By itself, melatonin won't do much but it you combine with a better sleep-inducing routine it might help
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!
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"Stress has almost always been a part of me. It's really the only thing on the list that I can say has always been there. I know I drink way too much coffee these days, but it happened all throughout the second half of my life, and much of that I hardly drank coffee at all or in much more moderate amounts."
I've ALWAYS had problems getting to sleep, even as a very young kid (well under 5). One of my earlier memories is lying down in bed at night with my heart going - pound pound pound pound pound - that was my normal. I rarely recall (in my life, probably on the fingers of one hand) getting comfy ... drowsy ... having my mind wander ... drifting off. No. I'm awake, awake, awake, awake, awake, awake, awake, awake ... waking up at some point.
I want to ask you to not rule anything out.
When I was young - younger than 5 and through my pre-teens - I had what I think of as 'restless body syndrome'. I would twist and turn and twist and turn ... (while my heart went - pound pound pound pound pound -) I believe I was running out of air. I had many allergies and asthma as a kid (still do), and it kept me from relaxing because I would snore, and have sleep apnea. This wasn't because I was overweight or under-muscled, or underactive. It's just the allergies swelled everything up a bit, which made breathing and getting air more difficult, which made relaxing difficult, which made sleep difficult.
The problem returned in my 30s and 40s, when I was extremely active and fit. But I would actually stop breathing, and wake up sitting straight up with a desperate gasp, with my heart pounding and a panicked feeling. I didn't think it was sleep apnea, because I thought that was for old, fat guys ... until the one night I woke up in the middle of a gasp and realized what I was doing. That's how I identified the problem.
So, not scolding or anything Jack, but you smoke and that can't help. Sleep apnea could be a problem.
Another thing is PVCs (premature ventricular contractions, aka VPCs ventricular pre-contractions). I had those as well. Generally it's caused by having an irritable spot in your ventricles, that spontaneously fires off an aberrant signal and makes your ventricles contract too early. Then when the REAL signal to contract comes down from the top of your heart, it finds the ventricles have already shot the bullet (so to speak) and are in the state of re-loading. They're just not ready, and so nothing happens. So your ventricles continue to fill up and fill up until the next signal to contract comes down that they can respond to, and that gives you an extra-late, extra-full, extra-hard THUMP heartbeat. Mostly they're uncomfortable but not harmful. Depending on your biochemistry, you may be sensitive to irritants that cause your ventricles to spontaneously misfire. That include caffeine and nicotine (and alcohol). An imbalance of minerals is also a problem. For me the problem was an unusual sensitivity to alcohol (specifically red wine, and possibly the sulfites in it). A glass or two a day more than 2 or 3 days in a row was enough to trigger problems. But also, I needed to eat better, more regular meals with more real food, and more real minerals, especially fruits and veges. It took a couple of months to eventually smooth out for good, but avoiding wine and eating regular food worked to clear that up. You may need to cut down on the caffeine and nicotine, and just eat better.
AND finally there's the myoclonus - which I've also had! That's the one that would often play on repeat in the eves - more so than the PVCs or the apnea which would repeat but not quite so insistently - - start to fall asleep and JERK!!! My entire body would stiffen up with a hard jerk. Then start to fall asleep and JERK!!! Then start to fall asleep and JERK!!! Then start to fall asleep and JERK!!! Eventually I had something very weird happen - which was a buzzing feeling in the base of my skull and my legs 'running' in place HARD, that I had no control
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I'd say "listen to Kiki". She is considering a wider variety of possibilities than I am. I should never cross anything off a list unless I can do so definitively. And, nothing says that you don't have three or more things going on!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!
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Well... if I could afford a sleep study like my brother did, maybe I'd do it. But, yanno...
I too, have suffered from insomnia since I was 5 years old. I remember specifically feeling a sense of abandonment every night when everybody else would easily fall asleep and I'd be up with my own thoughts until 1 or 2 AM almost every school night at a very young age.
Funny thing is, I don't really have insomnia anymore. Just all these other issues, compounded by the fact that I can rarely go a full night without having to go to the bathroom (which I've learned never to have a cigarette otherwise I won't get back to sleep for hours).
I don't think there's really any big mystery behind any of it. Even though I've been sober for three years and haven't smoked any weed for about five, I still smoke a lot and I actually drink about 3 times as much coffee than I used to ever since I stopped drinking. Maybe it is sleep apnea, but in the case of my brother the reason he was sent to get a sleep study is because his regular doctor visit was so terrible they wanted to know what was going on. I'm sure my visit today would not be as good as it was last year, but last visit turned up great for everything. Even when I was working and I had that great visit, I still had these jerks that would prevent me from sleeping. They do happen quite a bit more often now though...
In fact, my old man just woke me up from an early sleep tonight. I haven't been getting very good sleep recently and staying up real late along with getting up early in the morning, so tonight when I finished work I cooked my dinner about 4 hours earlier than usual and would have gone right to sleep if I didn't have about 2 or 3 more jerks... but I finally made it and then the phone woke me up. :)
BTW... My bedroom doors are finished and hung. That looks nice. :)
And tomorrow I'll get my tables back. I just didn't feel like doing it tonight... and I still don't.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I can't sleep on my sides at all. I used to every night when I was a kid, but around my early to mid 20's when I put on a lot of muscle mass from working out, on top of the fact that I smoke, I can't sleep on my sides anymore because my arms will fall asleep. I mean full-out. I've woken up and had zero feeling from my shoulder to my fingertips and I have "flop" my arm into the wall until I get the pins and needles and regain control of it. I've only slept on my back for the last 20 or so years.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I've dealt with that for 20years or so. Wake up and my entire arm from shoulder to fingers would be numb. Have to bang it on the bed to get the feeling back. My trouble though is caused by what I feel is nerve damage in my neck due to the brain tumour and the pressure it was exerting before the surgery and then after effects of the surgery. It is not a nice feeling to wake up to.
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