If you have ever dreamed that, suddenly, you fall into a vacuum or that you simply fall out of bed, then you are part of that 95% of the population that shares the same dream pattern. Surely this sudden and short experience has made you wake up alarmed and with the agitated breathing. A start that far from promoting a relaxed sleep fills us with restlessness in the tranquility of the night.
But why does it happen? We explain it to you next and we give you some small tips to avoid that it happens more times.
I'm going to fall! Why does this make me the brain?
Let's talk first of that common experience: that of dreaming that we fall out of bed. If you make a small effort of memory, you will realize that this phenomenon occurs especially in the first moments of sleep, within minutes of closing your eyes and even when we fall asleep on the couch. Without knowing how, we unexpectedly experienced a strange sensation, as if we were about to overturn, to fall.
Experts from the Sleep Unit of the Hospital of Madrid, explain that this is basically due to a very specific structure: the vestibular system. It is this that allows us to maintain balance and that makes us keep properly regulated body and kinesthetic system.
But what happens then when we are asleep? That there is a small decompensation between the impulses of the vestibular system and the kinesthetic one. Having a dissociated state of consciousness - being half asleep - there is a slight error of information between both centers of our body. It is something that occurs at the beginning of the dream and that is a brief sensation. Brief, but that always gets us awake startled. Maybe until sometime, from the impression, you have truly fallen out of bed.
The fascinating world of dreams and brain whims
Let us now think of all those dreams that we have experienced, in which we see ourselves falling into the void: a cliff, a path that suddenly disappears under our feet and makes us descend, a stairway that turns into smoke ... etc. Now, ask yourself a simple question. How did you find those days? Were you nervous about something? I wonder maybe? Stressed?
Many times we go to bed with an endless number of thoughts in our minds. We have not cut that "umbilical cord" that separates the day from the moment of "rest". Where we need to be relaxed and calm to feel the relief of the bed and shelter of a restful sleep.
It is very common that in those days when we have done many things, our brain comes to sleep, but that activity, that pressure and that anxiety is still present in him . The body however is relaxed, very relaxed ... but he does not, hence there is that mind-body inequality and the brain interprets it, simply, as a "fall".
As if that were not enough, in this fall to the void the brain also prepares us to the idea of feeling pain, thus increasing the level of adrenaline so intensely that we just wake up startled. In one jump".
This phenomenon is also related to the "hypagógica paralysis", or more known as the paralysis of the dream , of which we have already spoken at some time in here . Our brain gives us a neurological alarm of real danger, even many of our senses are activated: hearing, sight ... and yet we are unable to react. Our body remains relaxed while the brain is a carousel of emotions and panic.
And then, what should we do to not suffer these experiences? To reconcile a quiet dream in which we do not fall down, for example, down a ravine? Simply, separate the daily worries as soon as you get home, especially when it's time to go to bed. Remember that the ideal is to have dinner two hours before going to sleep, something light and that gives your stomach time to digest with tranquility. Take a hot shower and also remember to turn off the computer and set aside the phone one hour before going to bed. This type of waves present in electronic devices tend to stimulate our brain impede a quiet sleep.