As I continue my normal process of going to sleep at night, randomly, I feel this weird motion. It's a jerk-type reflex where my body feels like it's falling into eternal darkness, and I jump up and into consciousness without having any room to think. At first, this drastically scared me into thinking, "Is something wrong with me. Do I need to get this checked out? Am I dying?" In reality, what I felt and what 70 percent of the population has felt, is nothing but the "hypnic jerk."

The hypnic jerk (the sudden feeling of falling while sleeping) is actually an involuntary muscle twitch that can happen to anyone but mostly happens to younger people. This reflex jump starts your body, usually during the first stage of sleep, but it actually means more than just a random body movement. Theoretically speaking, this sense was probably a life-saving evolutionary development.

However, there are multiple theories to explain this.

The first idea behind this movement is the brain's misinterpretation of your body during sleep. As your body temperature drops and your muscles relax as your sleeping, your brain misinterprets that you are free falling or about to fall and "jerks" to keep you conscious. Another simple theory is that as your body relaxes while sleeping, your muscle tones change, and this movement is a kind of transition. Although these are just presentable ideas, there are other factors which have shown to cause this. High caffeine intake, depression and stress tend to play great effects on your body to be able to cause an involuntary action like this.

And as I suspected, it's been proposed that this jerk movement may have been an evolutionary response. One idea is based on lifestyle. The humans of those times may have slept in trees to avoid danger. Many times, a person might have been at risk in falling off the tree to his/her death. This hypnic jerk is said to have been an evolutionary response in "jerking" the bodies to consciousness and making sure they were aware of their surroundings so they don't fall.

Thanks to all this extensive research, I'm assured that this is not just a health problem or something plain out wrong with myself. The hypnic jerk is a weird feeling and bodily reflex, but it is very interesting to theorize as to why our bodies use it.