Why is this? I do it about once a week, it actually sucks, it feels so wierd!

what else do you feel before jerking awake?

When I was a teen, it happened to me a lot. I always felt like I was being dropped onto my bed. I was for a short while almost positive something extraterrestrial had popped into my life since I would go for walks and think I was gone just a short while but in reality I was gone for hours. I finally just chalked it up to hormones and muscle twitches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

Yeah it happens to me too, it's a royal pain.

Can be from too much caffeine before bed. Or maybe there's a consistent sound you're not aware of, but it wakes you.
Disturbances are often due to external factors. But, if you seem to not distinguish from the real state from the unconscious one; ie, dreams seem real for a moment, then it could be due to stress.

I used to have it occur a lot whilst attending college. Mine was definitely high caffeine intake.

I think most of the time you have stopped breathing due to airways collapsing as you relax and its the body's way of making you breath

how many times must I post this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

i used to have a dream that led top me jerking asleep it was me riding my quad and the ground starts to giv way under me and just as i would feel the falling sensation i would jerk awake it happend alot like once a night for a while if not more

Actually, I forgot about this since it hasn't happened for a while: I will sometimes jerk awake because I have taken a step in my sleep. I read in a book that I borrowed from my then boyfriend and it said that when we first fall asleep, there are doorways we can enter. When we feel like we have taken a step and then wake up it is because we were about to step through the door to death and upon realizing this, we snap our soul back into our body. I'm not sure if I agree with something like this, but I've heard weirder explanations.

There is nothing weird it about this. It's just that you have muscle spasms.
Make sure that you listen to your body. Clearing your mind, lying on your back and in a peaceful state of mind. You can hear what your body is trying to tell you.

Also eat bananas, tehy have loads of potassium in them, and it helps to lessen the spasms (and growing pains in kids).

In a course of a day i drink a pot of black coffee. Never happens to me.

actually i have a theory about this... actually i dunno if it's my theory, but when you sleep your spirit floats above your body (look up astral projection), whether you do it consciously or not, and i believe that that jerking happens when your spirit is out of your body and you're on the verge of sleep and being awake and you get startled awake somehow and your spirit gets jerked back into your body.

I find this usually happens to me if i am really w.a.s.t.e.d i fall asleep... and its kinda like a panic attack i think just when i hit the point im sure im going to die, its like life just jumps back in to me... but from my more science based view outside of my wacko mind it probably just somthing you are thinking about from earlier that day that may be stopping your body going in to REM sleep... so maybe your body wakes you up so it can reset and try again? just a thought

when you jerk awake i means you ve slipped back into your body as your soul has been a wandering.

no its when you have regain consciousness and the rest of your mussels haven't waken up so to say, no i dear why it feels like falling though,

LOL I came into this post and it said JERKING awake then the first post said I do it about once a week and I Lol'd but then I read on and yeah..

It seems like hypnic or hypnagogic jerk is an involuntary muscle twitch (commonly known as a myoclonic twitch) which occurs during the transition into hypnagogia. It is often described as an electric shock or falling sensation, and can cause movement of the body in bed. Hypnic jerks are experienced by most people, especially when exhausted or sleeping uncomfortably.


Occurrence
Hypnic jerks are usually felt once or twice per night. More regular, and usually less intense, hypnic jerks often occur during normal sleep. In extreme cases, this may be classified as a disorder called periodic limb movement. The person with the disorder will usually sleep through the events.

When a subject is deprived of sleep and is trying to fight sleep, hypnic jerks can occur more often. This normally happens to subjects who have deprived themselves of sleep for longer than 24 hours, or to those who have recently woken up from insufficient amounts of sleep.

Not sure exactly what time you're taking about. I've got this, but it happens as I'm starting to fall asleep. I'll suddenly jerk, and wake up.

That is called the myoclonic jerk. It occurs as your body begins to shut down for the night. At some point, your brain disengages from the body, in the sense that your body (usually) no longer moves in response to signals from the brain. That "disconnection" may sometimes result in a sort of jerk or shock, sometimes accompanied by a dream.

I commonly have this, in connection with a dream of falling. For example, I'm stepping off a curb, but it's much higher than I expected, so I start to fall forward - and then I jerk awake suddenly.

If you're getting this in the mornings, it might possibly be related to the myoclonic jerk (maybe when your brain is reconnecting to your body). But I haven't experienced this, and I haven't seen any articles about that.

You can Google to find out more about it.

It's so weird when I read about something that doesn't really apply to me and I end up finding something that does. I never knew that this actually had a name but I suffer from this a lot. It always happens as I'm trying to fall asleep. I'll just be laying there with my eyes closed and without provocation my whole body will just jump like someone jerking the strings of a marionette. It's a bit startling. I used to be alarmed by it. Now it's an annoyance especially when sleep is so close.

I believe that it happens to everyone. I have done some research on this, and many times we jerk, or feel like we are falling, or can endure auditory sounds such as a loud BANG or knock on door. Its found that while our body is totally relaxed, but our brain is somewhere between the alpha state and REM, it causes strange illusions, whether we hear it, feel it or see it. Its nothing to worry about in my opinion....JN