The sleeping baby strapped to my chest suddenly spasms and clasps me in a gesture I call “crabbing”. I stop to exclaim.
“Did you fall off your branch?” I ask my daughter.
The baby sleeps on.
But I know she will wake soon: sleep starts (or hypnic jerks) like this tend to happen when someone is falling to sleep or waking up, as their mind wrestles between consciousness and unconsciousness – like so many other sleep phenomena (e.g. sleep paralysis). And so far, experience has agreed with the science.
But what are these “sleep starts”?
“Did you fall off your branch?” I ask my daughter.
The baby sleeps on.
But I know she will wake soon: sleep starts (or hypnic jerks) like this tend to happen when someone is falling to sleep or waking up, as their mind wrestles between consciousness and unconsciousness – like so many other sleep phenomena (e.g. sleep paralysis). And so far, experience has agreed with the science.
But what are these “sleep starts”?
