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Falling

This post isn't just about dreaming that you fall, it's about exploring whether there's a "physical" aspect to things that can occur in dreams. Falling is just a good example, and a very common occurrence.

The Human mind is very complex. The common belief is that our subconscious mind becomes more prevalent during our "sleep" time than does our conscious mind. During sleep, our thoughts manifest into visual images. Some believe our dreams offer us answers to conscious dilemmas; some believe it is the place between the physical and spiritual worlds; some believe dreams are portentious.

Some people never dream at all!

Forget all that.... what I want to discuss are dreams where there is physical aspect: are you cold in your dream? Are you falling? Do your hands (or other parts of your body) take on disproportianate dimensions?

Here's something about the human body you may not have thought about before: It has voluntary and involuntary reflexes. The most common involuntary reflex is that of the heart beating. Breathing is another involuntary reflex... stop either of those voluntarily, and... well, you know the consequences.

The human body does these things under command of the brain. It is a survival instinct that doesn't need conscious thought. These survival instincts continue to operate while we sleep.

Have you ever woken up with a start, convinced you fell in your dream? This is the scientific explanation for "falling". During the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, that's when we're dreaming. Your subconscious is active. The point immediately following REM is called "Total shutdown". This is very, very brief, and is followed by the act of waking up.

Sometimes, your subconscious dream will continue into "total shutdown", like an echo. This echo reverberates into the waking stage, when your conscious mind is beginning to stir.

Total shutdown! When I say it's brief, I mean like a few seconds. If you could be aware of "total shutdown", it might be the closest thing to death you'd ever experience, because they say a person isn't dead until the brain is dead. Well, for a few seconds every night, the brain simulates death.

Imagine a hospital which experiences a power failure. Life support machines, lights, the coffee machine... they all switch off... for a few seconds until the emergency power generator kicks into life.

What this means to you is, your brain has switched off, and every sense commanded by your brain has, likewise, switched off. This includes the sense of touch! So, your body can no longer feel the bed you are lying on, and if you can't feel anything solid beneath you, then, by logic, you must not be touching anything.
Follow this train of logic, and you must be in mid-air, and since this is not a natural position for you to be in, you must be falling.

You have exited "total shutdown", but instead of the brain easing you awake, the echo of your subconscious sends an alarm to your brain... and you wake with a start.

Do you wonder why, at such times, you wake with an increased heart rate and an indrawn deep breath? I think your period of "total shutdown" went on a nano-second longer than normal.

Does this sound plausible to you?

Falling

A split second longer then normal in the moment certainly could provoke a fight or flight response from your body. My wife as a child used to get stuck in that moment and her brother would wake and rush in and wake her. Her breathing would be stopped till he touched her. When she woke though she claimed she was calm.

If I am dreaming or more precisely a nightmare/falling I will wake heart pounding. I have always just wrote that off to the body natural reaction to being scared of dieing.

Does the shut down occur even when you are startled awake? or just when you wake normally? From your comment I get the impression it is occurring in both cases. If this is the case then it is plausible to me that this momentary shut down could be adding to the racing pulse though I am not convinced it is the only reason your heart is racing. I think fear was the trigger if you dream you are falling to your demise.

Falling Paranormal & Mystics Dreams Studies

Some people have certain conditions which make sleep a hazadous affair, and you touched on one, krakyn.

To begin, let me explain the state of "total shutdown" a bit more. This will also involve discussion on how the brain sends and receives messages to the rest of the body it controls.

You will have heard of the terms, "electrical impulses" and "motor neurons". In a nutshell, every conscious and subconscious action we make is kicked into actuality by the brain sending an electrical impulse to whatever part of the body is called to action. these impulses are despatched under the command of motor neurons.

Sometimes, these motor neurons malfunction! There can be various reasons for this: chemical imbalance, deformity, wear and tear (old age).

Example of chemical imbalance: You're drunk. You go to walk to the toilet, and walk into the wall instead.

Example of deformity (and I winced when I wrote this word, because it's got horrible connotations): You suffer from dyslexia, and words you write appear jumbled.

Example of wear and tear: Erm... old age is the best one I could think of.

So, relating this to "total shutdown": In those few seconds when this occurs, it's like the example I gave of the hospital emergency generator kicking into life after a power failure, but in this case, the generator is a motor neuron. The motor neuron involved with "kick-starting" the brain is consequent on telling the heart to beat and for the body to breathe.

In some people, this motor neuron doesn't function properly, and so we hear about people who "died in their sleep". This is tragic when a young person is involved, but it's quite normal at old age.

Now, relate this to dreaming and why we sometimes wake with a start, or with a smile, or with a raging woodie, or whatever.

Or, to put it another way, why do we remember some dreams vividly, and not others? Do you remember I mentioned the echo which reverberates from REM state to total shutdown? Well, sometimes those echoes are very loud, so loud that they continue to reverberate through total shutdown to the waking state.

I'm going to back this up with another phenomenon.... snoozing. Ever closed your eyes for a few moments and drifted between being not quite awake and not quite asleep? In effect, you are fooling the brain (or the brain is fooling you). "Snoozes may last for a half hour, or just a few seconds, but what differentiates "snoozing" from actual sleep is that the brain remains active at a conscious level. Therefore, noises can still be heard, a fly landing on your skin can still be felt, a fart can still be smelled.

And yet, when you snooze, you dream! Actually, you don't dream... your subconscious resurrects conscious thoughts and amplifies them, so it feels like a dream.

Kay.... I hope I said this in a way that was understandable. I welcome further comments.

But I should close by saying, I am not a psychologist, I am not a brain specialist, and I am open to being refuted. I read way too much!

Edited: Philosopher on 13th Jun, 2007 - 9:02am

Falling

Very well explained thank you. I also understand about the old age and perhaps youth also. I am thinking SIDS must have a few counts of this being the reason of death.