When I’ve been aware of such sudden-jerks, it’s been around Guidepost 6, just as I’m about to slip into sleep, and is usually accompanied by a micro-dream in which I need to suddenly move for some reason (usually, it’s that I missed a step on a staircase or something like that; but once I remember flinging my arm out in front of me to catch a baseball coming my way).
Some of this may be as you theorize: that sleep paralysis is lagging dream-consciousness and so your body doesn’t know that it shouldn’t actually move when your dream-consciousness tells it to.
I’ve interpreted some of the instances of this as a protective mechanism: if you’re lying in a position where your tongue might block your airway or for some other reason your body decides that you’re not safely-situated for sleep, it jerks you awake to encourage you to start over in another position… sort of like an abort to the launch sequence. I don’t know whether there’s anything to this interpretation; it’s just a pet theory.
When I’ve been aware of such sudden-jerks, it’s been around Guidepost 6, just as I’m about to slip into sleep, and is usually accompanied by a micro-dream in which I need to suddenly move for some reason (usually, it’s that I missed a step on a staircase or something like that; but once I remember flinging my arm out in front of me to catch a baseball coming my way).
Some of this may be as you theorize: that sleep paralysis is lagging dream-consciousness and so your body doesn’t know that it shouldn’t actually move when your dream-consciousness tells it to.
I’ve interpreted some of the instances of this as a protective mechanism: if you’re lying in a position where your tongue might block your airway or for some other reason your body decides that you’re not safely-situated for sleep, it jerks you awake to encourage you to start over in another position… sort of like an abort to the launch sequence. I don’t know whether there’s anything to this interpretation; it’s just a pet theory.
That’s a really interesting thought. I’ll have to (try to) remember to check out my breathing next time I jerk awake!