Wednesday, September 24, 2008

PGO and the Startling Wake up


I like it when I'm listening to the radio and I learn something interesting that, I never really intended to learn, but wondered why I didn't.

Have you ever had one of those episodes where you are dozing off at church and suddenly your whole body shutters and you are violently rattled into 100% awake mode for the next 2 minutes? Sometimes, it even happens in the comfort of your bed. You are sleeping although maybe it feels like you just started sleeping and suddenly you spasm into wakefulness.

They said on the radio this morning that there is a name for this. So, when you suddenly twitch in all directions and your significant other says, "What happened? Bad dream?" You can say, "No dear, bad PGO". Or if you are feeling really crazy you can say, "No dear, bad Ponto-geniculo-occipital".

If you do research on the Internet, wikipedia calls this twitching the "Hypnic jerk", but goes on to say they don't really know what causes it. Are they related or are they two completely different things (albeit both related to sleep)? Maybe you have to say, "No dear, I'm just a hypnic jerk".

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