Cat was sleeping on me, then jolted awake.

PhysicalSadness

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I was falling asleep with my cat on my chest, he likes to lay on peoples chests with his head on your cheek. He was sleeping like that and I was about to sleep until he randomly jolted awake and looked around with wide eyes. He then moved to my legs and sat down. Does anyone know why this happened? Was it a bad dream?
 

vince

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It doesn't take much to wake a cat. They'll be lying on the bed with me, I'll yawn and they head for the hills. I don't know what will set them off, either. There can be fireworks outside on Independence Day, and they'll just sleep through it, but the furnace kicks on and they scatter. Cats works in mysterious ways!
 

Caspers Human

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It's probably something called a "Hypnic Jerk."


It's that sensation you get, just as you are falling asleep, and you feel like you are falling then suddenly startle awake. Doctors and scientists aren't sure why hypnic jerks occur but they theorize that it's a built-in reflex to prevent a person from falling.

Imagine you live in prehistoric times where humans seek out high places to sleep for safety reasons. You might sleep in a high place like a tree or a ledge so that predators or other humans couldn't attack you while you were asleep. In such a case, it would be advantageous to have a built-in reflex to prevent you from falling. Your body and brain would continually take stock of your position as you began to fall asleep and you would wake up if you started to fall.

This is the dominant theory but it's still unproven. How would you test that theory, anyhow? Would you wait for a person to fall asleep then push them out of bed? ;) That would be unethical! :headshake: Not to mention, dangerous! :nono:

Let's take the theory for granted, just for sake of discussion...

Cats are known for sleeping in high places like trees or ledges. Right?
Wouldn't it make sense for cats to have the same built-in hypnic jerk reflex?

So, your cat is sleeping on your chest with his head nestled next to yours. He's in a slightly precarious position. Your chest rises and falls with your breathing. It would be relatively easy for a cat to slip as he nods off to sleep. Wouldn't it?

This sounds like a perfect setup. Doesn't it?

This is all backed up by the fact that, when your cat woke up, looked around and got his bearings, he moved to another place in bed where he could be next to you but with less risk of falling.

All this, having been said, hypnic jerks are perfectly normal for humans. According to the article in Wikipedia that I linked to, up to 70% of people have experienced hypnic jerks at least once in their lifetimes.

It seems pretty logical to me that cats would be very similar to humans in this respect. :)

Bottom line: Normal. :)
 
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