Could Anxiety be causing this problem when i'm trying to fall to sleep?

[laydeechaz]

I'm 19 nearly 20 and i get the most weirdest thing happen to me when i'm falling to sleep. It's like the 'falling sensation'.
It's really hard to explain but i'll try my best.
When i'm trying to fall asleep i suddenly get his huge noise in my head that sounds like when you listen to the radio then you lose the signal you get that 'fuzzy sound' but it's like 1 sec long and very quick but at the same time i get a vision in my head of thick black and white lines moving in a circle around in a square (like something you'd see a fair ground) it really freaks me out and jolts me so hard and i've had it atleast 4 times now.
What on earth is this? Is it serious? I'm too scared to go to sleep incase it happens again.
I suffer from bad Anxiety and usually got to bed with alot of things on my mind, my mind is very active when i'm trying to sleep, i'm also overtired i don't go to sleep till the early hours of the morning, so i'm constantly exhausted.
Any ideas? x

[laydeechaz]

Thank you for the reply!
Yes i don't think it's a symptom of something more serious. I got the same thing last night, my Dad made a loud bang which scared me whilst i was trying to sleep and i got a brief visual of the black and white spiral.
It more than likely is a combination of different thing's happening to my body whilst falling to sleep, when i last got it i was very stressed, had alot on my mind.
But it's just not very pleasant when it does happen.

[M4Y0U]

Hello there,

I know the feeling i had similar issues. It's normal and you shouldnt worry about it. Sometime the brain shut down to sleep more while you are still aware of being awake. That explain the feeling of falling and weird sensation in the brain. And yes it will happen often if your body is tired and your mind is all so busy while you are tryin to fall asleep.

There's another similar phenomena called sleep paralysis. When you are in R.E.M sleep you can become awake while still being in the sleep patern so basicly you are aware but your body is still sleeping. Again this is normal and of course anxiety and stress will boost the frequencies of both falling sensation and sleep paralysis.

Don't worry about it, it's not seizures nor any other disease. Don't let livia1881 scares you with myoclonus and seizures. One thing you can do tho if you insist is taking a CT scan it should show if there's anything wrong that may be causing seizures or if you are prone to seizures and even if you have had seizures. If you wanna talk about it you can write to me and add me to your friends.

Best regards,
M4

[laydeechaz]

Thanks for the replies. :)
Yes i'm aware of the falling sensation, i get that all the time but this thing i've experienced atleast 4 times now is like 3 different things at once. The visual part feels like an hallucination, and then there's the jerk and the noise, the jerk and noise i know are very common whilst falling to sleep. My auntie who's a nurse also agreed it could be 3 different thing's happening at once, brought on by anxiety and being overtired. She said because i'm so anxious before falling to sleep at time's my mind is very active but at the same time i'm so tired, so as i'm falling to sleep and my body send's the signal to my brain to fall asleep my mind just isn't ready and is all over the place and gets over powered and confused so give's me all these things.
So i don't know really.

[Julie359]

In my experience anxiety can cause a wide, huge range of symptoms that doesn't mean you have any nuerological disease what so ever so don't become anxious by now thinking you may have seizures or something like that.  I wrote this cause i feel the last post may end up causing you more anxiety about your falling sensation.  

I have experienced this when i was a child, i went through a very tough time which made me very nervous and anxious. Then I found that in bed my whole body felt like it would start to float up off the bed followed by a very sudden, fast dropping, falling sensation which would make me jump up out of my skin nearly give me a heart attack.  Also just b4 it happened i got like a ringing in my ears with this feeling like everything was big in the room and i became tiny, as if i was no bigger than a bug.  The whole experience would last a few secs but use to happen nearly 3 or 4 times a night and sometimes the tiny feeling would last for an hour or so.

I feel that in times of continued stress your mind can perfom tricks on you and it is its way of telling you that you need to sort things out.  Remove the stress.

[livia1881]

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/myoclonus/myoclonus.htm
Myoclonus refers to a sudden, involuntary jerking of a muscle or group of muscles. In its simplest form, myoclonus consists of a muscle twitch followed by relaxation. A hiccup is an example of this type of myoclonus. Other familiar examples of myoclonus are the jerks or "sleep starts" that some people experience while drifting off to sleep.  These simple forms of myoclonus occur in normal, healthy persons and cause no difficulties. When more widespread, myoclonus may involve persistent, shock-like contractions in a group of muscles.  Myoclonic jerking may develop in people with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Myoclonic jerks commonly occur in persons with epilepsy, a disorder in which the electrical activity in the brain becomes disordered and leads to seizures.



In my experience seroquel is good for halting racing thoughts, it is expensive but it works.

[Naruto55]

wow a few months ago i had a similar problem..like when i was laying down trying to fall asleep i would get the same sensation..i didnt get the noise but i had the falling sensation quite a few times especially if i turned over in bed..hope you feel better

[Ella789]

   I don't know what it could be but it is so worth talking to your Dr. abt.   Sometimes going off benzos can cause that or going off antidepressants.   If it continues please talk to a Dr. abt. it.   I do not know if anxiety can cause this or not.  Perhaps others will come along who can give you their own experiences.

Best wishes
Ella