What Causes that Float Tank Twitch? – DSP 244

Graham and Ashkahn discuss what causes that mysterious twitch people sometimes experience in the float tank, called the hypnic jerk (AKA hypnagogic jerk, sleep start, sleep twitch, myoclonic jerk, or night start ). While the guys offer up some interesting theories, there’s not a lot of research that’s been done on what causes these, so we’re left with theories, more or less.

Ashkahn thinks it has to do with pancakes.

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Ashkahn: Okay. Welcome, everybody.

Graham: Hey there. I am Graham.

Ashkahn: And I am Ashkahn.

Graham: And today’s question is, “what are the reasons behind sudden jerking/twitching in a tank?”

Ashkahn: Hmm.

Graham: The old tank twitch.

Ashkahn: The old tank twitch. Classic.

Graham: Classic.

Ashkahn: Super classic.

Graham: I was just going to say regular classic.

Ashkahn: No, this one I think officially has made it into the super classic category.

Graham: Were it a person, it might be a superhero, is that it?

Ashkahn: No, it doesn’t have any service to society, it’s just-

Graham: Cool. So, yeah. We don’t have a great answer, as me and Ashkahn.

Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah.

Graham: And that’s because the world doesn’t have a great answer.

Ashkahn: I have some ideas. I got some ideas.

Graham: Think of this though not as- what, what ideas do you have?

Ashkahn: So I haven’t really looked into this at all, but, you know, I have some thoughts.

Graham: Okay, great. Yeah, I’m ready to hear them. I’ve looked into it quite a bit, so.

Ashkahn: So.

Graham: Wrong. So let’s start with what they’re actually called.

Ashkahn: Okay.

Graham: Do you have ideas on that?

Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah. Tank twitch I think is one name that people call them.

Graham: Hypnic jerks is the actual kind of classic name for this, or hypnagogic jerks, or tank twitches in certain circles.

Ashkahn: Certain circles. And they happen all the time. I mean, people experience this while they sleep, too, right? It’s not just a float tank thing.

Graham: They actually experience it when they don’t sleep, as well.

Ashkahn: You just twitch when you’re awake?

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Oh.

Graham: About one to two times an hour in old age, and about five to seven times per hour if you’re in the under 10 sort of range.

Ashkahn: You really did look into this.

Graham: I mean, it’s something that interested me like three years ago, so I kind of dug deep, yeah. Here, go on, what are your theories?

Ashkahn: So my theories are, you know, sometimes-

Graham: Wrong. No, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

Ashkahn: I was just going to say it’s very common to dream about cooking pancakes, and so kind of that motion where you flip a pancake in a pan, that’s very similar to the twitch that people have inside of float tanks, so I think most researchers say that that’s the most, that’s the strongest theory I think we have.

Graham: The spatula embodiment theory.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Where your body is actually the spatula that you’re-

Ashkahn: Yeah. And it’s just, it’s, you know, it’s a form of how we have empathy with other inanimate objects.

Graham: But I mean, I don’t know if I have anything to add.

Ashkahn: Here’s what I’ve actually heard. Here’s actually what I heard, is that some people think it maybe has to do with us being monkeys and used to sleeping in trees, right. Something about twitching, it kind of goes with that falling feeling, because there’s something about falling out of a tree. Right?

Graham: Sure, that does sound like something that someone would say.

Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s an actual, that’s a thing I read on the internet, so.

Graham: Wikipedia, or, where did you get that one?

Ashkahn: I don’t think it was Wikipedia, I think it was just some random internet site.

Graham: Way less, way less qualified than Wikipedia.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it was right below the spatula thing.

Graham: So basically, we don’t, like, actually Ashkahn’s answers are about as close as we’ve gotten to a lot of this stuff, right? There’s a lot of theories out there. We don’t really know why they happen in regular life. For kind of happening as we’re falling asleep or different times, as we’re getting relaxed, things like that. It does seem to happen when we’re a little more agitated, you know, like if we’ve been drinking caffeine, if we’re worked up, things like that, which is interesting, almost just kind of your autonomic nervous system, just a little bit more excited, I guess, makes them a little bit more likely to occur, but that’s only in some people. There’s not a direct correlation across everyone and certain indicators.

Again, we don’t even know why this happens to regular people who are laying in bed, or to people kind of throughout the day, or for people who are in the tank. In the tank, I have this feeling that we notice it more. You know, like, we’re used to it when it happens in our bed, and also our bed doesn’t splash when we jerk. So I wouldn’t be surprised-

Ashkahn: Unless you have a water bed.

Graham: Even then, you’re not in the water, right, it’s the bed is just kind of surrounded.

Ashkahn: You should see my water bed.

Here’s the other thing-

Graham: Let me finish what I’m saying, I let you finish your crazy theories, right?

All right, so, so that, I mean, but that is, right? I think that when we’re in the float tank, these jerks are actually very likely to be happening with the same frequencies when we’re in bed or even not in bed and kind of just going through our daily life, and I think during the middle of the day when they happen, we just don’t even really notice them, because we’re so distracted by whatever we’re doing and other things going on, and when we’re really not doing anything laying in bed, we can be a little more aware of when they’re occurring, like when we’re falling asleep.

And then when we’re in the tank, it’s like you jerk your arm, and it makes a noise and there’s water splashing when there was nothing else going on, so I almost think, my personal theory to add to Ashkahn’s eloquent theories that he put forward earlier, is just that we notice them more, like that it doesn’t even necessarily happen more in the float tank, but we’re more aware of them, just because it’s a different environment, and that medium is more likely to make the jerks more noticeable.

Ashkahn: Well, so I specifically associate these with the kind of falling asleep stage, you know what I mean? These are the most prevalent to me and I feel like when you talk to people they’re mostly associated with specifically that moment, like, you know, you don’t really hear about people talking about them a lot while they’re awake. You don’t really, I guess, notice them or have people talking about their significant others or something twitching while they’re deep in REM sleep or something, right? This to me is very tied into that kind of in between, not REM, kind of falling asleep sort of stage. And so I’ve always thought they’re specifically prevalent in float tanks because we’re, you’re kind of very much in that state in a float tank for prolonged periods of time. You’re not hitting those REM cycles. You’re not in that kind of fully awake, conscious state. You’re specifically in that same state that I feel like this is the majority of times this happens to me in my life is specifically that, that little kind of subsection of consciousness.

Graham: For sure and I mean, it makes sense. Our body releases chemicals that paralyze us during our actual sleep, right, so we’re not actually wandering around as we’re having dreams and things like that, so I think a lot of the kind of involuntary muscle action happens before that kicks in and before we get into the REM sleep cycles. But I mean, there are also cases where if that messes up, then you will jerk in the middle of the night during your sleep. Or maybe you’ve had a nightmare and you’ve woken up and you’re actually kind of like twisted in the sheets and stuff like that, and it’s because your body is kind of pushing past those chemical releases and thinks that things are real and feels the need to struggle against them or something, you know.

And, all of this, we’re saying not as scientists or as doctors, so definitely keep that in mind, you know, and again, a lot of these are theories and information that we’re still developing, even in relation to the chemicals that do seem to cause sleep paralysis, we don’t really know what they are. We’re just kind of starting to discover what receptors are, are really doing that, and what we need to block, and a lot of that research is even new and forthcoming, so.

If you do look up hypnic jerk, like even just knowing the name of what you’re looking into here will help you do a lot of your own research and dig into what’s going on. But as you look into it, don’t be surprised if you start hitting a lot of contradictory information, and I would really encourage you to look for the more scientific studies on this, rather than just forums where people are talking about them or something like that, because a lot of people have opinions, and just like me and Ashkahn, a lot of us are not actual professional scientists and maybe our opinions shouldn’t be trusted as much as the people who are really doing the research out there.

Ashkahn: And it certainly doesn’t seem like an issue. Like, you know, I think this has been happening to humans for quite a long time.

Graham: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You’re not a freak if you twitch in the float tank. It’s totally normal. I mean, almost anyone, like, our-

Ashkahn: I don’t think the float tank is doing anything to make this happen to people or anything like that.

Graham: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that’s another thing that I wanted to get across is this does happen all the time, you know, it’s not unique to the float tank.

Ashkahn: Oh yeah, super, one of the most I think commonly shared float experiences.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. I know no one who’s been a long-term floater who doesn’t have this, so again, you’re not weird, this is something that happens, and it happens outside of the float tank as well.

Ashkahn: I have heard that sometimes people go in that have pretty serious physical pain or actual issues from some sort of injury or something like that, or some sort of actual kind of a hereditary disability or something, but people in those sorts of states where their body is used to being maybe very contorted, I’ve heard things where they say they have a huge amount of twitching that happens in the float tank. This is just anecdotally, for people who float at our place and come out and like, you know, people who’ve actually had to have someone assist them getting in and out of the float tank, that kind of level of physical trauma, have come out sometimes and then more than once that they told me that they were just in there and had, you know, prolonged and like large periods of twitching in their body.

Graham: Yeah, so what’s going on there? I have no idea. Right? I can come up with a bunch of theories.

Ashkahn: Probably something different. They weren’t saying it was, you know, as they were drifting off or anything like that. It might be a completely different phenomena.

Graham: Sure, maybe their ape ancestors lived in trees for longer. They’re just a little more sensitive to it, you know?

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Cool, well, thanks for the good question on this one. I always like saying that I don’t really know anything, so this provided ample opportunity for that.

Ashkahn: If you guys have other questions, you can go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.

Graham: And, yeah, we’ll talk to you again tomorrow.

Ashkahn: Yeah. All right. Bye, everyone.

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