Why Do You Dream That You Fall?

It is quite common to dream that one is falling. It is said that at least 95% of all people have had such dreams. This dream often triggers a sudden feeling of anxiety, which can wake you up. What is the reason for such dreams?

Possible explanations for why we dream that we fall

These dreams are quite common. You fall asleep and then you start dreaming that you suddenly fall into a void, that the ground disappears under your feet or that you fall down a cliff. Thus you get the scary experience of falling. The heart rages and you wake up full of anxiety. You may think that you somehow fell out of bed. In some cases, this is exactly what is happening. What are the causes of this phenomenon?

It happens in the first stages of sleep

If you remember these dreams, you will see that they occur within the first few minutes after you have fallen asleep. At the sleep laboratory in Madrid, Spain, they have studied this phenomenon and concluded that the cause is a small imbalance between the vestibular system (located in the ear) and the kinesthetic system.

The body has not yet turned to lie down, which forces us to wake up because we feel that we are falling. This causes many people to simply fall out of bed.

2. Stress is also an important factor

Try to remember how you felt emotionally when you experienced this phenomenon. Dreams about falling are often associated with stress. We expose our brain to a high level of activity, cortisol accelerates the core functions and the brain waves are in full activity. When we then lie down and the body relaxes, the brain remains active, much more active than normal.

This is how a new imbalance arises: an overactive brain and a relaxed body. This creates a feeling that you are falling, which is transferred to our dreams and results in you waking up abruptly.

3. The phenomenon of sleep paralysis

We talked about sleep paralysis in another article that dealt with sleep disorders. This happens when we become aware that we have a nightmare but are unable to wake up. The feeling is very lively and intense, sometimes very scary because everything seems so real. When we dream that we are falling, it is an uncomfortable feeling we want to wake up from before we hit the ground.

We conclude by concluding that the main cause of this phenomenon is stress. The brain is overworked, which in the first phases of sleep leads to an imbalance between it and the body. The brain responds to the imbalance by creating anxious dreams. There is also a theory that such dreams are an instinct we inherited from our ancestors, who slept in the trees and were dependent on waking up quickly so as not to fall down. Interesting, right?