When Your Mind Wakes Before Your Body

Everyday, I wake up around an hour to an hour and a half before the sun rises. And here’s the thing: sometimes, when I try to get up, I feel like I’ve already gotten up. I can swear I’ve walked to the bathroom, done the whole routine, then I open my eyes and, uh... I’m still lying in bed.

It’s that moment where your brain insists you’ve been awake, while your body says otherwise. I’ve tried convincing myself, “Okay, just get up for real this time,” but nope. Still in bed. And honestly, it feels kind of disorienting. Like my mind is rehearsing the morning before my body actually participates.

Then there’s another thing... mmm, maybe a bit embarrassing, actually. My younger sibling once mentioned that I sometimes yell in my sleep. Yeah. Yell. Even when I have no memory of dreaming anything intense. You’d think only a nightmare about falling would make someone scream, right? But apparently, I do it anyway. And it’s not just quiet muttering—sometimes it’s sharp enough to wake the household. I still don’t know what my mind is cooking up during those moments.

And here’s where it gets even stranger. I’m extremely sensitive to sound while sleeping. Even a single unexpected noise can make it really hard for me to fall back asleep—or sometimes just snap me awake completely until it’s time to get up anyway. So, combine that with early morning sleep cycles and occasional yelling in dreams, and you’ve got a recipe for mornings that feel oddly... alive.

I’ve been reading about things like false awakenings and sleep talking, and yeah, it kind of fits. False awakenings are when your mind convinces you that you’re awake, even though your body is still firmly in bed. Sleep talking—or, in my case, sleep yelling—can happen during certain stages of sleep, often without any clear connection to what you’re dreaming. And then there’s that weird mix of REM and light sleep before dawn, where your brain is starting to prepare for the day, but your body hasn’t fully caught up yet.

So yeah, technically, none of this is dangerous. It’s just strange. And, well, a bit fascinating too. There’s something humbling about realizing that even when you think you’re moving through your morning, your body and mind might still be in a completely different reality. And honestly, mmm, it kind of makes me appreciate those quiet, half-aware moments—the ones you can’t quite explain, the ones that look like life but are really just your mind doing its thing.

Anyway, I’m thinking this could be the start of a longer reflection. Maybe there’s something to explore about how our brains and bodies are sometimes out of sync, and how little control we actually have over these strange, in-between hours. Huh. Yeah. It’s weird, but I think I like it.