On October 6, the American entrepreneur said he jumped from bed during a dream and scratched his back, sides and arms. He attributed the episode to altitude and a disrupted bedtime routine; the report offers no independent medical assessment of that explanation.
Entrepreneur Bryan Johnson said he ended up on the floor with bleeding scratches on his back, sides and arms after a nightmare. He wrote that he dreamed he was on an out-of-control train and jumped off in a panic.
Johnson said similar episodes had happened more often in the past and had sometimes caused serious injuries; on one occasion, he said, he was hospitalized. He linked the latest episode to a disruption of his usual sleep routine.
He said he had spent a week in the mountains at about two kilometres above sea level and had gone to bed later than usual for several consecutive days because of social events. Johnson suggested that the combination of altitude and disrupted sleep may have triggered the episode.
Johnson also described a distinction between an ordinary nightmare and a night terror: he said nightmares occur during REM sleep, when muscle movement is suppressed, while night terrors are associated with slow-wave sleep, when a person can move. This is Johnson’s own explanation as reported by Lenta; the article does not cite an independent medical assessment.