Twitching?

OK, I feel a little stupid for this post, but it's been bothering me for a while now.

Several times now, both my cats have been sat there... dropping off to sleep and then they start to twitch. Now, all their lives they've done the little twitchy paws as they sleep, running paws and stuff, but this is like an entire body twitch. Their tail goes, their back paws twitch up and down, their front paws go, their ears twitch! It looks like they're being controlled by a puppet master, tbh.

Just normal kitty sleeping behaviour, right?!

My cat Cleo, was diagnosed quite a few years ago with CRF (Chronic Renal Failure.) She always twitched....actually, it was more of a full body tremor, sort of what you do when you get a chill...except she'd do it in the summer time too. I mentioned it on the CRF-Support-Site @ Yahoo!Groups, and they recommended supplementing her diet with B complex vitamins. I've been giving them to her for nearly 3 years now, and she hasn't had a tremor in more than 2 1/2 years.

But what you're probably seeing is just he kitty equivalent of REM. The sleep, not the band.

When we adopted Zachary he would have muscle spams/twitching when he was laying down relaxed before he would fall asleep. His whole body would "jerk" and it seemed to annoy him a bit. Once he fell asleep he was normal and did not jerk. We were very concerned about this but he checked out ok by our cat vet. After living with us for a few months I noticed that he does not do it anymore.

He was 18 months old when we adopted him and have no idea of his health history prior to him coming to live with us. He does have food allergies (fish) so he is on a strictly no fish diet. Perhaps it was diet related with him. I'm glad he does not do it anymore cause it was always scary to watch.