As if I don’t talk enough already when I’m awake, let’s add in the fact that I sleep talk… all the time. I currently live in an apartment with five girls, and share a room with two of them. I absolutely love it. However, since the year began, my roommates have been awoken at odd hours of the night by strange noises. Now, I do have a past of sleepwalking, and even sleep texting. However, I thought that was all behind me.
According to my roommate, one night I sat up in bed, seemingly awake, uttered a complete conscious sentence out of my mouth, then laid back down. Hearing this the next morning, I was shocked, mostly because what I had said was in internal thought I truly had. Then, it got worse. My roommate’s boyfriend stayed the night about two weeks ago. The next morning my roommate informed me that her boyfriend had woken up in the middle of the night to me, singing. I was embarrassed to say the least and wanted to know why this happens…. which brings me here.
First off, sleep talking is the act of communicating through dialogue, monologue, or even mumbling during sleep, and being completely unaware of it.
One thing I find fascinating is that sleep talking is somewhat hereditary in the sense that it can potentially run through generations. This actually explains a lot. My mom and aunt have both had extreme sleepwalking and talking episodes in their past.
Symptoms of sleep talking may include certain medications, depression/disorders, sleep deprivation, stress, alcohol, substance abuse, and fever.
Unfortunately, there is no clear treatment for sleep talking. Maybe talking to a physician about the possibility of a sleeping disorder can help. Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule can help “reduce the severity of sleep talking”, according to the National Sleep Foundation article.
Otherwise, it is an unconscious occurrence that is almost completely random and completely harmless. In fact, it is quite common. Roughly 50% of all children and 5% of adults experience sleep talking.
So, guess there’s no stopping me. Sorry roomies!
Janae,
I know so many people that sleep talk so don’t worry you aren’t the only one! I am guilty of having said a few things in my sleep before. One night when I was younger, my mom told me that I got up out of bed, walked into her and my dad’s room and I said “Mom, I need to get the computer paper!” I was……shocked to say the least! Whenever I have heard my friends sleep talk at sleepovers or something, I always think it is hysterical. At least us sleep talkers are giving others a good laugh every once in a while. I was reading on the National Sleep Foundation website that sleep talking is more prevalent in males and children. The website also states, “Sleep talking may be brought on by stress, depression, fever, sleep deprivation, day-time drowsiness, alcohol, and fever.” If you want to check out this website, here is the link to it:
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-related-problems/sleep-talking
Perhaps a way to test this would be to analyze what is going on in the brain while people are sleep talking. I feel that to actually figure out why people sleep talk, as in what happens in the brain while these people are asleep, an experimental study needs to be done instead of an observational study because you cannot rely on people giving you accurate and unbiased information in an interview/survey and there is only so much information that can be collected about this topic through scientists simply watching someone sleep.
I think sleep talking is hilarious! My roommate did it once and yelled the most random thing in the middle of the night, and she had no recollection of it in the morning. Instead of sleep talking, I surprisingly become really mean when I’m sleeping. If someone tries to wake me up, I’ll act annoyed and angry. I feel so bad for people that try to talk to me while I’m sleeping because I have no memory of being mean in the morning!
Regardless, I think sleep talking is funny for the most part. It’s great that your roommate’s boyfriend heard you singing! Hopefully it was a good song!
Apparently, there is an app called “Sleep Talk” that records the things you say during your sleep on your phone. Isn’t that crazy? Here is a video of a guy using it. It’s actually pretty funny. This guy sings too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSrK2qqMaP4
You’re not alone when it comes to sleep talking! I have done it a few times myself, along with sleep walking. I always am a little creeped out when people tell me I slept walked or talk. I never have any memory of it and who knows what I could do or say the next time it happens. I was interested to see if any scientific experiments were done when looking farther into why some people sleep talk. I came across an article, that I posted the link to below, and they looked at the electroencephalographic, or EEG, when people were dreaming. During the study they heard the subjects sleep talk and also discovered that there were four different stages of sleep. Another article that is the second link I posted says that even though sleeping is like we’re unconscious, we still obviously don’t completely go unconscious. Therefore, our brain is still working and thinking giving us a chance to sleep talk. It’s definitely a weird phenomenon and I’m not sure if the studies I found are completely reliable, what do you think?
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=488245
http://www.open-spaces.com/article-v7n4-sack.php