I am one of those people who others look weirdly at after a sleep over. Why is what you want to know I’m sure. The reason being because I sometimes tend to talk in my sleep. I don’t know what I say in sleep; so when people have told me that I’ve talked in my sleep. I always hope I haven’t said anything embarrassing; or said something that I shouldn’t have.
I’ve always wondered how is talking in our sleep even possible?
This phenomenon of sleep talking as everyone calls it has a name and its somniloquy. livescience.com say that somniloquy may happen when we are in either REM and NON-REM sleep period. When sleep talking happens during REM sleep which is usually the stage when we dream. Your mouth and vocal cords are off while you sleep right?. Hear this What happens when we talk in our sleep is that our vocal cords turn on for quickly for a little bit and we say words from our character in our dream.
People look at you like you’re from another planet or something when they hear you talking in your sleep. I’m just trying to sleep why are you listening to me while I’m sleeping is the real question? but for now we’re going to stick to our original question.
Based on research it has been found that sleep talking happens in certain areas of the brain. These areas are the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain; and it mostly happens in the left hemisphere of the brain.
The interesting thing is that sleep talking can happen at any point of the night and no matter what sleep period we’re in. Shelby Harris of Psychology today says in her story that, In the beginning of the night our sleep is heavier so what we say can’t be understood very well. As the night goes on our sleep becomes lighter and what we say in our sleep can be better understood, but what we say in our sleep isn’t going to endanger anyone.
Sleep talking isn’t something to worry about, it doesn’t cause harm to anyone. People don’t think sleeping and talking should be happening at the same time, so they might be concerned. Don’t be alarmed; know that it isn’t the real you that is talking it is the you in your dreams.
Sites: http://www.livescience.com/33794-people-talk-sleep.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-land-nod/201307/sleep-talking-what-does-it-mean
http://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2014.00009
Images: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sleep-talking.html
I love that I found a post on this topic. I wake up every other night to my roommate sleep talking! I think this post could have contained a little more depth though. Maybe including more insightful research. For example after reading your post, I started to wonder who is the most prone to somniloquy. I found an article (https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/sleep-talking), and it stated that males, and children are most likely to start to sleep talk. I also found that sleep talking may be due to depression or stress. You picked a very interesting topic, but it needed a little more content.
I think this was an interesting topic and it makes me wonder if I tend to talk in my sleep! I do wish that you included more advanced analysis of this topic though. There are many questions that could have led to a very informative and insightful post. For example, what triggers sleep talking? Who is more likely to do it? Are certain people predisposed to sleep talking while others are not? What age groups tend to talk in their sleep? Is there a gender difference? Do the specifics of the words have meaning? Are the words a manifestation of the dream the person is having at the time? Overall I think that this was an interesting topic but a very bare bones and uninformative post about it. Sorry to sound harsh, but in the spirit of scientific progress I feel that it behooves us to ask a lot of questions and to be critical at times.
I have always been interested in this topic, because many times I have been told that I too talk in my sleep. It is an interesting phenomenon that is hard for the subject to figure out since you are asleep during the action. Here is a video I found that elaborates on the subject.