Why do people talk in their sleep? Do you or your partner have this problem, leaving you wondering why it happens?

Almost all of us have heard the phrase at some point in our lives: “You were talking in your sleep at night”. This phrase can cause different emotions, from surprise to embarrassment and concern, but it always raises a question: “And what did I say?” Usually, the answer is: “Nothing interesting” or “Something indistinguishable“.

When and why do people talk in their sleep, according to science?

Studies have shown that most often, sleep talking is not notable thoughts but just short, “scattered” words that make absolutely no sense.

According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) in the U.S., when people talk in their sleep, it can occur at any sleep stage. At the REM stage, when dreams occur, it is usually caused as a result of the dialogues we see in our dreams.

Practically, that means that the mouth and vocal cords, which are normally inactive while we sleep, are transiently activated and express aloud the words uttered by one of the “protagonists” of our dream.

Talking in sleep may occur during the transitional stages, i.e. when we pass from one sleep stage to another.

In both cases, the speech occurs when something “invades” in our sleep, which makes us talk but prevents us from saying something that makes sense to anyone who is listening.

It is difficult to estimate the frequency of sleep talking because it happens when we sleep and if there is no one awake next to us, we may never learn about the ‘incident’.

However, studies have shown that more than half of children sporadically talk in their sleep, with frequency tend to decrease as they grow older. Chronic sleep talking in adults is considered a sleep disorder and may occur due to stress and other factors.

Moreover, since talking in sleep occurs due to transient overlapping of different stages of consciousness, it usually lasts very little – a few seconds, during which we express a few words.

However, there have been rare cases when a person could have a whole conversation while sleeping. Even these cases are mostly incoherent, but despite they may seem to make sense, they should not be taken seriously into account.

That is why, according to NSF, science and the law do not consider sleep talking a reliable product of the conscious or rational thought.


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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Ron Weasley

    So you mean sleep talking ‘Hermoine’ word which caused my break up shouldn’t really be considered? 😉

  2. Darth Vicious

    I was never aware of the extent of the sleep talking until fairly recently. I went out of town with my boss/best friend and in the middle of the night he knocked on my door and woke me up saying I was talking quite loudly saying “No, no.” over and over. At least a couple of girlfriends have said the same thing & that I also moan and groan a lot too.

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