Sleep Talking

[blas]

Please tell me I am not the only person in the world with this problem.

I have been talking in my sleep as long as I can remember. I also have a tendency to make a lot of moaning noises in my sleep.

I remember still living at home with mom and dad, they could hear me talking in my sleep all the way upstairs, or if I was napping on the couch. Occasional mumbling, but most of the time, full on sentences. Sometimes I would even start yelling or hyperventalating.

Living alone for 4 years now, I've only caught myself doing it a handfull of times. I have caught myself moaning or groaning, though.

It was difficult at first in my last relationship because it bothered the hell out of my last boyfriend. He did get used to it after a while, in fact, he started doing it too after a few months of spending two nights a week with me.

But now I'm embarrassed again because I have been seeing someone new and all four times we have slept together, he has been woken up by me either talking or mumbling or moaning in my sleep. He claims he can make me stop by touching me, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.

And just this evening, I laid down for about a half hour at my parents' house, and all I remembered was my mom asking me "What are you talking about, sleepy?" and I opened my eyes and said "I'm doing it again, aren't I?" and she said I had been, and I asked what I was talking about and she said that I had been telling someone that my brother and his girlfriend took the cat fishing. ?!?!?!!?

This is so embarrassing.

What's worse is I'm already in doo doo with the clinic as it is, my insurance only covers specialists if I'm referred, and that's still an extra co-pay to see a specialist, plus I cannot afford, nor do I want to be put on anything to put me out to shut me up.

I take melatonin every day as a suppliment to sleep (only 1 mg) just because working nights, I know I'm messed up as it is with a sleep schedule.

Any advice?

[Seshat]

A sleep-talks. Whole sentences, sometimes she can have a conversation with someone. If you don't mind the conversation being surreal.

To us, it's just an amusing quirk. Part of who she is.

[AdminAssistant]

I occasionally talk in my sleep. It's just something that happens. Fiance doesn't mind at all.

[Giggle Goose]

Slightly OT...YAY for new guy!! I hope he is a bajillion times better than the drunken man-child. In every way possible.

BF talks in his sleep. Thing is, I can never make out what he's saying. It sounds like he's attempting to speak in full sentences, but it's all gibberish. It used to kind of freak me out, but I just tell him to shut up and roll over.

When I shared a room with my sister as kids, she said I would say "Five more minutes, mom!" as if she was already in there trying to wake me up. But no new reports since then.

Why so self-conscious, Blas? It's just a quirk, and I think new guy will understand. At least you don't snore! I do when I lay on my back, and BF will turn me over. He calls that my "off" switch.

[Riesie]

I talk in my sleep most nights, and walk in my sleep occasionally. The only time it's really bothered my hubby was when he woke up because I had put him in a headlock and was saying 'This is REALLY important' until he acknowledged me, and then just mumbled. If he talks back to me when I'm doing it, I apparently hold a full conversation with him, but I'm quite capable of waffling on to myself for a while too. He whispers in his sleep though, and that is freaky, since it just sounds like hissing..

[MaggieTheCat]

I mumble and moan in my sleep. If I'm taking a nap on the couch and my husband is in the living room with me, he can hear me, but otherwise I guess I'm quiet enough at night that it doesn't wake him up. I also don't think I actually talk in my sleep, unless he hasn't told me that.

The first few times I fell asleep on the couch and my husband was in the room and I started mumbling in my sleep, he was like, "Huh?" and I'd wake up and be like, "What?" and he'd be like, "Did you just say something?" and I'd be like, "Um...no?" and we were both really confused. Then he figured out that I'm just sort of moaning in my sleep. I think it amuses him. I've also apparently meeped in my sleep (we make kitty noises at each other, mostly meeps...so now I've started doing it in my sleep...)

[Giggle Goose]

I've also apparently meeped in my sleep (we make kitty noises at each other, mostly meeps...so now I've started doing it in my sleep...)

Now that's cute!

[Bardmaiden]

I mutter in my sleep, my b/f talks and in fact was very talkative last night I love hearing what his sleep talking self comes up with.

I quote from last night "My sushi was too hot"

[Dasota]

(we make kitty noises at each other, mostly meeps...so now I've started doing it in my sleep...)

I do that. I also moan in my sleep too. I don't talk much in my sleep, I did a lot more as a kid though.

It's just your brain not fully paralyzing you as you sleep, which we have has a safety measure so we don't sleep walk out of the house and into the street. Since you're only talking though, it's not as much of a big deal. I also used to sleep walk when I was a kid. My parents had to install a chain lock that was higher than I could reach because I would try and unlock the door and leave the house.

[Kogarashi]

As far as I know, Dasota's got the why of it correct.

I only talk when I'm half-awake. I'm aware enough to realize I'm being addressed and will respond, but the coherent part of my brain is still out so my responses, while in English, make no sense in the context of the original question. For instance, when a friend spent the night once, the next morning she woke me up to tell me that breakfast was ready. My response was "Just don't break the tool," after which I woke fully and had to ask her what I'd just said because I knew it was random, I just didn't know the content. I also once nodded off in a church class and woke up just enough to answer a question about why the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years (my answer: "they didn't have a flashlight").

Two of my sisters occasionally say things in their sleep, but it's very rare. One actually called out for help in the middle of the night, yelling at me to stop...something. I don't know what, and neither did she once she was awake. What my family really does, though, is snore.

I had one friend growing up, though, who was notorious in our group for her sleep-talking. She would say full sentences, perfect enunciation and everything, and even have conversations, all without waking up. She sleep-walked once, talking about some "final decision" that had to be made, before wandering into the bathroom. When she came out later, we asked her about the final decision and she had no clue what we were talking about. Another time, at a campout, she asked one of our (female) youth leaders to the prom all in her sleep, and at yet another sleepover, humming in her ear while she slept got her to talk about bats flying around before slapping her ear and saying, "Hello?"

[42_42_42]

Every now and then I talk in my sleep. And sometimes I laugh out loud in my sleep. Used to annoy my exfiance to no end b/c he would wake me up and demand to know what I was laughing at. 9 times out of 10 I wouldn't remember what I'd been dreaming. The times I would, it would just seem so stupid that I didn't want to say. He would get so pissed at me. Just one of the many reasons he's and ex. The hubs has never remarked on me talking or laughing in my sleep, but then, he sleeps very soundly, so it doesn't really surprise me.

[Food Lady]

I've been a sleepwalker, sleep-talker, and sleep-hitter (walls, people, whatever) my whole life. I have also had night terrors, which are panic attacks in your sleep. When that happens, I am usually thinking some disaster is happening, and I leap out of bed and run into the next room. Even at that point, my brain is still laboring under the "dream". So, you're not so bad.

[Zellie Crescent]

I'm either completely quiet or I mumble random crap.

[Sakka]

I found out from a grandparent at a young age that when my dad was a kid/teen, he used to talk in his sleep. Grandma always knew what mischief he had been up to because at night she'd go into his room and ask him. Then ask him about it again the next morning, with details.

I know I talk in my sleep, when I was very little parents would comment that I'd be awake at some insane hour, singing or talking to myself while they were trying to sleep. Or the insomnia and night owl tendencies started real young in me.

In my late teens, parents would ask me about stuff while I was napping, and sometimes I would answer coherently, or it would be completely surreal. Took me awhile to figure out just how they managed to keep eyes on me so well, until one of them let slip about me talking in my sleep. A few months later, I was incredibly tired early in the evening and had goen to bed early. I remember dozing lightly then a parent asking me about something. I was awake enough that I was semi-aware of what was going on around me, and annoyed enough that I spun/dreamed a story involving a couple cousins and myself, some booze, a hot day, etc.

I can sleep with my eyes open, freaking out anyone who witnesses it, I was watching parents as they were getting more and more at my story. Until I blinked my eyes, sat up straight, looked em in the eyes and told them to quit with my sleep, I run on little enough of it as it is. I then rolled over and went to sleep.


Next day, parent was asking me how I had slept the night before. The look on their faces when I commented about waking up mad that morning, not entirely sure why (yeah, right), and would the moron who was messing with my sleep please knock it off before I started seeing how well they function on four hours or less a day.
I think they were feeling guilty about it as parent spilled that I talk in my sleep, appearantly I had been talking about something that some cousins and I had done that was, any way you look at it, highly illegal and rather icky.

Me: Really?
Parents: ... You were awake!?
me: Yep, and I'm serious about what I said about you messing with my sleep.
Parents: ... Out of curiousity, how did you make the pupils of your eyes red like that? You almost gave us a heart attack by sitting up suddenly, eyes open, visibly red and looking like you were pissed off.
me: Gee, I wonder why I'd be annoyed at having my sleep messed with.

[Seshat]

I found out from a grandparent at a young age that when my dad was a kid/teen, he used to talk in his sleep. Grandma always knew what mischief he had been up to because at night she'd go into his room and ask him. Then ask him about it again the next morning, with details.

~*~ I hear the secrets that you keep ... when you're talking in your sleep ~*~

- The Romantics, "Talking in Your Sleep"