Sleep talking is common, and it usually is not a reason for alarm
Bharatmorning.com – A person who talks in their sleep may whisper, laugh, mumble, shout a short reply or seem to carry on an entire conversation with nobody else present. The experience can be funny for roommates and families, embarrassing after a sleepover, or simply puzzling for the person who learns about it the next morning.
For Mubina, a 15-year-old from Uzbekistan, the question is straightforward: why do people speak while asleep? The answer lies in the fact that sleep is an active, changing process rather than a complete shutdown of the brain and body.
Sleep talking is one of several experiences known as parasomnias. This term includes things that happen while someone is asleep, such as nightmares and sleepwalking. In many cases, these events are ordinary and harmless. They are generally treated as a problem only when they occur often enough to disrupt sleep, create distress or lead to other meaningful difficulties.
Sleep moves through repeating stages
People do not remain in one form of sleep all night. Instead, the brain cycles through multiple stages, creating what doctors call sleep architecture. A complete cycle takes roughly 90 minutes, and those patterns shift as the night goes on.
Non-REM sleep accounts for about 75% to 80% of a typical night. It includes deeper sleep stages, when the body slows substantially and gets time to rest and repair. Non-REM sleep is more prominent during the first part of the night.
REM, meaning rapid eye movement sleep, makes up about one-quarter of total sleep. This is the stage most strongly linked to memorable, detailed dreams. REM sleep becomes a larger share of a person’s sleep during the early-morning hours.
Even when someone looks completely still in bed, the brain remains busy. Different regions are more or less active at different points in the sleep cycle. That changing activity helps explain why a sleeping person can sometimes produce sounds or speech.
Why words can come out during sleep
Scientists believe sleep talking may occur when areas involved in language and speech are active while systems that normally stop a sleeping person from physically speaking are not fully doing their usual job. The result can range from faint noises to recognizable phrases.
Most sleep talking is not made up of clear language. It more often involves murmurs, whispers or laughter. When words are audible, one especially common word is “no,” which represents about 5% of words spoken during sleep. Questions and profanity can also occur, while polite remarks are relatively unusual. The tone may sound argumentative, as if the sleeper is involved in a disagreement.
Sometimes the pauses and responses make it seem as though the sleeper is participating in a real two-way discussion. One possibility is that an observer is hearing only the spoken side of an exchange taking place in a dream. In sleep-laboratory research, speech produced during REM sleep matched the person’s dream content at that moment around 80% of the time.
“No” is the word most often heard when sleepers use recognizable language.
There can also be a limited opportunity for another person to interact with someone who is talking in their sleep. Research has found that sleepers respond to a spoken question or remark roughly half the time. That does not mean sleep talking can be used to uncover private information. There is no scientific evidence that people reliably disclose secrets or hidden truths while asleep.
It can happen in more than one stage
Although REM sleep is closely associated with vivid dreaming, sleep talking does not appear to belong exclusively to that stage. Available research suggests it may happen during any part of sleep. Scientists are still studying the phenomenon, so there is much more to learn about why it affects some people and not others.
Studies have identified differences between people who talk in their sleep and those who do not. In one study, sleep talkers slept more than an hour and a half less per night and had roughly half as much REM sleep as non-sleep-talkers. Such findings show an association, but they do not establish that sleep talking itself causes shorter sleep or reduced REM sleep.
Why healthy sleep still matters
Sleep is important well beyond preventing tiredness. It is a period when memories are reinforced for long-term storage. Growth commonly takes place during sleep in children, and immune-system activity is also particularly important during this time. Mammals of every size, from mice and cats to elephants, appear to sleep in some form.
For teenagers, doctors recommend 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. Children ages 3 to 5 generally need 10 to 13 hours, while those ages 6 to 12 need 9 to 12 hours. These ranges reflect sleep’s role in physical recovery, learning and development.
For most families, an occasional nighttime mumble or odd phrase is simply one of the many strange things the brain can do while the body rests. It may sound dramatic in the moment, but sleep talking is usually just a harmless glimpse of an active sleeping mind.
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