Sleep News
Sleep Expert on “Sleep Talkin’ Man”
An English ad-man’s overnight verbal outbursts are an Internet phenomenon, but noted sleep expert Michael J. Breus, PhD, a contributor to SleepBetter.org, says sleep talking is actually quite common and may have a genetic underpinning.
If you haven’t heard about Adam Lennard by now, you probably will. Lennard has become a world-wide Internet comedy star because his wife records his sleep talking nightly. She posts his nocturnal comments on her personal blog, called “Sleep Talkin’ Man”. Both husband and wife insist Lennard is sound asleep when he makes observations such as the following:
- “You can’t be a pirate if you haven’t got a beard. I said so. MY boat, MY rules.”
- “No dog, no play. It’s as simple as that.”
- “I think you should sit down. Surely your ankles can’t take the weight.”
- “I want to be a cowboy. I don’t want to be a panda. Pandas are boring, stupid and boring. Bad panda!”
“Generally speaking, sleep talking can be a frequent event where the sleeper vocalizes anything from mere utterances to a coherent entire conversation,” says Breus. “Often the sleeper will have a monotone voice or grunt out the words, sometimes incoherently. While others have been known to actually sing in their sleep.”
Breus, who is the author of the book Beauty Sleep, says sleep-talking usually occurs in the lighter stages of Non-REM sleep and sleepers usually have no memory of what they said. “The actual words or phrases have little to no truth, and usually occur when they are stressed, during times of fever, as a medication side effect or during disrupted sleep,” Breus added.
Some good news for the Sleep Talkin’ Man and others who mutter in their sleep: sleep talking in and of itself is nothing to worry about. Said Breus, “There is no indication of psychopathology. It really does not mean anything that we currently know of. We do know that it will also happen in times of sleep deprivation.”
The only thing you may have to worry about is who happens to be recording you while you’re sleeping.
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