Sleep talking can be fairly embarrassing, as you say things on an unconscious level with no control over what is being revealed.
And, according to new research, there may be even more reason to worry because, if you’re a sleep talker, it’s likely you will say offensive and nasty things while asleep.
The study, carried out by Dr Isabelle Arnulf, discovered that words spoken during sleep talk are often negative and vulgar and directed at another person, Metro reports.
The team of researchers analysed 232 adults –129 had REM sleep behaviour disorder, 87 had experienced sleep walking or night terrors, one had sleep apnoea, and the final 15 had no sleep-related disorders.
Over the course of two nights’ sleep, the researchers recorded what the participants said while they snoozed.
Overall, there were 883 incidences of sleep talk, containing 3,349 understandable words. And it turns out that the most common word said during sleep talk is ‘no’.
The study found that 24% of sleep talk was found to contain negative content, and 22% included ‘nasty’ language. Almost 10% of all sleep talk included swearing.
Why so much negativity?
Researchers believe this is the case because sleep talk happens while we’re in REM sleep, when we’re likely to have intense, emotional dreams. These dreams may contain threatening situations, which can explain the use of negative language.
The funny thing is that grammar seems to remain solid while asleep.
‘What we now know is that sleep talking is very similar to talking awake, in terms of correct grammar, with subordinate sentences, and silence for other[s] to answer, as in awake turn of speech,’ Dr Arnulf told MNT.
‘The differences are qualitative: nocturnal language is negative, tense, more vulgar, and addressed to somebody, not to oneself. It suggests that the brain uses the same networks as awake, and that sleep talking translates the concomitant dreaming activity, which is tense, too.’
So, if you’re a sleep talker you may want to apologise in advance to your sleeping partner, just in case it gets negative.
