Worry not. While it's a great plot device for a TV drama, revealing secrets while sleep talking is probably unlikely to occur. According to a study, it's not the best method to get someone to reveal their secrets!
Sleep talking usually occurs by itself and is most often harmless. However, in some cases, it might be a sign of a more serious sleep disorder or health condition. REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) and sleep terrors are two types of sleep disorders that cause some people to shout during sleep.
Sleep talking is predominantly seen in individuals with mental health issues or conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Sleep talking can also be associated with nightmares, especially in children.
“There's some evidence that, at times, sleep talking may be related to dreams, but this is not always the case,” Dr. Drerup explains. Most dreams happen when you're in the deep, rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep. But sleep talking can happen during any stage of sleep, including both REM and non-REM sleep.
The Sleep-Talking Brain
On the other hand, since non-REM sleep doesn't lead to paralysis, Barrett says sleep talking during this stage is thought to be caused by “partial awakenings” of brain regions involved in language production that can be picked up with electrodes on the scalp, called EEG.
Experts are not entirely sure why sleep talking occurs in some people and not in others. Generally, those who talk in their sleep do not have any underlying health conditions. Sleep talking is a widespread type of parasomnia.
(Inside Science) -- Even when sleeping deeply you are more aware of what is going on around you than you might realize. New research suggests that the human brain is constantly monitoring its surroundings, including processing sounds, to decide if you need to wake up -- it could even let you learn in your sleep.
Racing thoughts at night are often a symptom of anxiety, but anyone can experience them when they have worries on their mind. Such thoughts can be hard to control, cause you to feel overwhelmed, and make it difficult or impossible to sleep.
The name Late Night Conversations alludes to the moments of reflection and inspiration that come from the conversations artists have with their instrument in the quiet solitude of the night.
Signs of Sleep Talking
Sleep talking is considered a parasomnia, which is a type of sleep disorder that involves abnormal behaviors or experiences that happen during sleep: The main symptom of somniloquy is talking during sleep without being aware of it.
Hypnagogic hallucinations are sounds and feelings you experience when you're falling asleep but that aren't actually there. While hearing your own name is one of the more common forms of this, it could also manifest as phantom smells, loud bangs, or the feeling of someone grabbing your arm.
There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened during deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up. Some children experience bedwetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during deep sleep.
Although sleep talking is often genetic, it can be caused by fatigue and lack of sleep or a stressful event in the child's life, so make sure your child has a consistent bedtime routine and is getting the right amount of quality sleep she needs (11 to 14 hours between naps and nighttime at this age).
A new study has found that when sleep talking, people actually have entire coherent conversations, but they're often intense and include profanity. The research found that these conversations are often heightened or negative in nature while remaining grammatically correct.
While people talk about “night terrors,” this is not, in fact, a diagnosable condition, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual fifth edition (DSM-V). It contains elements of conditions known as nightmare disorder, REM sleep behavior disorder, and Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Sleep Arousal Disorder.
Sleep Talking: Children are more likely to talk in their sleep and can outgrow it as they get older. As children get older, sleep talking episodes usually decrease and can happen once every few months or so. They are most common in kids ages 2 to 12.
Sleep deprivation psychosis refers to experiencing an altered perception of reality caused by a prolonged lack of sleep. Psychosis, in general, refers to an episode in which your brain perceives reality differently than other people in the same situation.
People with bipolar disorder also commonly face Night terrors. Disparate nightmares, night terrors do not occur during REM sleep. A night terror isn't a dream, but rather sudden awakening along with the physical symptoms such as intense fear feeling, screaming or thrashing, and increased heart rate and blood pressure.
Sleep talking (somniloquy) is not considered to be a disorder per se in the ICSD-2,5 but it can be part of a symptom complex of a recognized disorder, such as sexsomnia (with “sleepsex talking”), RBD, sleepwalking sleep-related eating disorder, or nocturnal seizures (in which the vocalization tends to be stereotypic ...