Ask the parents of any class of primary school children if their kids talk in their sleep, and a large proportion will say yes. Sleep talking is common in childhood and sometimes continues into adulthood.
Although sleep talking belongs to a group of parasomnias (unwanted events that occur duriong sleep), it’s not of the same order as bedwetting or night terrors. ‘Sleep talking is not a condition,’ says Professor Morgan of Loughborough University’s Clinical Sleep Research Unit. ‘It’s a phenomenon – and definitely not abnormal.’
We are hard wired when we sleep to adopt certain physiological states (heart and breath rate slow) that are accompanied by behavioural states (such as being ‘paralysed’ during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep – so you can’t act out your dreams.