“I haven’t put on weight. Your eyes are fat!”
“My vision of hell is a lentil casserole.”
“The bagels have declared independence. The bakery is up in arms! There’s a giant flour cloud enveloping everything. Don’t trust the macaroons.”
These are just a few of the odd and seemingly non sequitur phrases uttered by the now famous Sleep Talkin Man, “A mild mannered English husband” who lives with his wife in New York, who has rather colorful language while he sleeps, and his wife writes it all down.
Sleep talking, also known as Somniloquy, is actually a sleep disorder. According to the National Sleep Foundation “Sleep talking may be brought on by stress, depression, fever, sleep deprivation, day-time drowsiness, alcohol, and fever. In many instances sleep talking runs in families, although external factors seem to stimulate the behavior.” That’s all well and good but, as far as I’m concerned – and I’m sure you’d agree – the things people say in their sleep can be freaking hilarious! So I thought it would be fun to reach out to my newsletter subscribers and my Facebook “fans” and ask them to share the freakiest things they or a loved one has uttered in their sleep. Let me tell you, I got quite the response! It seems we are all quite the conversationalists in our sleep…
“My boyfriend at the time told me in his sleep to meet him around the corner and bring the mustard. I laughed so hard and asked him later what the mustard was for?”
– Shannon Love Hall, Surprise, AZ
“I was staying with my grandmother and told her to ‘Put the cat in the bag.’ ”
– Jen Arnautu, Brrokfield, WI
“My Mom told a funny story about my Dad sleep talking. He sat up in bed, looked at her and said ‘Aren’t you that great baseball player?’ Mom said…’What?’ ‘Are you that great baseball player?’ he replied, and she said ‘No’ and he just laid back down and was quiet.”
– Yvonne Graf, Dakota County, MN
“Our first night together, my husband shouted in his sleep, ‘Where are my pants?’ He also said, ‘Where did the glass go?’ Years later, he made a short speech in a weird language that sounded like a Roman general addressing his troops before a battle, complete with hand gestures.
– Alison Walker Payne, Portland, OR
“My ex husband always talked in his sleep and 2 of our boys do it. The funniest thing I remember him saying was, “Look at the hair on that truck!”
– Heather R Stokes, Stone Ridge, NY
“When I was about eight, I once had a strange dream, but thought nothing of it, when I went to talk to my mum, she said I was sleeptalking and she told me I said “No! That’s my cake! Give it back! That’s my cake!”
– Bryony Simpson, Yorkshire, England
“I screamed, ‘Stop the taco truck’! one time and my sister will never let me forget it.”
– Holley Bennett, Cape Coral, FL
“At different times I’ve said, “Yabba dabba doo.” Gobble gobble.” and “Purple bunnies.”
– Melissa Missy Harceow, Clarksville, TN
“I woke up to my husband laughing hysterically when he was dreaming of dancing chicken feet… No bodies just feet.”
– Lauri Young, Virginia Beach, VA
“One time I was asleep and my friends woke me up asking a trivia question regarding what country exports the most timber. I was confused and said I have no idea. They said I was answering all the questions in my sleep to jeopardy. And I was right. But consciously had no clue of the answers.”
– Nicole Bellenfant, Knoxville, TN
“The funniest thing my husband ever said in his sleep was, ‘ I can perform any laboratory test that you need’.”
– Tracy Truslow, Fort Bragg, NC
“My little sister slept walked to the dining room table and asked us, ‘Are they gone yet’?”
– Andrea Norman Mindigio, Nashville, TN
“One of the strangest things I have said is, ‘I’ve lost my knees. I’ve left them in Wales’!”
– Erin Fine, Cheshire, England
And to be fair, I’ll share something I’ve said in my sleep. When I was young, my older sister Deborah used to like to wake me up in the middle of the night and bring me into her room to sleep. Usually, it was an uneventful task, but she told me there were a couple of times when I really freaked her out. One time I said, as I stopped in her doorway, “I can’t go in there. Your room is too skinny!” And another time, shortly after I climbed into bed with her I said, “Deborah… is that you up there?”
Oh sleep, you make babbling lunatics of us all!
Share some of the crazy things you or a loved one has said during sleep in the comments below.
One time I heard my friend saying in her sleep- “Get the mouse”
This is an old article, but I enjoyed it so I figured I'd share my story too. Woke both my boyfriend and myself up last night after saying something along the line of "us doing drugs". He said "What?" To which I woke up and realized what I had just said. Confused, I replied "Uhhh Nothing?" This morning we both laughed about it.
I for some reason woke up thinking I was trapped in my tiny speaker and creeped my friend out asking where I was. After we got settled, I accidentally knocked myself out on my end table. Crazy night
I talk in my sleep and I giggle in my sleep and when my family saw How To Seceded In Business Without Really Trying, I was singing one of the song from it in my sleep
Lol. One timey oldest son slept walked into room and opened the closet door. When I asked what he was doing he said looking for more rules. Then he dropped his drawers and I had to bring him to the bathroom. My youngest son once asked me where his mom was. I said right here and he started screaming "your not my mom! Get away from me!" Neither one remembered it the next morning.
Thanks for sharing this!
One time while spending the night at my high school friends home I talked in my sleep. I sat up, gently shook her shoulder as she awoke to me urgently saying "who ARE you? Who ARE you?" She just looked at me and said "I'm Mary!" Then I woke up, and was a little disoriented! I think I sacred her! Lol! I think in real life, I had been feeling as if I'd "known her before." I was trying to figure out who she was! Guess my dreaming mind was working on it!