• Question: why do we sleepwalk and sleeptalk?

    Asked by to Laurence, Greig, Dave, Chris, Aimee on 14 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Laurence Perreault Levasseur

      Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 14 Jun 2014:

      I honestly have no idea. I was curious so I looked online for a bit, and apparently the reasons why this happens are not well understood at all. Apparently (according to wikipedia and web MD), things like certain medications, emotional stress, fever, etc… can make it worse. If it’s very violent (like you kick and punch around in your sleep, or you act everything you do in your dreams), it can be the sign of a more serious disease, but most of the time it’s completely harmless (except of waking up everyone in the house!).

      My brother use to ask for food during his sleep when he was a kid 😛 My dad would make him something good and bring it to him, and then he’d be mad that ma dad woke him up! I also had a roommate who use to laugh ALL THE TIME when she was sleeping….

    • Photo: Aimee Hopper

      Aimee Hopper answered on 15 Jun 2014:

      Fundimentally it’s because our neurons are still firing when we sleep, and because they are what make us do things, the right ones firing mean we will talk/walk/eat etc.

      Apparently, I enjoy night time conversations with my partner about putting flowers on the ceiling in shoes… haha! Not that I remember of course 😛

    • Photo: Dave Jones

      Dave Jones answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      When we are asleep, certain parts of our brain rest but other parts of our brain keep on working just as they did while we were awake. During this process, the parts of our brain that control movement and speech should be at rest or at least sort of disconnected. For one reason or another (genetic disposition, certain drugs, stress), this doesn’t happen in people who sleep walk or sleep talk – meaning those parts of the brain are active (maybe not totally but enough) and connected enough to make them do things. Most of the time it doesn’t mean anything and it’s totally harmless, but very occasionally it can be a symptom of something more serious.

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