It looks like we’re just not getting enough time to text during the day because our brains have turned to texting in our sleep to get it’s fill. Initial skepticism turned to curiosity when a friend told me she has texted in her sleep multiple times. She woke up to find messages she didn’t remember sending and with a time-stamp that placed her fast asleep.
Or was she? I wondered if sleep texting was really possible and if so, what types of things would we be saying in them? Spilling the beans on various topcs or just babbling?
There is some debate over whether or not sleep texting is really possible or not. Some argue that texting is too complicated a task for our brain to accomplish while truly asleep and that so-called ‘sleep texting’ is actually a case where the person texting is awake, but not for long enough to build a memory of doing so.
On the other side, some researchers argue that in an age where texting is so prevalent, it’s very possible that the process of texting is committed to muscle memory and can therefore happen while truly asleep. More importantly though, they also say that the content of the text message can give you an idea as to whether the person was actually asleep or not.
Much like sleep talking and walking, a person who is truly sleep texting is in a state where the brain is functioning on auto-pilot. This means that your sleep texts may have some real words and maybe even a coherent sentence, but for the most part they will be scattered babble and random thoughts and that’s only if you manage to hit all the right keys.
If you start to get revealing messages from a friend and you suspect they might be asleep or throw out sleep texting as an excuse later, think again, they probably had their phone taken hostage or just wanted to tell you something ‘accidentally’. A true sleep texter will most likely send you messages less readable than the ones from drunk friends.
So sleep soundly, you aren’t going to give away your darkest secrets via text in the night. It’s more likely you’ll pick up your phone and cuddle with it only to wake up with a dead battery. For those of us that use the alarm clock function, that’s a whole different problem. (Shh, I’ve never missed class for that reason before….)
So we have to ask, any of you ever sent texts in your sleep? Do you have a friend that does it? Ever received a sleep text? Anything funny? Please share your sleep texting experiences if you’ve had any or been on the receiving end, it’s an interesting phenomenon.
Personally, I’m waiting for sleep Facebooking to catch on, the potential status updates could be very interesting. Now, sleep tight everyone, and hide your phone from yourself if you have to.