Arkin, Arthur M. (1981). Sleep Talking Psychology and Psychophysiology. L.

Erlbaum Associates. pp. 4041. ISBN 0-89859-031-0.

Foreword
This book contains, to the best of my knowledge, virtually everything that is publicly known
about sleep-talking, with the greatest amount and most important of this information coming
from the author's own research. The work is thorough, careful, and thoughtful. It is that rare
product that says just about all that can be said on a subject. In short, it is now the
"authoritative work" on sleep talking, and it is likely to remain such for many years.
To all of this, one impulsive response might be a resounding "So what?". To the potential
reader who has seen man leave his planet for the first time and who is bombarded daily with
claims of unsurpassed excellence, the announcement of "the authoritative work on sleeptalking" could produce visions of "sleep reading." Afterall, as the data of this book show,
sleep talking does not occur very frequently; it rarely reveals the sleeper's deepest secrets, and
it has not received very much clinical or theoretical attention. Is the book much ado about an
insignificant anomaly that is useful mostly for newpaper fillers on oddities or for cocktail
party chatter? Our answer is a resounding "No."
It turns out that the core of both popular and scientific interest in sleep talking is that it
happens when "it isn't supposed to," or, more pedantically; it is a behavior which occurs
during sleep although it involves a complexity of psychomotor coordination which is almost
excluded from sleep by definition. Sleep and the absence of complex psychomotor activity
have become disassociated. It is in the nature of disassociations that they are anomalies.
However, fine minds have always been drawn to disassociations. They are exceptions to the
rule which demand a better rule. They are invitations to elevate generalizations to higher or
more accurate levels. It is with this kind of
broad perspective that Dr. Arkin deals with sleep-talking. His main interest is not in how
quaint, comical, revealing, or unusual sleep utterances may be. He is interested in how our
concepts of sleep, speech, and psychophysiological integration may account for the
phenomena of sleep-talking and how they may have to change to do so. The challenge to
sleep scientists is to explain the differential effects of sleep on motor activity, cognition,
memory, and perception which make it possible for them to function at different times, in
different ways, and in different combinations. Obviously, sleep is not a simple matter of all
our faculties declining in unison. For psychology and psycholinguistics, the challenge is to
evaluate how the generalizations based on the data of wakefulness square with the data of
sleep talking. Which generalizations are applicable to all language, and which reflect the
unique contribution of the waking brain?
Dr. Arkin would be the last to claim final answers to such questions. He is too true to his
phenomenon to permit its violation by speculative excess or other inaccuracies. However, he
has used every reasonable perspective in pursuit of the answers. He has appealed to the data
and concepts of psychology, psychiatry, neurology, neurophysiology, psycholinguistics, and
others for keys to understanding. The other side of that coin is that the phenomena of sleeptalking may have insights to offer each of these fields. Until now, anyone interested in sleeptalking had no single place to turn for comprehensive data, review, and conceptual analyses.
Now we have this fine book.

Allan Rechtschaffen, Ph.D Professor Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Director, Sleep
Laboratory University of Chicago
Preface
Sleep-talking is a fascinating and enigmatic phenomenon. It has intrigued ancient and modern
observers alike and has become endowed with the cachet of the mysterious, the significant,
the portentous, and sometimes of the comic. It has been mentioned by physicians,
psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, writers of fiction, and everyday people.
As described in detail later, spontaneous sleep-talking is much more widespread than has been
hitherto realized, and it is now capable of experimental stimulation and modification in the
laboratory. Such availability of subject-produced signals closely associated with ongoing
sleep and laden with psychological, linguistic, and affective content clearly indicates that
detailed study of sleep-talking possesses important potential for new areas of research in sleep
mentation, sleep psychophysiology, cognitive and clinical psychology, psycholinguistics, and
neuropsychology.
Such assertions do not seem unreasonable. Yet, interestingly, sleep-talking has never received
systematic treatment in the scientific literature. Accordingly, this book is the first scholarly,
comprehensive treatise dealing with sleep-talking and related phenomena.
The reader will possess in one volume (1) a detailed description of all known laboratory
studies and findings on spontaneous and experimentally produced sleep-speech; (2) all known
clinical reports and anecdotal observations on sleep-utterance made by intelligent,
conscientious individuals; (3) review essays concerning psychoanalytic and cognitive
psychological perspectives on sleep-utterance; (4) comprehensive presentations of clinical
psychiatric aspects of sleep-utterance including possible therapeutic uses (an area in its barest
infancy); and (5) a unique
extended appendix 2 that reproduces verbatim all sleep-speeches (approximately 600) ever
recorded in the several laboratories in which studies were carried out.1 In addition, in all but a
small proportion, for each sleepspeech so reproduced, the reader is supplied with the sleepstage with which it was associated, and information specifying whether it was uttered less
than 3 hours after sleep-onset. Finally, in close to 200 instances, the verbatim contents of
mentation reports, elicited from subjects awakened shortly after each utterance, are
reproduced. This appendix may be extremely useful, therefore, as raw data on which the
reader may carry out systematic study in whatever manner he deems useful.
This book is intended primarily for scholars and scientists working in the field of sleepmentation, but it should be of equal interest to psychophysiologists, cognitive and clinical
psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, psycholinguists, and philosophers concerned with
mind-brain relationships. In addition, the intelligent lay public appears to have a lively interest
in the subject.
It is my hope that readers will be encouraged to carry forward with new research in sleep
utterance.
As shown in this book, experimental techniques are now available capable of significantly
influencing or provoking sleep-speech. New techniques should certainly be possible to

develop. I believe that our knowledge of sleep-cognition and sleep-psycholinguistics could be

greatly enhanced by a systematic multivariate study of the following categories of data
collected concomitantly:
1 Specific experimental sleep-utterance-provoking stimuli and techniques applied prior to
. and/or during various sleep stages and times of night.
2
Specific content and patterns of the sleep-utterances themselves.
.
3 Specific content and patterns of mentation reports elicited upon awakening subjects
. immediately after sleep-speeches.
4 Specific content and patterns of an array of free associations elicited after the completion of
. each such mentation report.
5 Psychological evaluation by clinical tests and interviews of the subjects employed (both
. chronic, spontaneous sleep-talkers and those without a history of sleep-talking).
6
Psychophysiological indices.
.
Arthur M. Arkin, M.D.
____________________
1

In a sense, this appendix is, therefore, the result of a cooperative effort made possible by the
generosity of the various investigators cited.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deep thanks to Jane Woolman, Phyllis Gross, Agnes Salinger, Gerry Levin, and Bruna
Ciceran for their indefatigable industry, patience, and good humor in the course of getting this
book together -- secretaries non pareil!
I am gratefully indebted to Irma Farrington for translations of scientific literature in German
and French and to Robert Dempsey for the translation from the Russian of case material in
Chapter 20. The author is deeply grateful to the entire library staff of the New York Academy
of Medicine for their cheerful, patient assistance but especially wishes to thank Ada Gams,
Denis Gaffney, Barbara Hull, and Cherl Silver for their help.
Finally, I wish to thank Ruth Anne Reinsel for her conscientious and creative proofreading,
and Sondra Guideman and the entire staff of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates for their devoted
and patient attention.