Men swear more than women when they sleep

If you're foulmouthed in bed (when you're sleeping), you're probably a man.

A new study has found that people who sleep talk tend to have a lot of ‘vulgar’ things to say - men, more so than women.

The research was conducted by Dr Isabelle Arnulf, who works at the Sleep Disorders Unit at AP-HP Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France, and published in Sleepjournal.

For the study, 232 volunteers between the ages of 29 and 69 years old were monitored over the course of two nights. Of these, 129 had REM sleep behaviour disorder and 87 experienced sleepwalking.

Fifteen adults had no sleep-related disorders.

​The researchers counted 883 speech episodes in total, including 3,349 decipherable words. Tone, first and second person speech, pauses and abusive language were all noted down.

Results found that the most common word people said in their sleep was ‘no’.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Approximately 10 per cent of speech episodes had swearing in them, and the word ‘f**k’ appeared some 800 times more when people were asleep.

The use of profanities was more common amongst men, and men tended to sleep talk more too.

Dr Arnauf told Medical News Today:

People may act out — and speak loudly — only when they are extremely worried; the rest of their speeches remaining inner and silent.

[S]leep talkers may face situations in dream[s] in which anybody would swear, had they happened awake — e.g., need to escape a danger, and shouting, or need to counter-fight, and insulting the aggressor. 

HT Medical News Today

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