“Baby u there? Need to tell somethin …” read the first message before it dissolved into gibberish. “U told me and i tell u … u harm …”
24-year-old Jessica Castillo of Italy, Texas found these messages to her boyfriend in her cell phone’s outbox one morning, according to this article by Yvonne Villarreal in today’s Toronto Star. The problem? They’d been sent late the previous night, and she didn’t remember writing them.
Cell phone users are reporting this phenomenon, dubbed “sleep-texting”, more and more frequently, although scientists and sleep professionals disagree on whether people are technically asleep when they send the messages, or awake but for too short a time to form a memory of the event.
Dr. Ron Kramer, who is a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, thinks that sleep-texting is “perfectly possible,” saying:
“Texting for some of the younger generation is probably as ingrained as driving is for some people.”
But here’s something to consider: Castillo’s message to her boyfriend involved 11 different steps before she even started to type:
First, she had to select “Menu,” then “Messaging;” type “New,” then select “Multimedia message,” then punch the “Add” button and the “Add text,” before entering her garbled message. Afterwards, she had to press “OK” twice, scroll to “contacts,” find the email address on that contact, select it, and press “Send.”
Not an easy process, but considering that the average Internet-generation teen spends around two hours and 20 minutes a day texting, it’s highly likely that the process of preparing to send a text message has been committed to muscle memory. In a 2007 Teenage Research Unlimited online survey cited in the Star article, many young people reported sleeping next to their cell phones; one in six said they sent 10 or more texts per hour throughout the night. Jessica Castillo and her boyfriend rack up between 90 and 120 text messages a day!
How plausible is it, then, that Castillo performed those 11 text-sending steps while asleep? Not very, according to Scott Fromherz of the Westside Sleep Center in Oregon:
“The ‘sleep texter’ may have actually been awake, but had not formed new memories for the event,” says [Fromherz]… “There is a ‘built-in’ amnesia of sleep that occurs when the brain is briefly awakened for less than three minutes.”
Thus, a person might wake up in the middle of the night, text someone, go back to sleep and have no recollection of the activity the next morning.
So what’s the verdict? Were you conscious or not when you crafted that bizarre text sometime in the wee hours of the morning? According to this article, looking at the content of your middle-of-the-night mystery message can provide a clue, though if you’re racking up late-night text messages by the hundreds like Jessica Castillo, you’re probably just too sleep-deprived to remember!
In any case, if your message is gibberish, it’s possible you wrote it in your sleep, just as people have been known to walk, eat, and drive while completely asleep. But if the message makes sense, you probably wrote it while awake, only to fall asleep again before your brain could consolidate the event into memory.
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Links to This Article
Sleep Texting is like Sleep Walking for SMS addicts (6/17/2008)
From Psych Central's World of Psychology:
First Sleep Texting, Now Sleep Emailing - World of Psychology (1/12/2009)
We are fond of our texting in this country « Pennybridged’s Weblog… (3/19/2009)
16 Comments to
““Sleep-Texting”: Growing Phenomenon or Fiction?”
I don’t see why they consider texting more complex than driving. You have to get out of bed, get your keys, leave your house, insert your key into the car door, unlock the car door, remove your key, open the door… Tasks we do often become innate and all the little actions become one big action. I would like to know if she was on sleeping pills. They increase the rate of things like sleep driving and sleep eating, and effect memory. Perhaps the FDA needs to add sleep texting to the list of “complex sleep-related behaviors” associated with sleeping pills.
Have they examined the possibility that these people were drunk?
Previous poster, I don’t know what you are talking about. ‘Sleeping pills’ could be anything from Benadryl to doxylamine succinate to NyQuil to benzos to barbiturates to Ambien… How can you say “they” when referring to all of these very different things? Where are you getting your information from?
I’ve been on four or five different sleep-aid medications for about 11 years and not once have I sleep-driven or sleep-eaten, and my memory is sharp as a knife.
The article is probably right in it’s interpretation (read the linked article too), but seriously, have they examined the possibility that these people are just trashed?
I find the facts in this article pretty hard to believe:
“the average Internet-generation teen spends around two hours and 20 minutes a day texting”
Where’s that fact from? That means there are teens sending/reading zero texts and teens sending texts constantly. Is that even possible?
“1 in six send 10 or more texts per hour in the night”–where’s this stat from? Is that when they are supposed to be sleeping or is it at night jobs? because night jobs are boring so there’s time to text, but waking up every 6 minutes to text someone? 16% of teens do this? That’s ridiculous. Unless your 1 in 6 is of a study of 6 people.
I need more info on the “study” or survey before I can believe this stuff.
As for texting in your sleep…if you can see what you’re doing, are you sleeping? Same with eating and driving…it should lead do a bigger discussion of sleep and how sleep works and what defines sleep/consciousness. But this article focuses on how much people text and doesn’t cite sources.
(Also it probably isn’t 11 steps if you’re replying to someone, more like 4–hit reply, select text message, type, send.)
wait, this article is just a condensed version of the Toronto Star article… good journalism there! Clip this and put it in your portfolio!
I have a 19-year old who does this all the time. He and most of his friends sleep with their phones beside or under their pillows. I got so annoyed with the message ringer noise in the middle of the night that I made him at least turn sounds off. I suggested that for a sounder night’s sleep, he should turn it off entirely, but that was met with a look suggesting I’m totally crazy and out of touch!
To text while sleeping is far easier than the article says — if someone texts my son, he just flips open the phone to read, hits the center button to respond, he can key so fast and accurately that he doesn’t even look. He gets into a state similar to sleepwalking and doesn’t remember anything.
Texting without looking at the keypad is a “skill” this generation is mastering quickly. Ask any HS teacher — huge problem for our schools, too!
And texting for 2+ hours is not hard to reach when you realize these kids are ALWAYS on and connected by cell — even when they are online, doing homework and chatting over the Web — all at the same time!
The long-term consequences of all this connectivity scares me.
“The long-term consequences of all this connectivity scares me.”
Truly, mass communication via scary new things like *gorsh!* the internet is a horrible thing and must be feared and stopped before it is too late!
I’ve just completed my BA and after 17+ straight years in school I can say this: the sit and stare method of teaching is long antiquated and teachers need to learn to utilize the technology in front of them (more so than sad Power Point presentations) if they hope to keep up with the multitasking skills today’s youth are acquiring.
JW (previous poster) is right - sending a text is much easier on most modern phones than the instructions this blog gives!
But JW, as for long term consequences, I don’t think there’s a need to be scared. Things are changing rapidly, but children can deal with it, as long as they are confident in themselves and know what they want, they can achieve anything. 
I just hit the up button on my phone to bring up a new text message… I can speak from experience though that I have in fact texted during sleep. I was very into texting and getting on mobile chat sites on my phone and people would tell me about strange messages, or ones that made perfect sense that I had no recollection of. I have fibromyalgia and have always had sleep “disturbances” .. HOWEVER, the majority of my sleep texting was done during times I was taking AMBIEN. Which also caused me to sleep eat and other things… hehe Not great.. I have however done it while not under the influence of Ambien as well. It happens!!
This is all true! A few weeks back I actually send a message in the middle of the night to a friend. It didn’t make any sense and I also don’t remember sending it.
Absolutely not fiction. Sleep emailing is something I have done recently and it scared the crap outta me & the person I sent it to….my EX-girlfriend. I have been taking Ambien and I’m 100% convinced that it is the cause. Ive also made calls, ate all the leftovers in the fridge one night, parked my car & forgot where it was the next day and sleep walked while staying at a motel. Not good. Ambien is a dangerous drug.
I went to the doctor for medication for
Sleepwalking. Since having
Been on this medicine, I have sent many
Emails and texts in my sleep! I did it
Last night. So, I thought I would do some
Research and see if this has happened
To anyone else! I am shocked to know
It has and don’t feel so crazy!!!!
I am leaving my phone and computer
Out of my room from now on!!!
My 17 year old daughter has been sleep testing. The messages make sense. The strange thing is that they are perfectly spelled and grammatical, not msn-style like she uses consciously.
Last night I did exactly what Alex said. I must of had fallen asleep in the middle of sending a friend a text message, as when I woke up, my phone was right next to me on my bed. Then I noticed a text message in my “drafts” folder, than began with a text that I would of sent to a friend, but then the rest of it did not make any sense, and I had no memory whatsoever of ever typing that out. This could explain why I had dreams that I was texting and talking on my cellphone.
But yeah anyways this really freaked me out, as I had no idea how that happened. Then I realised I must of “sleeptexted”, and after googling I find that it IS possible, so now I’m relieved. WOW was that freaky tho! =P
I take Ambien and I have sent emails to my girlfriend in my sleep. I have woken up horrified at finding that I wrote and sent the emails to her without my knowing about it. I really hope somebody does a study on this. I hate not being able to have internet access in my bedroom, but it looks like I have to get it out of my bedroom too. This scares me and I believe it has to do with the Ambien but, I need the drug to sleep. At least I know Im not the only one.
I’m in college and for the past few weeks I’ve been anticipating seeing my boyfriend for the weekend. He always texts me early in the morning around 7 AM before he goes to work and I am always asleep. I always remember texting him in the morning but the other night I texted him a message of jumbled words at 4 AM. I had no idea this happened until he said something about it the next day and I went back and checked my outbox.
I remember each morning texting him…why don’t I remember this 4 AM text then? Is my brain so used to getting a text each morning that i subconsciously wake up around the same time to receive a text? or did I text in my sleep?
My roommates also say I talk in my sleep every night…it never lasts very long but it always seems to happen. Is this related?
Hi I live in England and over here we text a fair bit now this morning I remember having a dream about going somewhere, now I usually text a lady friend around the time I had this dream now I remember texting people in the dream and about 10 minuites later I actually was woken up by someone else alarm so I did my usual zombie walk to the front room as I do most morning’s now sometimes I feel like some dreams feel like they actually happend now I suddenly remembered texting in my dream so I went and got my phone and was horrified to find a text that said “hope you sleep ok I love you guys” its unlike me to be able to spell even normally let alone in a text message and bear in mind I am not on any medication of any type aswell, I’m very confused though lol.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 15 Jun 2008
