A little sleep-talking I can understand. But Mr. Pug, a talkative person even in his waking hours, really takes on his enemies in his sleep. About one and a half hours after he goes to sleep, he starts yelling at the “fg assholes," "fg bitches,” (I hope I’m not one of those), “stupid idiots,”, etc., etc. He never remembers a thing the next morning; once, however, he woke himself up in mid-yell, and does remember that he was as mad as hell. This behaviour is exacerbated if he has a couple of drinks.
I researched this behavior a little on the web, and found to my surprise that some people also “sleep-eat”! One woman woke up with chocolate all over her face and fingers, and found empty candy wrappers in the kitchen. She didn’t remember a thing.
Sometimes, when I’m trying to lose weight, I dream that I’m eating. Hopefully I don’t try to “sleep-cook” and go down to the kitchen and make a dish soap souffle or something.
Maybe you should video tape him sleeping so he can hear what’s going on. That might freak him out though. My SO is a very loud snorer and I video taped him once. Hehe - he wasn’t very happy about it but he finally believed me!
Last night, mid-dream, my SO said “Sorry about the goats”.
“What’s that, lovely?” I asked, using my Soothing Voice.
“The goats,” he said. “I’m really sorry about the goats”.
Sometimes he has “f***ing asshole bastards” dreams, rather like Mr Pug’s, only quieter (I think he yells into the pillow).
It’s the pre-sleep talking that’s the weirdest. While hovering on the boundary between sleep and wakefulness, he sometimes goes into a free-association word jam. Example: “egg-tray… hut… hut with fish… Wigan… golf… golf club… golf tee… ooh, tea, lovely cup of tea… mumble Concorde… CARL CORT… flap…”
Sublight, the websites I researched said that sleep-talking, sleep-walking and night terrors are all related, and are not particularly caused by stress or nightmares. They are phenomenons that happens before you hit REM, i.e., about an hour into your sleep. Some things, like drinking, can exacerbate them, but do not cause them.
Mr. Pug has a short fuse anyway, and is frequently pissed about something at work or in the news. His job’s not stressful, but his tolerance level for buttheadedness is very low, so the buttheads usually get their talking-to at night, while he’s asleep.