# Strange things you say when you're half-asleep
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 9, 2002, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062 "2002-05-09T12:32:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mystery\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mystery_Dog)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/1 "2002-05-09T12:32:20Z")
One morning not too long ago, I was woken by my alarm clock. My SO, who was sleeping next to me, didn’t hear it and kept sleeping. I nudged her and said, “It’s 6:15. Time to get up for work.” She mumbled, “Okay, just send a message to my Inbox with that as the subject line.” Then she fully woke up when I started laughing.
So, anyone else have stories of strange things you say when you’re not really awake yet?
---
### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/2 "2002-05-09T12:34:44Z")
“Mom, bring me my flying machin…”
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/3 "2002-05-09T13:02:16Z")
When I was a freshman, my roomate claims that he came into the room late at night, and I suddenly sat up in bed and said:
"I’ve got it now! The Weight of the Floor divided by the Weight of the Rooms is the Number of People!
No, that’s not right!"
Then I laid back down and went, apparently, back to sleep.
---
### Author:  [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/4 "2002-05-09T13:44:21Z")
My son, a few years ago, was aslepp.
I was on the phone.
We heard him say,
“Mom, put the scissors away.”
I wonder…
---
### Author:  [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/5 "2002-05-09T13:48:36Z")
I’m a pretty sound sleeper, but the missus is a great sleep-talker. Normally it’s just gibberish, but every once in a while…
Like a couple of months ago, she woke up in the middle of the night, sang a complete verse of the Raffi song “Baby Beluga” (complete with previously unknown hand motions) and then went back to sleep.
---
### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/6 "2002-05-09T14:03:12Z")
I refuse to acknowledge that I talk in my sleep.
I insist that those who deliberately talk to me when I’m asleep in order to elicit responses are hallucinating.
And the tapes are faked.
---
### Author:  [@Skerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skerri)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/7 "2002-05-09T14:03:29Z")
On my last trip to see my SO, I told him ‘happy anniversary’ right as he fell asleep.
His reply?
“Go get the vaccuum cleaner and I’ll clean it up.” Huh?
---
### Author:  [@Zappo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zappo)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/8 "2002-05-09T14:09:32Z")
I’ve done this when I’m sort of half-awake, usually in the early morning.
Once, I spent five minutes telling my wife how she could get to a certain bookstore to find a magazine she was looking for. Or at least, that I thought she was looking for.
Another time I scared the crap out of my girlfriend by sitting bolt upright in bed, hollering “NO! WAIT FOR ME!” and then dropping back down and going back to sleep like nothing had happened.
---
### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/9 "2002-05-09T14:23:32Z")
Synchronicity! Just this very morning, I woke up at 6:30 and said, out loud, “Were those Roman centurions out of their fucking minds, or WHAT?”
I have no idea what the hell I’d been dreaming . . .
---
### Author:  [@Parrothead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parrothead)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/10 "2002-05-09T14:47:40Z")
I once asked my SO (long after my days of working fast food were done…), apparently in the middle of a conversation of some import…
“would you like cheese with that?”
😃
---
### Author:  [@mlerose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlerose)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/11 "2002-05-09T16:28:49Z")
I talk in my sleep. Every night, probably. Always have.
I have to warn people when they visit so they don’t get scared by it. Once when I had a friend visiting, I forgot to warn him. Apparently he spent half the night afraid of me because I woke him up by yelling, “We have to kill all the ants!”
It was followed by “Bring me the butcher knife!”
I’m not a violent person. I swear.
---
### Author:  [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/12 "2002-05-09T16:43:12Z")
On several campouts with friends, I’ve been accused of solving the Kennedy assassination, the mystery of the Shroud of Turin, and developing a few new astrophysical theories, all while in the midst of slumber. . .
Tripler
I maintain that it was the whiskey talking.
---
### Author:  [@auntie\_em](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auntie_em)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/13 "2002-05-09T16:48:15Z")
Thank God I live (and sleep) alone. I don’t need anybody having this kind of dirt on me.
When I was a kid and shared a room with my sister, she kept frequent track of my nocturnal blathering.
Apparently once I told a fascinating story about a lady, her daughter, and a box.
Another time I repeated, “Put it DOWN!” until my sister replied, “OK, OK, I put it down!”
Yet another time, I said simply, “Poot” (our family term for “fart”, both in noun and verb form).
As it is now, all I’m aware of is that occasionally I wake up laughing my ass off. I must be telling some damn good jokes in my sleep. 😃
---
### Author:  [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/14 "2002-05-09T16:48:52Z")
The other morning, after a long bout of hitting the snooze button and dropping back off to sleep, then hitting the snooze button again, I sat up, turned off the alarm clock, looked at it, and told my SO “It’s like a parade of Palestinians.”
---
### Author:  [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/15 "2002-05-09T16:54:00Z")
I was asleep one night, and my wife was reading in bed. Apparently, I pushed myself up on my arms, looked at the dresser, looked at my wife, and told her to “take the damn cat off the dresser.”
Except that Mrs. KVS is very allergic to cats, and I’ve never owned one in my entire life . . .
---
### Author:  [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/16 "2002-05-09T17:07:41Z")
This is more of a night terror, but it was funny just the same. A friend of mine was crashing at my place for the night, sleeping in a sleeping bag in my room. At about 3 AM, I was half-asleep and suddenly saw a train come crashing through my room, narrowly missing my friend. I heard another one coming, undoubtedly in the path of my friend. I jumped out of bed, and shouted, “MOVE! The train is going to hit you!” while shoving my friend frantically. Suddenly, I saw the train, shreiked like a girl, and dove back in my bed.
---
### Author:  [@HerMajestyLorna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HerMajestyLorna)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/17 "2002-05-09T18:19:09Z")
I love these.
I was with a couple friends, falling asleep late at night, and my friend Holly turns to me and says:
“I was thinking…Diana really needs some of that Berlin Wall technology.”
I was falling asleep during a conversation with my boyfriend, and he said “I love you.”
I replied:
“Can you explain the difference between those choices again? I just don’t understand.”
---
### Author:  [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/18 "2002-05-09T18:27:12Z")
hmmm…
Staying over at a friends house once, and she let rip… I replied with “I’m sorry Mr SeaBass, I can’t translate that”
Another time I know I was muttering something about people trying to squash my fruit basket…
🙂
---
### Author:  [@DarkWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkWriter)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/19 "2002-05-09T19:14:16Z")
I called my mom at 5 am and woke her up to let her know I was going into labor.
“Mom! My water broke!”
“Can’t it wait?” Hangs up phone.
Sheri
---
### Author:  [@Grim\_Beaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Beaker)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062/20 "2002-05-09T19:25:07Z")
I used to do tech support over the telephone. According to my wife I’d frequently spout standard customer service phrases (i.e. “What kind of computer do you have ma’am?”, “What is your account number?”).
My favorite sleep related silliness however has to do with the tangled logic of my wife while half asleep.
“I don’t have to get up today… it’s triangle day”
🙂
Grim
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-things-you-say-when-youre-half-asleep/108062.md?page=2)