"That's where all my farts go."
December 15, 2016 7:14 PM   Subscribe

Adam Rosenberg talks in his sleep. After several of his friends told him about it, he decided to start recording himself.

Bonus dream video: It’s Cold and It’s Dark
posted by Johnny Wallflower (43 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
I also talk in my sleep. I wonder if he had a recorder going all night or used some sort of noise trigger to only record when he said stuff?
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:23 PM on December 15, 2016


Relatedly, from the 1960s: Dion McGregor (bandcamp)
posted by Going To Maine at 7:23 PM on December 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else's sleep ramblings. I'm a crazy sleep talker (and walker). My SO has hours and hours of recordings. Almost every one ends with her laughing her ass off. I'll often wake up in the morning to either an audio file or text transcript of the night before waiting for me via SMS. A few weeks ago she recorded:

"I'm gonna make it all magenta. I'm gonna make it Ubuntu. Cuz magenta, it's all magenta magenta..*unintelligible* Nobody ever painted a..nobody ever painted a whole room magenta. Cuz even the magenta crayon was like, what the hell is this? Cuz Dr. Pepper is magenta. Oh, Dr. Pepper. Like yeah, we used your car cable because it looks gross. I mean Dr. Pepper, you wouldn't want to drink that if you knew what was in it. Flies. The CIA. Apples. Underground. And..uh..I..uh..I..uh..the color blue. *unintelligible*

Apparently asleep me can't differentiate between Tab and Dr. Pepper.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:43 PM on December 15, 2016 [43 favorites]


That is freaking awesome!
posted by eggkeeper at 7:56 PM on December 15, 2016


I found it quite interesting that he's doing various voices (and accents) and that, just as with dreams, a lot of it probably relies on later interpretations ("mumble mumble? oh I probably said this and that.").


Also, Cat Pie Hurts made me thinking whether there truly ever has been a room that was all magenta. Hm..
posted by bigendian at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


There used to be a community journal on Livejournal that was entirely devoted to contributors' own sleep ramblings, or those of their partners' or roommate's or whatever. The only two that come to mind now -

* A woman who overheard her sleeping girlfriend suddenly assert, vehemently, "Andy Warhol is so fucking pointy!"

* someone who heard her sleeping college roommate suddenly moan out, in the porniest voice imaginable - "Oh, yeah, baby, that's it, with the pumpkin!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:16 PM on December 15, 2016 [15 favorites]


* someone who heard her sleeping college roommate suddenly moan out, in the porniest voice imaginable - "Oh, yeah, baby, that's it, with the pumpkin!"

I once saw a neo-futurist play in which the actor discussed the autobiographical experience of being overhead by his roommates saying "BLOW JOBS FOR EVERYBODY". One of the roommates asked for a clarification and he repeated himself. The roommate responded saying that he didn’t know that everyone wanted blowjobs, to which the actor responded “BLOW JOBS FOR SOME”
posted by Going To Maine at 8:21 PM on December 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


I have a unjustifiably high opinion of myself when I'm awake, but this is somehow amplified whenever I'm asleep. In my dreams I am almost always hyper-competent and universally adored.

One night while I was sleeping my girlfriend decided that she wanted the covers, but I was on top of them all. She informed my unconscious form that I was "the worst", to which I replied without waking, "Nope! I'm delightful!"
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:38 PM on December 15, 2016 [22 favorites]


Also, Cat Pie Hurts made me thinking whether there truly ever has been a room that was all magenta. Hm..

Yes, my kitchen when I was 25.
posted by the_blizz at 8:38 PM on December 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


One of the strangest things about the game Fable II was wandering around Oakvale at night listening to children talk in their sleep. Why was that even in the game?
posted by um at 8:41 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


When we were teens, and both watching TV late at night, my brother fell asleep on the couch really easily, and Mom always insisted I had to get him to go to sleep in his own bed. Which was really hard; sometimes I got him only partly awake, just enough to get upright so I could sort of push him in the general direction of his room.

One night I'd finally managed to half-wake, and he was just getting up when suddenly he stopped and said "wait, I forgot to ask Neil something. Hang on." And then promptly lay back down in exactly the same position he'd just woken out of.

My laughter is what woke him for real.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 PM on December 15, 2016 [9 favorites]


This was great. Thank you for posting.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:26 PM on December 15, 2016


Adam Lennard is also a sleeptalker. Here's the blog. Here's the tumblr. Here's a video. What his wife says in the blog about the best of the archives being in 2010-2011 is true. That was Sleep Talkin' Man at his finest. And often his foulest.

Fun to know there are other folks recording their sleep talking.
posted by bryon at 10:07 PM on December 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


In college, I was up late studying, and my roommate was fast asleep when suddenly he sat bolt upright, eyes wide open, gazing at me, and started speaking gibberish, loudly and forcefully, like he was making a speech. I was a bit startled and freaked, and said to him, "Nat! Nat! What's going on!" And he then snapped out of it for a second and said, frustratedly, "Well, I was trying to explain the US Constitution to you, but you just weren't fucking listening," and then he fell immediately back to sleep. He didn't recall a moment of it the next morning.

I also talk in my sleep. I wonder if he had a recorder going all night or used some sort of noise trigger to only record when he said stuff?

I am going to start doing this. I'm not a big sleeptalker, but I have been known to make some noises and words. In Audacity, you can set the preferences so that it automatically records anything above [n] loudness; it will start and pause itself. I left my apartment for a week once and kept it running. Mostly it was doors slamming or loud footsteps elsewhere in the building – "BLAM step step step BLAM BLAM BLAM KERCHUNK stomp stomp stomp," – and the occasional loud-engine-car, truck, or airplane.
posted by not_on_display at 10:35 PM on December 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


A lot of these sound like his brain was more interested in the sound of the words than their meaning. Very Finnegans Wake.
posted by No-sword at 11:09 PM on December 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


Gah. I completely forgot that, "Cat Pie Hurts" comes from something I was told I yelled in my sleep some 20 years ago! Apparently I also mumbled something about "explodios" and went on a rant about Sambuca.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:40 PM on December 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


This is so fantastic. But it didn't answer the question of where all his farts went. I really wanted that question answered.

I had a roommate in college that sleeptalked and would sit up and start yapping in her sleep, with hand gesticulations and everything. At first it was eerie, then funny then I just wanted her to shut up. I said something like "go back to sleep" and she told me "no, no, shut up!".
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 11:46 PM on December 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


My girlfriend is an excellent sleep-nonsense-talker, but strangely if I question her while asleep, by saying something like "what???" or "what did you say??" she'll often reply "it's OK I'm asleep" or something along those lines.

So far as I can tell she genuinely is asleep, but has some sort of subconscious Out Of Office Reply system going.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:38 AM on December 16, 2016 [19 favorites]


"Explodios" sound like such danger-fun!
posted by newpotato at 1:02 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


My spouse does this, except that he usually speaks in more coherent sentences. Often it's coupled with sleepwalking, and he may even look quite awake.

Especially when he's under a lot of stress, I can expect him to jump up at night with a crisis that needs immediate solving. I've stayed awake to watch a movie after he's gone to bed, only to have him burst into the living room to frantically tell me that they've misaligned all the traffic signs, and what's going to happen to all the travelling horses now? He's started to put on his clothes in the middle of the night, declaring they've finally decided to all join their forces to catch the popcicle thieves. Or that we still need to count the hats before the train leaves. Twice I've woken up to see him quietly wrestle with a bookcase, with books falling down all over him, telling me it was a bear that had been about to attack us. Once he was even upset because he hadn't wanted to hurt it.

I learned long ago that the magic trick to stop him in his tracks is to tell him it's all right, I already took care of it. Turned off the engines, duct taped all the packages, alerted the authorities, chased away the bear, let out the water, no big deal. Yeah? You're sure? he asks, and then he goes right back to sleep.

In recent years, our eldest kid has occasionally started to do this, too. I live for the day (or, night) when their paths cross and they start fighting crime or steering the ship together, both wild-eyed and filled with determination. On second thought, it's going to be a disaster.
posted by sively at 1:06 AM on December 16, 2016 [35 favorites]


"Well, I was trying to explain the US Constitution to you, but you just weren't fucking listening,"

Both my husband and I do basically exactly this - we say something nonsensical in our sleep, then get irritable and testy when the other person demonstrates a lack of understanding. Once in awhile we'll end up both about 3/4ths asleep fighting bitterly over some utter nonsense. We'll both slowly wake up as this is happening, trying to defend our nonsense positions, only gradually coming to realize that none of it was ever real.

The aggravating point is that I'm quicker to wake properly than he is, so I find myself trying to be like "no wait this was just a bunch of sleep talk" and he's still mostly under so that of course makes him even more upset...
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 1:35 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was going to say this is like people telling you about their dreams; but I suppose that's what it actually is.
posted by Segundus at 1:52 AM on December 16, 2016


Oh, I do this. My girlfriend says I've even started singing gibberish and when she told me to knock it off, I bellowed I HAVE TO GET READY FOR KARAOKE, OKAY?!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:06 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


If we're sharing then...there was the time my then SO asked, in his sleep, "What are we going to do?" Like there was something happening that needed to be dealt with promptly. I asked what he meant, to which I got "never mind."

I always wondered what we should do. Big unanswered question.
posted by datawrangler at 3:10 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


If only my cat could work a recording device.
posted by sutt at 3:10 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Haha, this reminds me of my one ex who talked AMAZINGLY in her sleep. Unfortunately, I can only remember one right now because it was one that woke me up completely (as she sounded so sad/worried):

"no, no, we're not going to magic school..."

I'm certain she said funnier stuff than this, but usually if I'd (half-asleep) ask her about it, just like the person above, she'd say "it's fine, i'm asleep", so I myself would go back to bed and forget what she was saying.
posted by destructive cactus at 3:15 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


My partner, lying on back, hands resting on chest. Fingers start fluttering. "Mmmmm, scrumptious strawberry shortcake."

Me. "What?"

*silence*
posted by Short Attention Sp at 3:51 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


"Explodios" is what they should have used for the name of Pop Rocks.


But it didn't answer the question of where all his farts went. I really wanted that question answered.

I think they were stuffed into socks, which then floated away. This theory answers two important questions.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:41 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


I had a college roommate who talked in his sleep when he got drunk. One night me and my friends Quaz and Irv the Perv taped him. I distinctly remember his saying " the vacuum cleaner's speaking Jawa" among other things.
posted by jonmc at 5:54 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


That whole, "great name for my new band" thing is generally tedious, but I'll make an exception for "The Explodios".
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:10 AM on December 16, 2016


someone who heard her sleeping college roommate suddenly moan out, in the porniest voice imaginable - "Oh, yeah, baby, that's it, with the pumpkin!"

So there's a Roman satire called The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius, where apocolocyntosis is a fake-Greek word meaning something like "empumpkinification," and there's apparently a debate between classicists about whether the word should be interpreted (by analogy with apotheosis) as "getting turned into a pumpkin," or (by analogy with aporaphanidosis, an alleged ancient punishment for adultery in which a radish was inserted into the anus of the accused) as "getting fucked in the ass with a pumpkin."

I've been carting this fact around in my head since the eleventh grade, and this is probably about as relevant as it's ever going to be, so I'm just going to leave it here.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:28 AM on December 16, 2016 [25 favorites]


Welp, now radishes are on my no thank you list...
posted by palomar at 6:34 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I once startled awake to something that sounded like the cat throwing up. I was about to jump out of bed to take action when my husband loudly cleared his throat and said something like, "yeah that was me, sorry about that." So I thought disaster was averted and went back to sleep.

The next day was when we learned my husband sometimes talks in his sleep. Because there was cat throwup in the closet, and he had no idea how it got there.
posted by gueneverey at 7:51 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


I wonder if he had a recorder going all night or used some sort of noise trigger to only record when he said stuff?

I've actually done this once or twice before, both in an attempt to catch my (allegedly bizarre) sleeptalking as well as my (allegedly bothersome) snoring. If you record to digital directly with a webcam mic or a variety of other options, you can use an audio editor such as Audacity (free!) on the output file and view the waveform of the whole session, jumping straight to points where it looks like a noise happened. WARNING - if you do this, there's a strong likelihood that you will get recordings of nothing but your own quiet peaceful breathing, and you will forever after assume that anyone who brings up your theoretical sleep noises is a terrible liar.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:52 AM on December 16, 2016


Oh man, that is so my guy!! Hilarious, thank you for making my day!
posted by Mistress of the Bunnies at 8:20 AM on December 16, 2016


Sleepbot, a smartphone app available on iOS and Android, will do audio recording of your sleep (it also does sleep tracking). I know this because a visitor who was staying on my couch would yell in the middle of the night and wake everyone else up. It was quite jarring the first time that happened!
posted by fragmede at 9:00 AM on December 16, 2016


One night, while sleeping, I asked my wife if she saw the shadow people around our bed.
She still hasn't forgiven me.
posted by doctornemo at 12:15 PM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


While I was crashing on a buddy's floor back in college, I remember him bolting up to a sitting position saying "Escher likes to play with guns." And then falling completely limp and back to sleep.

And yeah, that was the WTF moment when I found out that some people talk in their sleep.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:48 PM on December 16, 2016


Re: Adam Lennard, the sleeptalker, and his wife the blogger: I clicked the links and then slowly realized that I went on about three awkward dates with his wife, Karen, around 2001-2002. WEIRD!!

Wait, maybe I am dreaming this right now.
posted by not_on_display at 8:48 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Didn't sleeptalk enough to pique her interest, eh?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:21 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


It was the awaketalk which precluded the sleeptalk. Interest was piqued, but then steadily snuffed out.

I probably sleeptalk very politely.
posted by not_on_display at 10:42 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


I tried recording my sleep last night. No speech. Nothing but two loud farts. I knew exactly where they went.
posted by not_on_display at 11:39 AM on December 17, 2016


Only two? Dude, more fiber.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:29 PM on December 17, 2016


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