Grinding of teeth, sleepwalking, sleep talking

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I grind my teeth very badly. At 44 they are nearing their expiry. I am also a chronic sleep walker and sleep talker. I go through quieter periods and then the sleepwalking etc goes crazy. I have noted that it is correlated to times when I have high anxiety, stress or excitement levels in my life.
The reason I ask is that I have only recently become aware of my aspie-ness. No question there; I am aspie. I am busy working through various aspects of my life and am unearthing many things that are related to aspie-ness which I dont not know was related to AS.

Do aspies sleep talk, sleep walk and/or grind their teeth more than the rest of the population? Do you?

No but I role over constantly, and move my legs constantly during times of stress.

I`ve even been known to talk about dates and times in my sleep.

To give some sense of the extremes of my sleep activity. I have full blown conversations with my wife. I have challenged her in the night, glaring down at her and loudly asking, "Who are you and what are you doing in my bed?". Recently I woke up at the door with a belt in hand. I had been frantically searching for weapons around the house to defend myself from intruders. All I could think of was a belt which I threaded through as a makeshift noose. I was standing behind the door waiting for the intruders to come through. I was going to strangle them with the belt and then get their weapons off them. Tere was more than one intruder so I was really hyped to do this real fast so I could tackle the others. I am not sure how long I stood there before I realised I had been dreaming. This sort of thing happens all the time.

I grind my teeth, moan, talk and move a lot. I have insulted and pushed my boyfriend off the bed sometimes, even if I do love him sincerely so I don't think it's my subconscious telling me to kill him or something. On the other hand my boyfriend doesn't move too much or make noise, and he has AS.

I grind/press down on my teeth during the night. I stopped it for a while but seem to be doing it again recently. I think it is to do with stress.

As a child I grinded my teeth a lot. I guess I liked the feeling of it. Then my mum told me to stop. I did stop. At times, I sleepwalk around in the kitchen, searching for food. I also tend to say words while asleep, like "mummy!!" and "computer ....".

No, but I get up in the night (awake enough to know I'm doing it but not awake enough to be rational), feeling around for something what's not there, or jumping out of bed from a spider what's not there, or even turning on the light to look for the spider what's not there. I don't know how to stop myself from doing this. It doesn't happen every night, but I seem to have phases of it.

Also I wake up swallowing my saliva like normal, but thinking I've just swallowed something I shouldn't have, then laying there in a panic.

I can't speak for the majority because I apparently have narcolepsy. (Official diagnosis in a sleep lab is too expensive but based on symptoms alone I got an "unofficial" one.) I dream all night and have sleep paralysis and repeated false awakenings and such. I even dream vividly if I only fall asleep for a few seconds (which happens often when I get "sleep attacks" during the day). I think sleep disturbances of various types are very common in the spectrum population. I even think, based on anecdotal evidence, that narcolepsy is more common, though I don't think any actual studies have been done. On the other hand, I think the type of sleep disturbance varies widely. Some can never sleep and some can't wake up before noon. If you can, I'd recommend talking to a sleep specialist. Sounds like your sleep issues are really affecting your life.

I grind my teeth at night, and snore. I used to laugh myself to sleep as a kid.

I used to grind my teeth. I never knew I was doing this in my sleep until my ex-girlfriend made note of it when we were sleeping together, so who knows how long I was doing this before then. I could very well still be doing it....


When I was younger, around the ages of 4 to 8, I would sleep walk occasionally. One night I even managed to unlock the front door and walk out into the street. I still vividly remember standing there in the street starring at the moon, then a few moments later I turned around and walked back inside.


And in general, I have always had/experienced sleep related "issues" from as far back as I can remember. Night terrors, sleep paralysis, vivid lucid dreams, etc....

I hear all of you, but .... is excessive sleep talking, sleep walking and grinding of teeth a particular issue with aspies or are my manifestations (of these aforementioned things) just the neurotypical quadrant of my soul ravaged mercilessly by the forces... (of ... of ... now I forgot what I was going to say). ????

There's no way of knowing that, Jabberwokky. Why does it matter? Sleep issues are a common issue with us, but the type varies widely. There's no way to know if yours are related to your AS or not, and whether they are or not makes no difference in how they affect your life or how you should deal with them. It's not like there's a special "aspie treatment" that cures sleep issues related to AS.

I was really bad about sleep walking, because the next morning I would see things turned on or turned off. I even found the water heater turned off and couldn't figured why I didn't have any hot water until I checked. I have also woke up cursing. I woke up once screaming that "I want to go on a Space Shuttle" around the time I was taking zero gravity flights. But since one of my traits is fixated on objects with 2 big diecast aluminum backhoe loader toys being the center of my fixation now, I haven't done anymore sleep walking because having the backhoe parts over my midsection keeps me in bed as well as giving me security at night and stimming with them.

I also was told that I woke up in the middle of the night where I had to stay for a week with friend of my mother's and gave the lady a real tongue lashing in my sleep. She was telling me about it the next day and of course I didn't remember a thing.

When I still lived in Chicago, I was told that I was found on someone's backporch a couple of blocks away and my parents had to come and get me. But, I never did remember doing that unless I was sleep walking that night.

My sleep walking was quite often and quite serious in some cases.

I used to sleepwalk when I was a child, but luckily I don't do it now. And while I don't grind my teeth, I do constantly clench my jaw.

I am a teeth clencher. I have recently started wearing a dental appliance at night because of it. I also sleep with my muscles tensed up. I moan and make noises in my sleep a lot. I don't think I have ever said any words, but a lot of my family members do.