Is it bad to record yourself talking in your sleep
I recorded a whole night of my own sleep on September 6, 8 hours 35 minutes. Only 10 minutes were loud enough to keep, and everything quieter was never recorded at all.
Recording a whole night felt like something to be careful about
Recording sleep talk, or my own voice, for a whole night was something I braced myself for just thinking about it. It felt a bit like leaving a door open, and I never quite got around to trying it.
I had seen it said somewhere that recording sleep talk is not a good idea. What exactly makes it bad was never clear to me. Still, I decided to record one whole night as it was, and see with my own eyes what was left the next morning.
I never meant to let anyone else hear it, only to keep it as my own record. Even so, if a whole night of sound ended up sitting somewhere, that was the part I wanted to avoid.
What worried me most was not what I might say in my sleep, but the sheer fact that a whole night of sound could end up kept somewhere. It was the amount, not the content, that sat at the center of the worry.
People have pointed out my snoring a few times before this. Even so, recording a whole night of sound as it happened was a step I had never quite taken until now.
Checking one short moment and recording an entire night are not the same feeling at all. This time, for the first time, I tried the second one.
The night of September 6, only 10 minutes were left
On the night of September 6, I recorded straight through for 8 hours 35 minutes. The recording started at 3:32 and ended at 12:07. Opening the morning record, the loud time added up to 10 minutes. The peak was at 11:00.
The morning felt ordinary. Not especially hard, not a night I would call restful either, just an ordinary morning.
Out of the 8 hours 35 minutes, only 10 minutes were loud. The rest was never kept at all. A whole night of sound was not sitting there waiting on the device.
Put into a number, 10 minutes felt much shorter than I had expected. Against the whole stretch that was recorded, it is a small fraction.
Recording for 8 hours 35 minutes did not mean the loud time grew in proportion. Recording longer does not necessarily mean more ends up kept.
Whether an ordinary morning and 10 loud minutes are actually connected is not something one night can tell me. Both are simply there, on the record.
Recording and your record are free, always. The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept.
Checking it just means leaving a phone by the pillow
The method itself is covered in another article. What I can say here is that all I did was leave one phone by the pillow and let it run until morning.
No special equipment, nothing worn on the body. The screen stayed locked, and there was nothing else to do until I tapped to end it in the morning.
I did not fuss over the exact position or angle of the phone either. I placed it by the pillow as usual, tapped before sleeping, and tapped again after waking to end it. That was the whole procedure.
The procedure does not change between a loud night and an ordinary one. The night of September 6 was recorded the same way as any other. Nothing about it was special.
The 14 nights already on the device were all kept the same way. I have never changed the method from one night to the next.
Only the loud stretches are kept
Where the sound goes is always explained the same way, in one sentence: "The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept."
On the night of September 6 too, the quiet stretches were never kept in the first place. What was left was the 10 loud minutes and the short parts just around them.
The single loudest moment can be played back in my own ears. The next loudest moment is kept too, in order, and can be played back. Everything else was never recorded at all.
A short tag can be added afterward, but I did not add one to the night of September 6. Adding a tag does not change the amount of sound that is kept.
Recording and the record itself are always free. Recordings stay on this device for 14 nights and are deleted automatically, oldest first. Nothing needs to be done to clear them.
Any recording I want gone can also be deleted one at a time, by hand. Left alone, the oldest ones simply clear themselves, and there is nothing for me to do about it.
Keeping a whole night and keeping only the loud parts feel completely different when it comes to listening back later. Listening back assuming everything is there, versus knowing it is not, changes how braced I am for it.
Even so, I still would not keep the whole thing
I still have no intention of letting anyone hear a whole night. What is on the device is only the 10 loud minutes, and I have never sent anyone more than that.
Hearing how my own voice actually sounded, in my own ears, was enough for the night of September 6.
The unease I felt, like leaving a door open, eased a little once I saw what was actually left in the morning. What remained was a much shorter time than I had expected.
That I could choose whether the whole night stayed kept or not was something I did not understand before recording. Only trying it made that clear to me.
Whether anyone else carries the same worry is not something I know. What I can write here is only what was kept, and what was not, from my own night of September 6.
I plan to keep recording nights the same way going forward. Keeping only the loud parts, rather than the whole night, feels like the shape that suits me.
For anything about treatment or making it stop, a doctor is the surest person to ask. All Nagi can do is record the night's sound so you can hear back, in the morning, how long it was loud and when it peaked. No verdicts, only the record.