a. rare–0. [See SOMNI- and LOQUACIOUS a.] ‘Talking or apt to talk in sleep’ (Bailey, vol. II., 1731). Also Somniloquence, = somniloquy. Somniloquent a., talking in sleep. Somniloquism, = somniloquy. Somniloquist, one who speaks or talks while asleep. Somniloquize v. intr., to talk in (or as in) sleep. Somniloquous a., ‘apt to talk in sleep.’ (Webster, 1847). Somniloquy, the act or habit of speaking during sleep.
1841. W. C. Dendy, Philos. Mystery, 306. True *somniloquence is often preceded by a cataleptic state. Ibid., 304.
1804. Coleridge, in Blackw. Mag. (1882), CXXXI. 123. The Ideatæ are but *somniloquent Ideotæ. Ibid. (1821), X. 244. The *somniloquism of the prophetesses under the coercion of the Scandinavian enchanters. Ibid. (1833), in Lit. Rem. (1838), III. 397. How often the pen becomes the tongue of a systematic dream,—a *somniloquist!
1866. Cornh. Mag., Aug., 231. We may even be prompted to the action of the somnambulist, or somniloquist, without waking.
a. 1901. F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality (1903), II. 6. The somnambulist, or rather the somniloquist.
1827. Coleridge, in Blackw. Mag. (1882), CXXXI. 119. Is it not melancholy to hear a man like Steffens *somniloquise in such a mystifying cant?
1847. Webster, *Somniloquy, the talking of one in a state of somnipathy.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 757. Sleep-talking or somniloquy, and sleep-walking or somnambulism, are states in which the whole brain is not asleep.
