I'm sorry, did my feet wake you up?

November 9, 2009 6:50 AM

Is it possible that my feet are making noise while I sleep? If so, should I be worried?

When I woke up this morning my boyfriend told me that he had gotten out of bed last night because of a loud, repetitive clicking noise and was worried that he had left something on at his workbench across the room. When he returned to bed, he claims that he realized it was my feet (which were not moving) making noises and that he also listened to my breathing to make sure the noise wasn't snoring or some other logical explanation. He said I was sleeping on my stomach and that when I eventually rolled over the noise stopped. Is this possible? Can feet make noise? They have never made any noise while I am awake. Is there another logical explanation? And if this is true, I don't think I am particularly concerned (except out of sheer curiosity), but should I be worried for any reason? Thanks for any insights.

posted by heliotrope to Health & Fitness (14 answers total)

Maybe your breathing or other small movement was causing a mattress spring to make noise?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:54 AM on November 9, 2009

My toes sometimes make a loud cracking/clicking noise when I wiggle them. Could he have been wrong about you not moving?
posted by oinopaponton at 6:55 AM on November 9, 2009

If they're not moving, I can't think of any possible reason why feet would make noise.
posted by jennyjenny at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2009

Do you have a footboard? Might it have been your toe-nails or maybe your toes themselves pressing against it and the wood/metal was clicking?
posted by syntheticfaith at 7:08 AM on November 9, 2009

I think it's much more likely that something about the way your weight was distributed was causing the bed to make a noise.

My feet do pop, in various disturbing ways and in places that probably should not pop, but I would have to be moving for them to do so repetitively.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:11 AM on November 9, 2009

Mattresses have been known to make noise. Feet? Not so much.
posted by watercarrier at 7:51 AM on November 9, 2009

PS - try sleeping on another mattress and see if he can still hear the noise.
posted by watercarrier at 7:52 AM on November 9, 2009

I do not think you should worry about anything, as feet are notoriously not-noisy. However, I do think you should pat yourself on the back for asking one of the best questions I've ever seen. Honestly, this is tremendous.
posted by Skot at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

All sorts of critters can make repetitive clicking noises. Some crickets make very quiet clicks and a mouse chewing can sound like clicking. Sometimes it is hard to determine where exactly a sound like that is coming from. You may have scared whatever it was when you rolled over. BTW I'm not suggesting that there was a mouse by or in your bed. It could have been under the floor or in the wall. The sounds they make can carry far sometimes. I'm going to guess that it was a cricket though.
posted by Procloeon at 8:55 AM on November 9, 2009

Best answer: The most logical explanation is that your BF is somewhat mistaken - you in fact DO move your feet, but very subtly. I've actually witnessed this - you can click your toenails against the sheet (snagging) or each other - if one foot is touching the other, it can take a tiny movement to snap one nail under a nail on the other foot, a movement so small your BF would miss it.
posted by VikingSword at 9:02 AM on November 9, 2009

Best answer: Is it possible you may grind your teeth at night? That can generate an unearthly clicking sound that's difficult to locate. (Being clicky inside your mouth sometimes has a weird echo effect that makes the sound seem to come from somewhere else.)
posted by Gable Oak at 10:13 AM on November 9, 2009

My feet make loud noises. I have an ankle injury from about a month ago (sprained it) and now a tendon is snapping around in there or something. It's about as loud as a finger-snap, my friends can hear it in the next room, and it happens about 20 times a day, sometimes as often as about once every 5-10 minutes.

Sometimes it seems to happen when my foot looks like it isn't even moving (wowing my friends!), although in actuality whenever it happens I know that I'm flexing my calf, subtly pointing my toe, or some other joint movement like that. So you may have been moving your feet juuust enough to snap the tendon, and not enough for it to be really noticeable, especially if you were moving slowly and it was dark. But the sound in my foot isn't constant- it can't seem to happen without at least a few minutes' time between clicks. YMMV.
posted by twistofrhyme at 10:13 AM on November 9, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for all the responses. I am going to assume that either my boyfriend is mistaken or my feet were moving a little bit. The tooth grinding idea is also worth checking out further even though he swears the noise was not coming from my head—I didn't realize tooth grinding could be a clicking noise, and I do have occasional jaw and ear pain. (I ruled out creepy crawlies based on the idea that if something was lurking under the mattress, it probably would have been scared off when he got out of and back into bed.)
posted by heliotrope at 12:38 PM on November 9, 2009

the snapping sound your tendons can make is when they are stretched and get caught between your bones. when the tendon clicks out of from between the bones it makes a noise. my ankles and knees make that noise. also my toes...
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 11:29 PM on November 10, 2009