Don't recall sending that message? Maybe you're 'sleep texting'

(CNN) -- If you have a smartphone, you may have felt the embarrassment of sending a private message to the wrong person or having autocorrect fail you at just the wrong time.

But some people experience a different kind of messaging mishap, one they may not even remember doing. And no, they're not drunk-dialing.

They're sleep-texting.

While hard data is lacking on this cultural trend, the anecdotal evidence has been mounting over the past few years. Twitter users regularly recount the loopy messages they've sent with the hashtag #sleeptexting. "There are texts sent from my phone at 5am that I do not recall sending," said one tweet. Another said, "I should stop sleeping next to my phone."

Others post Twitpics and Instagram photos showing their bizarre or garbled messages, some of which are more gibberish than actual words. One woman told CNN affiliate WQAD last year that she had a sleep-texting disorder.

Whereas some people might "get up and go get something out of the refrigerator" while in a state of sleep, said Dr. Jim Fulop, the corporate medical director for OhioHealth Sleep Services, others "grab their smartphone, which is right next to them, and they may text or do other things."

The idea of unlocking a smartphone, opening a texting app and then typing something while asleep may sound far-fetched, but the "sleep-texting" term is a little misleading. It's more like "half-asleep" texting, as doctors describe it as a state of rest where a person isn't fully awake.

"It's like your brain is on autopilot," explained Dr. Shelby Harris, director of behavioral sleep medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "Think about the rate at which people are texting nowadays, and most people sleep right next to (their phones), so if they wake up it's another automatic behavior. ... This is sort of a form of sleepwalking, that's kind of the way that I look at it."

Unlike sleepwalking, which can be dangerous, sleep-texting tends to be a habit that can be easily laughed off.

Kayla Potega, 23, saved one of her sleep texts to her boyfriend because "it was so outrageous," she said. Potega, a healthy-living blogger in Rockford, Illinois, first noticed she was sleep-texting a few years ago. She said she rarely does it but when she does, she seems to only text her boyfriend.

"I don't know (why it happens)," Potega said, although she has a theory that its root may be her desire to communicate whatever she'd been dreaming about.

"I think it's driven by the fact that I want to tell (my boyfriend) these dreams, but I'm still kind of asleep, so I just reach for the phone and text him regardless of what it is, and I have no recollection of doing it all," Potega said. "The last one, I remember I was trying to give him some sort of advice ... It ended up being something like, 'just because your brain is a cast iron skillet, doesn't mean your body is.'"

Here are some other recent examples of sleep texts, as posted on Twitter and Instagram:

-- "Wtf did they put in those little bomb things."

-- "No bounces issues with monh..., pillow helps"

-- "I legittt wish veggird were enough to fuelme"

-- "The bullet holes really look great on my teddy bear."

Fulop and Harris say younger generations appear to be more susceptible to sleep-texting. For young professionals, sometimes their jobs require them to respond to texts and e-mails late into the night.

And teens, "they're texting constantly," Fulop said. "They feel they can spend the middle of the night communicating with their friends; it's part of their behavior. ... They don't intend to text, but they sleep-text because they wake up confused, they grab (their phone) and they're off mumbling in the text message."

Dr. Elizabeth Dowdell, a professor of pediatric nursing at Villanova University's College of Nursing, heard the same thing as she was researching Internet risk behaviors and the victimization of children and adolescents.

"I think for many adolescents and young adults, technology has provided us another avenue of sleep walking, (or) talking in our sleep. People have answered the phone, the good old-fashioned landline, in their sleep. That's not particularly new," Dowdell said. "What we're seeing now is younger people experiencing this."

Adults can typically shrug off sleep-texting with a laugh or an apology, but there could be greater consequences for adolescents. Texting is interrupting their sleep at an age when they need it most, and they could be more vulnerable to thier unintentional oversharing being posted for others to see.

If you're a sleep texter or afraid of becoming one, the easiest and best solutions are the most obvious: Turn off your phone, set your passcode lock or place it on the other side of the room so it's not within easy reach.

JOHNSON HOLDS OFF DALE JR. FOR DAYTONA 500 WIN

Patrick spends time up front; Harvick, Stewart KO'd early

Jimmie Johnson emerged from the pack after a tense restart with six laps left to win the 55th Daytona 500 on Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

Johnson, who also won the Great American Race in 2006, held off Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the finish. Mark Martin, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman completed the top five

Danica Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to lead a green-flag lap in NASCAR's premier series but wound up just short with an eighth-place finish.

Patrick started from the pole position but dropped to second place behind Jeff Gordon before the first lap was halfway complete. She dropped back to the fringes of the top 10 after a slow early pit stop, but jumped to the top of the leaderboard with quick service from her crew before the third restart.

From there, she held off Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer at the start-finish line to lead the 90th and 91st laps. She moved back to the lead in the 127th lap after Kenseth made a scheduled pit stop, then led through the 129th lap until making her own stop for service.

LEADERBOARD: Daytona 500

Joe Gibbs Racing showed its strength in the late going, running 1-2-3 until two top contenders retired with mechanical issues within two laps of each other just past the three-quarter mark of the 200-lap race. Kenseth, who led a race-high 86 laps, was the first to fall out with an apparent transmission or engine problem in the 150th lap; Kyle Busch followed suit on Lap 152 with engine failure, leaving Denny Hamlin as the lone JGR Toyota to contend for the win.

"It's just frustrating," Busch said. "You come down here and you have such fast race cars. All the guys at Joe Gibbs Racing built us awesome pieces. We're running 1-2-3 there and it felt like we were dropping like flies."

Another handful of pre-race favorites dropped from contention after an early nine-car crash, triggered when Busch shoved Kasey Kahne into a spin just past the start-finish line in the 32nd lap. The melee collected Kevin Harvick -- the winner of the Sprint Unlimited and Budweiser Duel preliminaries -- and Tony Stewart, a four-time winner at Daytona, but never in the 500.

"I was kind of right in the middle of the race track, and it closed the door on us," Stewart said. "… If I didn't tell y'all I'm disappointed and heartbroken, I'd be lying to you."

Busch accepted blame as he radioed his crew during the caution period, but Kahne seemed to absolve him, saying that he hit the brakes when teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon slowed ahead of him. By the time it was over, defending Sprint Cup champ Keselowski, Casey Mears, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kurt Busch were also involved.

"Oh, it's crazy. I can't believe it," Kahne said of his early exit. "I mean, I wanted to race. I didn't want to run single-file by the wall. That's what we were doing and you still got caught in something. I really don't know how it happened like that. I understand how that happens but it's restrictor-plate racing and anything can happen here."

Another multicar wreck in the 137th lap snared 2011 Daytona 500 champ Trevor Bayne, Carl Edwards, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., David Gilliland and David Ragan. Keselowski slid through the first turn after contact with Bayne but continued on the lead lap.

For Edwards, it was a capper to a dreadful SpeedWeeks, where he was involved in a handful of crashes that mangled four or five on Roush Fenway Racing's No. 99 Fords.

"It's so frustrating. This has not been fun," Edwards said. "My guys, they're not quitting and are working hard. They've already told me they're ready to go to Phoenix and dominate. We're not getting held down this year. It doesn't matter how many cars we wrecked here. We're fighting to the very end."

The race also marked the debut of the sixth generation of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race car, which focuses on brand identity and a showroom-style look. Kahne said that the Gen-6 racer performed well in his brief stint on the 2.5-mile track.

"Oh, the new car is great. There is nothing wrong with the new car," Kahne said. "It's a 500-mile race, so everybody wants to take it easy and wait till later on and I'm not going to get to be there later on."

Pistorius' brother faces culpable homicide charges

Murder-accused paralympian Oscar Pistorius’ brother Carl faces charges of culpable homicide, according to a report.

“It’s related to an accident that happened in 2010, in which he had a collision with a female motorcyclist,” e-News Channel Africa legal journalist Karyn Maughan said on the weekly television show Justice Report, anchored by Justice Malala.

She said Carl Pistorius was to have gone on trial on Thursday – the day before his brother was granted bail.

However, in an early sitting of the court the trial was moved forward until next week “meaning he could go on trial and have his trial completed – it’s been dragging on for so long – before his brother goes on trial“.

Pistorius, who is accused of killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was granted bail of R1 million by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Friday, when the case was postponed to June 4.

Maughan reported that Carl Pistorius was being represented Kenny Oldwage, who is also acting for his brother.

Oldwage had told her that Carl Pistorius was being pursued for reckless or negligent driving.

She said the case was provisionally withdrawn, but was later reinstated “under pressure from the woman’s family” who felt there was evidence it was not just an accident, but there was alleged negligence on his part.

- Sapa

Oscar Odds: Argo vs. Les Miserables

(CNN) -- Back in September, it was going to be "Silver Linings Playbook."

Then it was "Argo."

Then "Les Miserables." "Zero Dark Thirty" picked up some steam. "Lincoln" got raves.

Then back to "Les Miz." Over to "Lincoln." And, finally, the buzz settled on "Argo."

This year's Oscar race has been anything but predictable.

As festival chatter has given way to box office tallies, critics' honors and guild awards, the perceived leaders for best picture have changed almost as often as the country's top-ranked college basketball team. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences further muddied matters when it failed to nominate the directors of four best picture nominees -- "Argo," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Les Miserables" and "Django Unchained" -- for best director.

Bad for the conventional wisdom. Good for competition.

"I love all the suspense this year," said Oscar watcher Tom O'Neil, who runs the GoldDerby.com awards blog. "There are a lot of precedents being set."

For example, he observes, usually the film with the most nominations is the front-runner for best picture. This year, the most-nominated film is Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," which earned 12 nods. But the movie that's shown the most staying power at the various awards ceremonies since then -- including the Golden Globes, SAG Awards and the Producers Guild -- has been Ben Affleck's "Argo," making the latter film the front-runner for the big prize Sunday night. "Argo" is up for seven Oscars.Moreover, Affleck's picture has dominated despite being snubbed by the academy in several categories, most notably best director. (In fact, among the Big Six categories of picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor and supporting actress, "Argo" has just two nominations, three fewer than "Lincoln," despite a top-notch cast.) In the entire history of the Oscars, just three films have won best picture without a directing nomination. The most recent was 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy," which won the top prize despite director Bruce Beresford getting shut out.

Unlike Beresford, however, Affleck received the support of his peers at the Directors Guild of America, which awarded him its top prize a few weeks ago; Beresford didn't even make the DGA cut in 1989.

Is the rank-and-file trying to send the academy a message?

O'Neil believes they are.

Years ago, he points out, a situation like Affleck's Oscar snub would have been noted and then forgotten in the face of a much-nominated film such as "Lincoln." Today, with social media and blogs constantly debating the Oscars' merit, the argument isn't over until PricewaterhouseCoopers finishes tallying the votes.

"That's evidence of how different the Oscars are today," he said.

In addition, the DGA award is about the many over the few: The DGA is voted on by more than 14,000 members of the directors' guild -- a group that includes assistants, TV specialists and other forms of helmers -- while the Oscar nominees for best director were selected by the roughly 370 members of the academy's directors' branch, a more homogenous group, said O'Neil.

Clayton Davis, who oversees AwardsCircuit.com, has another theory: that "Argo" is everybody's alternative. Given the way the Oscars are tallied, with voters ranking their picks from favorite to least favorite, a film with a lot of twos and threes will do better than a film that some people love and others loathe.

"You'll find your haters for 'Lincoln,' you'll find your haters for 'Zero Dark Thirty,' you'll find your haters for 'Les Miz.' But everybody, for the most part, at least says 'Argo' was good," he said. "So in a preferential balloting system 'Argo's' not likely to have a lot of No. 9 votes. And in a preferential balloting system, two, three and four can easily make up the winner."

Lifetime achievements and new faces

This year, at least, almost all the best picture nominees have a rooting interest. As opposed to recent years, when many nominees struggled to crack even $50 million domestically, this time all but three of the nine best picture films -- "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Amour" and "Zero Dark Thirty" -- have topped $100 million at the North American box office. Some have established financial benchmarks: "Django Unchained" is Quentin Tarantino's highest-grossing film ever, and "Silver Linings Playbook" is tops among David O. Russell's films.

And though the Oscars are Hollywood-centric, the global market is always in studios' thoughts. In that respect, "Life of Pi" has been a juggernaut, making almost $600 million worldwide since its release.

"Life of Pi," in fact, may sneak into the winner's circle if the "Argo" bandwagon slows. One academy voter interviewed by CNN said "Pi," directed by Ang Lee, was his favorite film among the nominees; "Argo" didn't make his top three. (Neither did "Lincoln," for that matter.) Davis adds that anybody voting for Spielberg will likely vote for "Lincoln," and because "Lincoln's" momentum has halted he suspects Spielberg will lose best director to Lee or Russell. Lee, whose film was a special-effects marvel, may have the many members of the technical branches behind him.

Ang Lee's film "Life of Pi," based on the best-selling book, could sneak into the winner's circle.

"If Spielberg wins director, he's going to have three director wins, but only one of his films ('Schindler's List') will have won best picture in his career," he said. "That would be a little crazy. So I think Russell and Ang Lee are coming up strong."

O'Neil agrees. "Life of Pi" also has the second-most Oscar nominations this year, it received 11, and "its back story is extraordinary," since Yann Martel's best-selling 2001 novel was long considered unfilmable, he said.

Best picture isn't the only category without a shoo-in. In fact, with the exception of best actor, which has been Daniel Day-Lewis' race to lose since the "Lincoln" trailers first hit the Web, the other contests are still anybody's guess.

Jennifer Lawrence ("Silver Linings Playbook") was long considered the front-runner for best actress. She fits several of the academy's biases -- she's young and rising, she's box office gold (both "Playbook" and "The Hunger Games" were box office successes) and she's a critical darling. Past examples of her type include Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon.

But there's also a tendency for the academy to offer "lifetime achievement awards," giving Oscars to veteran performers who have been overlooked in the past. (See Jessica Tandy and Geraldine Page.) If that's the way things are going, and O'Neil is seeing movement in that direction, expect 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva to take home the golden statue.

"There's been a real surge among academy members. She suddenly has the cool factor," O'Neil said.

After wins for Lawrence and Jessica Chastain ("Zero Dark Thirty") at the various industry get-togethers, Riva suddenly burst from the pack with a win at the BAFTAs, the British Oscars. Her exposure wasn't hurt when the Hollywood Reporter put together a 2,000-word profile on the famed French actress, perhaps best known in the United States for Alain Resnais' inscrutable 1959 classic "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and the "Blue" chapter of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy.

On the other side of the age spectrum is "Beasts of the Southern Wild's" Quvenzhane Wallis, who was just 6 when she filmed the little indie. (She's 9 now and still the youngest best actress nominee ever.) Though some commentators have raised questions aboutwhether a 6-year-old can actually act -- or is, essentially, just being herself -- there's no question the academy loves honoring youngsters: usually with just a nomination, but sometimes more. Just ask Tatum O'Neal and Anna Paquin.

A first for James Bond?

Similarly, though Anne Hathaway ("Les Miserables") has been close to a lock for best supporting actress, there's an outside chance that Sally Field ("Lincoln") could take the prize. It's her first nomination since she won best actress for 1984's "Places in the Heart," which prompted her famous "You like me! Right now, you like me!" speech.

At 85, French actress Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest person ever nominated for best actress.

But the race hardest to predict is probably best supporting actor. All five nominees have won before; all five have arguments in their favor.

The sentimental favorite is probably Robert De Niro, who's made more heartfelt guest appearances on behalf of "Silver Linings Playbook" than he has for any number of his other recent films. Besides, as "Playbook's" studio head (and always shrewd Oscar campaigner) Harvey Weinstein told CNN, "Bob De Niro hasn't won an Oscar in 32 years." (Yes, it's true: "Raging Bull" was De Niro's last win.)

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West Expecting A Baby Girl

Rumor has it Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are expecting a baby girl!

According to Us Weekly, the couple recently discovered the sex of their baby-to-be -- and they're ecstatic.

"They're over the moon!" a source close to Kardashian and West tells Us. "Kanye always wanted a girl."

Kardashian, 32, confirmed her pregnancy on Dec. 31 after West, 35, accidentally revealed the news during his show in Atlantic City, N.J., on Dec. 30.

"It's true. Kanye and I are expecting a baby," Kardashian said in a statement. "We feel so blessed and lucky and wish that in addition to both of our families, his mom and my dad could be here to celebrate this special time with us."

Sources close to the pair tell Hollywoodlife.com that Kardashian is looking forward to having a daughter, explaining, "Kim has always dreamed of having a little girl and now she has her wish! Everyone is so excited. Now it’s pink, pink, pink!”

And according to Kardashian, her rapper beau can't wait to dress his future child.

"If anyone knows Kanye, they just know how into fashion he is, and I think he's going to have things specially made," she said on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in January. "So I don't think hand-me-downs are going to work."

The couple's little lady (if the reports are true) is due in July.