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The definition of sleepwalk is "​to walk around while you are asleep".

Say a girl was asleep when she sat up and started talking gibberish with her eyes wide open.

Can we say "she was sleepwalking"?

"She was talking in her sleep" might mean was was still lying at that time with her eyes closed.

Also "sleeptalk" might not be an existing word.

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    You can say that someone is sleep-talking or sleep talking (a two-word phrase with a space or hyphen seems to be usual). The formal or medical name for the behaviour is somniloquy.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jul 5 at 5:48
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    Sleepwalking specifically means getting up and walking about while still asleep.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 5 at 8:16
  • Note, when I imagine this, I imagine the sleeper talking naturally in recognizable words, but not making sense because they're out of context, like "Don't feed the rhino at the table." I might choose a word like "nonsense" rather than "gibberish" for this. "Gibberish" could be used for this and wouldn't be wrong, but it has more of a connotation of formless, meaningless noise.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 5 at 18:50

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"Sleep walking" - the term can also be used for doing other activities..
The term can also be used for doing other activities while deep in sleep, such as sitting up in bed, opening the refrigerator, preparing food, or even driving while asleep. But walking around the house while in deep sleep is one of the most common types of sleepwalking.

to know more about what is sleep walking:- https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/parasomnias-sleepwalking#:~:text=The%20term%20can%20also%20be,most%20common%20types%20of%20sleepwalking.

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"Parasomnia" is the broad term for sleep disorders that involve abnormal movements, behaviours, emotions, perceptions, and dreams. Sleepwalking, or 'somnambulism', to give it its medical term, is a type of parasomnia.

Talking in one's sleep is called somniloquy.

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I'm afraid there's no convenient single word for this scenario and it would have to be spelled out. Sleepwalking has the distinct connotation of actually walking, even if the scenario you describe is probably caused by the same sleep problem.

The best way to handle this one would be full description: "Yeah, she was totally asleep but was sitting up and talking! And when she woke up she didn't remember a thing!"

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As you can see, there's disagreement about this among native speakers and even among dictionaries—

Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Dictionary:

The act or an instance of walking or performing another activity associated with wakefulness while asleep or in a sleeplike state.

Random House College Dictionary:

The act or state of walking while asleep; somnambulism.

Regardless of technicalities, "sleepwalking" strongly suggests that the person actually got up and walked, and "sleep talking" doesn't necessarily imply any behavior other than talking.

Either term would be acceptable if you don't mind leaving information out. If you want to fully describe what happened, you'll need to use more words.

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