sleep-learning

Sleep-learning (also known as sleep-teaching or hypnopædia) attempts to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep.

This now-discredited technique was supposed to be moderately effective at making people remember direct passages or facts, word for word.^[1][2] Since the Electroencephalography studies by Charles W. Simon and William H. Emmons in 1956, learning by sleep has not been taken seriously. The researchers concluded that learning during sleep was "impractical and probably impossible." They reported that stimulus material presented during sleep was not recalled later when the subject awoke unless alpha activity occurred at the same time the stimulus material was given. Since alpha activity during sleep indicates the subject is about to awake, the researchers felt that any learning occurred in a wake state.^[3][4]

In fiction

The idea of sleep-learning is found in influential science fiction and other literature.^[5]

• In Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World, it is used for the conditioning of children into the novel's fictional future culture. In the novel, sleep-learning was discovered by accident when a Polish-speaking boy named Reuben Rabinovitch was able to recite an entire radio broadcast in English after a radio receiver was left on in his sleep. The boy was unable to comprehend what he had heard via hypnopædia, but it was soon realized that hypnopædia could be used to effectively make suggestions about morality.
• In the popular BBC Radio series Journey into Space (1953-1958), during the second and third parts of the trilogy, there were said to be Martians abducting people from the Earth and "Conditioning" them to obey instructions or to make them believe things that were not true. The inception of this conditioning involved putting the subject into a hypnotic sleep and appraising them of a certain situation; once they awoke they would believe it, regardless of the validity.
• In Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, it is used to reverse the effects of the Ludovico Technique, a form of classical conditioning, which was used on the main character Alex to make him incapable of violent behavior. The conditioning was a new technique which was supposed to rehabilitate violent criminals in a short period of time, but which resulted in Alex attempting to commit suicide. This reflected very badly on the government, which had sanctioned the experiment, so hypnopædia was used to undo the conditioning.
• In the BBC2 sitcom Red Dwarf, Arnold Rimmer used sleep-learning tapes such as Learn Esperanto While You Sleep and Learn Quantum Theory While You Sleep, to the dismay of his bunkmate Dave Lister. When Rimmer told Lister that they both received the same benefit, Lister replied that was true; neither of them got any sleep.
• In the computer game Outpost 2 the amount of time required to train workers into scientists can be reduced through a research topic called hypnopædia, which causes them to learn in their sleep.
• In the Warhammer 40,000 universe some of the imperial immigrants are taught high or low 'Gothic' (The language of the humans under imperium law) through Hypnopedia.
• In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer orders hypnosis tapes which are supposed to induce weight loss. However, the mail-order company sends him vocabulary builder tapes instead, and Homer gets fatter and fatter while his vocabulary increases, through hypnopædia.
• In the episode of Dexter's Laboratory, "The Big Cheese", Dexter hooks himself up to a gramophone that repeats his lesson for a French class test the next morning. The gramophone gets stuck at the phrase omelette du fromage, and Dexter finds out the next morning that it is all he is capable of saying.
• In one short on Homestar Runner Coach Z attempts to overcome his speech impediment with the word "job" (which he pronounces as "jorb"). After unsuccessfully trying several methods, Strong Sad gives him a tape of him repeating the word job thousands of times, "from when (he) was practicing the dictionary". Coach Z takes it home and listens to it while he sleeps, and the next day is able to pronounce "job" correctly, but forgets Homestar's name.
• The twins Hank and Dean Venture, of the animated television program The Venture Bros., are home-schooled through the use of hypnopædic beds.
• In Fahrenheit 451, Faber tells Montag, "So if you like, I'll read you to sleep nights. They say you retain knowledge even when you're sleeping..." He then read The Book of Job to Montag.
• In several Hienlein novels Gulf, Friday, Citizen of the Galaxy, Starship Troopers and several of his short stories contain many mentions of 'Sleep-learning.'

Notes

See also

• Educational technology
• Mozart effect

References

• Emmons William H., Simon Charles W. The Non-Recall of Material Presented During Sleep. American Journal of Psychology. 1956 Mar;69(1):76-81.
• Fox, B.H., & Robbin, J.S. (1952). The Retention of Material Presented During Sleep. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 43, 75-79.
• Fox, B.H. (1968). Current research in Hypnopaedia. Macdonald & Co. [PDF]
• Leshan, L. (1942). The Breaking of a Habit by Suggestion During Sleep. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 37, 406-408.

External links

• about Sleep Learning in wyrdology.com
• Hypnopaedia: Sleep-Learning