Can you actually learn whilst asleep?

Written by Justin So (Korea International School '20)

Edited by Chloe Cheng (Venice High School '21)

━━ August 2st, 2018 ━━

Can you actually learn whilst asleep?

As I was reading the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the other day for my English class, I stumbled across the concept of hypnopædia/hypnopedia (well, the book focused on its concept, so I had to read about it). According to Wikipedia, hypnopedia is an attempt to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they are asleep. This concept is not new to our world, as Brave New World was published in 1932, and this concept was introduced far earlier than that. As my AP exams come closer and closer, I, and possibly many other students alike, want to find ways to study, especially with our eyes closed. If one was to actually retain information from listening to Bozeman Science while asleep, it would greatly help in future tests and exams. I would like to give a bit of fair warning to readers: this article may bring up more questions than answers around this topic.

While some sources conclude that hypnopædia is not useful, other sources discovered that the audio played during sleep is processed by and stimulates the brain. In my personal life, I have heard of cases in which people fell asleep during lectures, but were able to retain information from those lectures. Without pointing out names, when a teacher was young, he or she slept during class but managed to learn most of the material covered in class they hadn’t studied before.

Why is the development of hypnopedia in our lives not pursued today? Ever since Charles W. Simon and William H. Emmons proved that learning by sleeping is ineffective using electroencephalography (EEG) studies, scientists and researchers concluded that hypnopedia was not efficient nor possible, which discouraged others to pursue this topic deeply today. However, there are still some researches that were done that showed somewhat positive results. For example, according to Tuck.com, a study by scientists at France’s Ecole Normale Supérieur showed that people can process words spoken to them. However, the study did show that people could not recall the words that were spoken, which is slightly disappointing.

In Northwestern University, an experiment by researchers showed that people could recall piano melodies better if the melodies were played while the people were asleep. This is interesting, as this means sounds are processed in the brain while the body is asleep, but it remembers pitches of sounds, but not words.

While researching about this topic, I have found interesting sites in the internet as there are many websites that promote hypnopedia. For example, this website (sleeplearning.com) advertises that people can “absorb large amounts of new information quickly by going directly to your subconscious mind”. Personally, I think this site doesn’t work at all, as studies have shown that people can process but not contain the information given during their sleep.

Even though hypnopedia is a wonderful idea, the results from past experiments and studies show that it is currently not effective for conditioning someone. With hope, however, people can aspire hypnopedia to become much more.

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Bibliography:

"Sleep-learning." Wikipedia., 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep-learning . Accessed 10 May 2018.

Hypnopaedia – Learning in Your Sleep, Tuck, 19 Apr. 2017, www.tuck.com/hypnopaedia/ . Accessed 10 May 2018.

Pictures:

- http://beatsbooster.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/sleeping-with-headphones-768x512.jpg

- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/62/BraveNewWorld_FirstEdition.jpg/220px-BraveNewWorld_FirstEdition.jpg

- http://www.noeticscience.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/learn_sleep_0.jpg

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To contact the author, email Justin So at jso20@student.kis.or.kr

To contact the editor, email Chloe Cheng at chloe.cheng03@gmail.com

#spectra #hypnopædia #sleeping #health #biology