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Sleep Learning (Hypnopedia)

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The "Hey.." thread inspired this one...

Like many people, when I'm a passenger on a long car journey, I tend to nod off -- lulled by the motion of the car and the burble of the radio.

Unfailingly, I awake to find that I have "absorbed" the entire radio programme throughout my snooze -- playlist, interviews, news, the lot. Is this normal? Is this subliminal learning? And why doesn't it work when I fall asleep in front of the TV?

Not that, ahem, I do very often, being a vibrant young twentysomething..!
 
I too tend to nod off during a a long car journey -- lulled by the motion of the car and the burble of the radio. I don't remember anything from the radio but I feel alert and refreshed. Which is more than can be said for my passengers. :D
 
speaking of subliminal - what do you think of subliminal messaging? I'm sure I'm a victim of it because i've never bought marmite before and hate it but i bought some last night!!
 
Marmite! Ewwww Gross. ;)

Subliminal messaging on TV and in films is illegal in the UK isn't it? Strangly not in computer games though.

The X-files PC game had subliminal messages in them and I think they actually worked. In one part of the game you enter a warehouse and its all dark and spooky. For some reason I got the serious chill and felt very unnerved and I couldn't work out why. As it turns out this scene as subliminal text messages that say 'haunted' and 'ghost' and similar things. Just simple text the randomnly flash on the screen but you never consiously see it. Well I saw it once. I noticed a refresh the one time so I sat there and watched the screen for about 15mins until I caught one.

I gotta say subliminal messaging seems to work.

NOTE:
For more on subliminal messages / advertising see:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/subliminal-advertising.3802/
 
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I remember when I was studying for A levels, someone told me to put info on a tape, play it while I slept, and in the morning I'd remember it.
I never tested this theory out, but just wondered if anyone else had and if there was any truth in it?
 
Yeah I've heard that and recall that people used to say 'Put a book under your pillow' to learn it too. (yeah, really)
Makes me worry what I'm taking in when I fall asleep in front of the TV.
 
There's still a market for tapes designed to be played during sleep for "Subliminal Learning", but to the best of my knowledge results of any tests have been inconclusive. (Not counting those done by the people hawking said tapes.)

Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, mentions it and claims that it was found to be only useful in rote-learning declarations of facts. (Which is why the society only uses it for imprinting ethics and morality on its youth.) Of course, that's fiction, as is the episode of The Simpsons where Homer improves his vocabulary while trying to lose weight.

I would guess you'd be more likely to learn something from these tapes if you weren't sleeping, but rather slightly dozy, and thus less likely to be distracted by other things going on (while still awake). Or maybe if you play it in the car on your way to work. (Often recommended for learning foreign languages.)
 
Is that the same as subliminal learning?
My driving instructor gave me a relaxation tape once (I was really nervous about the test) which he said had subliminal messages to relax you. Next thing I know, he got the sack from his job. Makes me wonder what the subliminal messages were. :eek:
I really feel I want to test this out now, but I'm not sure I'd fall asleep with a tape going. :p
 
Go for it. And tell us what happens.

If you don't fall asleep, then that may be significant, too.
 
This morning I performed a spontaneous experiment with sleep learning and it didn't work ...

These days it gets light early and I wake (much too) early. What works well with me is to listen to an audio-book at low volume and this will put me back to sleep very quickly. At the moment I'm (audio-) reading M.R. James' Ghost stories.

This morning I woke up three times, and each time I reset the audiobook to the middle of the story "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral". I must have heard the ending at least three times in my sleep, but I still don't know how the story ends!

Experiment: I now look up the story on the Internet and look at the ending:
http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/barchester.html

No it does not sound at all familiar :D

Do you have more positive experiences with sleep learning?
 
Hmmm, yup. Sometimes if I wake early and can't sleep I listen to Paul McKenna on my ipod, advising me on either How To Be Thin or How To Stop Shopping Too Much.*

As soon as we get into the relaaax bit I'm well away. 8)

*I'm not a compulsive shopper and never have been so that shows how good it is. 8)
 
Mythbusters conducted an exsperiment to discover if you could learn things in your sleep. So did the Brainiac programme (Although they arn't nearly so strict in their science and will bead a result for a better comidic effect) Both proved that the process didn't work.

(Be gentle, that was my first post here.)
 
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This March 2019 Live Science article reviews the history of sleep learning theories and claims, then notes that the possibility of memory formation and some rudimentary forms of "learning" can indeed occur while sleeping.

Bottom Line: Sleep learning is back in play as a research topic, albeit with greatly reduced expectations ...

... The concept of sleep learning, or hypnopedia, has a long history. The first study to demonstrate a memory and learning benefit from sleep was published in 1914 by German psychologist Rosa Heine. She found that learning new material in the evening before sleep results in better recall compared to learning during the day.

Thanks to many studies done since then, we now know that sleep is crucial for forming long-term memories of what we have encountered during the day. The sleeping brain replays the day's experiences and stabilizes them by moving them from the hippocampus, where they are first formed, to regions across the brain. Given that so much is happening to memories during sleep, it's natural to ask if the memories can be altered, enhanced or even formed anew.

One popular approach to sleep learning was Psycho-phone, a popular device in the 1930s. It played out motivational messages to sleepers, such as "I radiate love," supposedly helping the people absorb the ideas in their subconscious and wake up with radiant confidence.

At first, it seemed that research backed up the idea behind devices like Psycho-phone. Some early studies found that people learned the material they encountered during sleep. But those findings were debunked in the 1950s, when scientists began to use EEG to monitor sleep brain waves. Researchers found that if any learning had happened, it was only because the stimuli had woken the participants. These poor studies launched sleep learning into the trash can of pseudoscience.

But in recent years, studies have found that the brain may not be a total blob during sleep. These findings suggest that it is possible for the sleeping brain to absorb information and even form new memories. The catch, however, is that the memories are implicit, or unconscious. Put another way, this form of learning is extremely basic, much simpler than what your brain has to accomplish if you want to learn German or quantum mechanics.

Still, these findings have elevated sleep learning from the category of pipe dreams and put it back on scientists' radar. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/64920-how-learn-during-sleep.html
 
Much of the newer "sleep learning" research has been framed with regard to TMR (targeted memory reactivation) - a demonstrable effect for reinforcing memories, rather than imparting new information or data, during sleep. TMR uses sensory cues to reinforce memories. Odors have been claimed to be particularly effective cues.
Intriguing Small Study Suggests Smelling Rose While Sleeping Could Help Kids Learn

If humans are truly capable of learning while we sleep, our noses might be the key. A new study on children suggests that subtle smells, like the fragrance of a rose, might help us to strengthen specific memories from the day.

Researchers in Germany found students were able to memorise new English words about 30 percent better when incense sticks were burned during study and sleep.

"Our study shows that we can make learning during sleep easier," says Jürgen Kornmeier from the University of Freiburg.

"And who would have thought that our nose could help considerably in this."

Since the 1950s, scientists have been fascinated by the idea of sleep-learning, known as hypnopedia. Traditionally, it's been thought to work via sound, such as listening to foreign language tapes while you fall asleep.

The thing is, this skill might not actually exist. Over the years, hypnopedia has gone in and out of favour with researchers, although recently there's been some evidence to suggest it's real - at least to some extent.

While you can't simply wake up having learned new facts and figures without consciously being aware of them, there's a thing called targeted memory reactivation (TMR) which might help solidify things you've already learned while you get some shut-eye.

Evidence in the past decade has shown that subtle sounds presented during sleep can strengthen memory processing, and several studies suggest odour cues can do the same. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-scent-of-a-rose-during-sleep-might-improve-your-ability-to-learn
 
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