Sleep-learning

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

This technique is often moderately effective at making people remember direct passages or facts, word for word^{[citation needed]}. However, there is little to no evidence that a person undergoing hypnopædia is actually learning anything in the sense that the newly acquired knowledge is connected to other knowledge or conceptualized in any way.

1 In fiction
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] In fiction

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 is supposed to have been discovered after a Polish-speaking boy named Reuben Rabinovitch was able to recite an entire radio broadcast in English after listening to it 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 Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, it is used to reverse the moral conditioning previously undergone by Alex, the novel's protagonist.
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 an episode of The Simpsons, Homer orders hypnopædia 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.
In an episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter hooks himself up to a gramophone that repeats his lesson for the class test the next morning. The gramophone gets stuck at the phrase omellette du fromage, and Dexter finds out the next morning that it is all he is capable of saying any more.
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.
The twins Hank and Dean Venture, of the the animated television program The Venture Bros., are home-schooled through the use of hypnopædic beds.
In an episode of Friends, Chandler tries to quit smoking with the help of hypnopædia. Unfortunately, the tape includes the words "You are a strong and confident woman", rendering Chandler more feminine in his actions for the remainder of the episode.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Leshan, L. (1942). The breaking of a habit by suggestion during sleep. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 37, 406-408.
Fox, B.H., & Robbin, J.S. (1952). The retention of material presented during sleep. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 43, 75-79.
Emmons W. H., Simon C. W. The non-recall of material presented during sleep. Am J Psychol. 1956 Mar;69(1):76-81.