How You Can Learn Things In Your Sleep

Did you know that you can actually learn stuff without going to classes or reading books…you can actually do it while you sleep!

Who doesn’t like being able to do something without putting in a whole bunch of effort?

Of course it isn’t as easy as putting a book under your pillow and finding its contents have magically shifted to go inside your head during the night, but there are a few ways science has found you can make the most of your snooze time to get yourself some schooling.

1. Foreign words

Scientists conducted an experiment where they got native German speakers to start learning how to speak Dutch, beginning with some very basic vocabulary.

The participants were then asked to go to sleep. As they slept, the researchers played the sounds of those basic words to one group of them, while another group had no sounds played. A later test found that the group who had listened to the words as they slept could better identify and translate the Dutch words.

To check that the results were really linked to sleep and not just because the participants in the group had heard the Dutch words, the researchers got another group while doing other activities awake, such as walking. These people didn’t recall the foreign words as well as the people who had been asleep.

2. Musical skills

Another group of researchers were able to teach people to play guitar melodies based on a technique from the video game Guitar Hero.

The participants took a nap afterwards and were asked to play the tune again when they woke up. While they were asleep, one group was played the same melody that they had just learned, while the other group wasn’t. Those who had listened to the melody while asleep were able to play it far better than those who hadn’t.

3. Where you put something

A research study of 60 healthy adults had them using a computer to place virtual objects in a particular location on the screen. Once they did so, they heard a specific tune, following that another two experiments were done where the participants napped for up to one-and-a-half hours.

In the first nap, the participants dozed with no sounds playing. In the second nap, they had the tune played to them they heard when they placed the object on the computer screen.

After each nap, it was found that the participants’ memories had faded, but the memory faded less after exposure to the sound that had been played when they placed the item.

What do you think?