Sleep Learning?

[Andrew Quaze]

I've heard of this before, but just wanted to get some input from some people who'd know more about it and whether it has credit. Basically, its the idea that by playing a tape/CD/MP3 while falling asleep and subsequentially dreaming about a particular subject (e.g. learning a different langauge) is it possible to learn that subject in this fashion? Or should it be used more as an aide rather than as an independant learning technique? Or does it just not work? Any comments or suggestions would be more than welcome.

[Man of Shred]

I sort of do this. I'f you've ever heard of photoreading, that's one way to do it. I'll photoread a book and say to my self "unconcious mind, sort through all the information I have read organise, and present all information in a linear sequence during dreams. and automatically apply to my behavior apon awakening." And i actually get dreams relating to the book. I went through a hypnosis book that way. the first night i had a dream in which i was hypnotising someone i knew. a few weeks later I made a LD induction which has been helping me become lucid more often! another thing i do. is change a behavior in the same fashion. i will use a pattern like "Unconcious mind I have X behavior that i want to change. Come up with 3 new behaviors that would be more beneficial to me in that given situation. present them in dreams and apply that behavior apon awakening." that night i will have dreams in those situations behaving differently. all these are very repetitious BTW. with practice they will work.

[13redfan]

I sort of do this. I'f you've ever heard of photoreading, that's one way to do it. I'll photoread a book and say to my self "unconcious mind, sort through all the information I have read organise, and present all information in a linear sequence during dreams. and automatically apply to my behavior apon awakening." [/b] How exactly does photoreading work? And how do you tell yourself these whole long sentences? Do you repeat it in your mind till you fall asleep? Or do you like have some way of comitting it to your will before you sleep? These sound interesting!

[Man of Shred]

Photoreading is basically allowing all the information in a book to go directly into your unconcious. it works better when you read a book and then photoread it. I'll give you a simple technique for photoreading: open a book and stare at the middle of a page. unfocus your eyes like a person would who is processing information internally, Look past the book, so to speak. When the line separating the pages becomes double. begin to flip through the book one page at a time quickly. allowing each page to be glanced at for a split second or less. then flip the book over so that it's upside down and repeat the process that way. Your unconcious will take all the information in. afterwards your thoughts may begin to race. simply allow this process to occur, and let it run through. It's helpfull to write these thoughts down in order to sort through the information better. The information may even be sorted out in dreams. I passed my learners test this way and i only actually read a few pages of the drivers manual. I'll give you a more direct example of what might happen based on my experience. i tried The Game by Neil Strauss. . I photo read it forward and backwards. after 2 sessions I noticed I was thinking all sorts of thoughts that i don't usually think of. An example of such a thought: Learning "pickup" , which is really a crude term for Socialising, Is actually good because, of all the crimes Adolescent Males commit as the result of sexually frustrated drives, Including rape, theft, peeping perversion behavior. By Teaching adolescents the skills of how to get along with females, and get along with themselves, It would actually prevent such violent behavior. I went to the book i had photo read and opened a random page and read a paragraph. The paragraph had said the exact same thing that i was thinking. not only that, But my own personality put it's own twist on that idea. It was almost as if my hand sub conciously selected the page. Another time i selected a paragraph relating to sex and i suddenly felt like i was being pulled into a hypnotic trance, there were sights and smells related to the paragraph, and i had to really concentrate not to go into trance....

[GODLIGHT]

say to my self "unconcious mind, sort through all the information I have read organise, and present all information in a linear sequence during dreams. and automatically apply to my behavior apon awakening." i will use a pattern like "Unconcious mind I have X behavior that i want to change. Come up with 3 new behaviors that would be more beneficial to me in that given situation. present them in dreams and apply that behavior apon awakening." [/b] That sounds very interesting. Do you put yourself in a trance before you give those suggestions to your subconscious?

[13redfan]

Hmmm. Not exactly sleep learning, but interesting nontheless. Andrew, from what I've read and heard, it might not be exactly what you're thinking of, but according to Time magazine there have been experiments that have been done that show that thinking about practising something is just as effective as actually practising something (the experiment was done with a piece played on a piano, 2 groups of people would practice the piece on the piano for a certain amount of time each day for like 3 weeks, one group by actually practising it, the other by thinking about practising it, and at the end their brains were scanned to determine the effect on motor functions and creativity. They found that it affected both groups brains in the same way), obviously not to the extent that thinking about doing bench presses will build your chest. Anyway, using that, when you dream your body reacts the same as if it were waking life (except your limbs don't move) and you are conscious if you're lucid, so, if you could practise speaking french in your lucid dreams, you would get better in real life, and if you practised say playing guitar or the piano, you would get better in real life. Therefore, my (as always amazingly brilliant) conclusion, is that if you had an mp3 that you could listen to that would help you to become lucid and dream about something (a french lesson, or guitar solo perhaps) and you practised it in your dream, it would have a positive effect in waking life. That's my theory anyway :yumdumdoodledum:

[Man of Shred]

That sounds very interesting. Do you put yourself in a trance before you give those suggestions to your subconscious? [/b] Sometimes it's just an affimation as I'm getting into bed. sometimes I'll run a bath and just relax and go through it that way. My mind is funny: one time it will work real well and other times it won't work. getting my unconcious to act consistently can be a daunting task.

[Infraredkelp]

Tape record a teachers lecture then play it while you sleep, it helps.