Talking to yourself through audio tracks

Audio-Track to Yourself

Hypnopaedia: Can We Sleep and Learn?

The concept of learning during sleep is an old one, yet with little solid proof and testing to back it up. Moving out of the realm of science fiction, this proposed research rests on the findings of previous studies to make the claim that hypnopaedia, or sleep learning, can be successful. This research uses prior findings to draft a study where three groups are used to show the success of sleep learning. One control group will be compared with one group monitored for sleep quality and another not. These groups will then be tested for success of grasping the fifteen Spanish present tense verbs taught within the course of the study and then compared to show the success, or failure, or sleep learning.

Introduction

Sleep takes up so much our time, but do we allow that time to be wasted? Many propose that "One third of a human's life is spent sleeping which, while it is undoubtedly a necessary part of daily life, seems like a waste of precious hours in today's multi-tasking," (Klein 2009). In fact, the average person sleeps around 22 years of their lives (McKenna 2003). Once again, is that average 22 years wasted? Is there a way to multi-task during the time that we are sleeping? Modern research says yes; that periods of sleep can in fact be used as methods to help facilitate learning, "Advances in neuroscience led scientists in recent years to produce a large body of converging evidence that shows that sleep helps secure memories and aids at least some types of learning," (Society for Neuroscience 2009). Sleep is essential to learning, and there are ways to actually incorporate learning into sleeping periods.

Within the context of modern research, there is a budding field of scientific research which proposes the idea that individuals can in fact learn while sleeping. Also known as Hypnopaedia, this act "attempts to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep," (DeAngelis & Hayes 2009). Now this may seem like it is straight out of science fiction. It has been used literature, such as Alodus Huxley's Brave New World, as a form of mind control (Meckier 2002). But modern research has shown success of subliminal learning- by using "sophisticated perceptual masking, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to show tat instrumental learning can occur in the human brain without conscious processing of contextual clues," (Cell Press 2008). With this in mind, it is the goal of this research to prove that sleep learning is possible, in limited and controlled formats.

Literature Review

Part of the essential foundations of hypnopaedia is that subliminal learning can in fact occur within the human brain. Previous and ongoing research has shown that "Audio subliminal learning places either positive, motivational, or vocabulary words just beneath the conscious hearing level. This allows the subconscious to hear and retain the information," (Earle 2009). During periods of sleep, audio lessons or messages are played at carefully picked levels in order to drown the subconscious in new learning. According to research, "To be effective, the materials must be at a high enough volume to hear, but not so loud as to interfere with sleep," (Earle 2009). Many studies have also found that the quality of sleep can also bear on the successes or failures of sleep learning attempts.

Several studies in the latter half of the Twentieth Century have found favorable results for the concept of sleep learning. A study conducted by Leshan in 1942 focused on curbing the bad habit of nail biting within young boys attending a summer camp (McKenna 2003). Within the context of this research, twenty nail biting subjects were separated into two age groups, one 8-10 and the other 11-14. These groups were then subjected to either subliminal messages or controlled bouts of music during sleep. The boys in the experimental group were played "My finger nails taste terribly bitter" over 300 times each night for 54 consecutive nights (McKenna 2003). Amazingly, 40% of the experimental group stopped biting their nails. This study shows that there are various levels of success in sleep learning, on a very basic level.

Many other studies help present the idea that sleep learning can take place within controlled contexts. Other studies conducted by Hoskovec in Russia "suggested that people were capable of learning during sleep, though the learning was of a simpler nature," (Klein 2009). This works hand in hand with the original findings of Leshan in 1942. The Russian tests found success in teaching simple concepts to their sleeping subjects. According to the findings of research, "The Russian investigators determined that retention of the material is optimized if the presentation takes place during the first 30-40 minutes of sleep," (Budzynski 2009). Thus, through the context of this research it is evident that the period of sleep in which the subject is exposed to learning techniques also plays a crucial role in the success of retaining newly learned information. Studies conducted on stage 2 sleep have shown successful recollections of single digit numbers repeated in audio form, (Oltman et al. 2007).

However, other studies have found limited or no successes in the process of sleep learning. A 1956 study conducted by Charles Simon and William Emmons "discovered that he stimulus material presented during sleep was not recalled later when the subject woke up," (Tran 2009). This study also incorporated the use of electroencephalography (EEG) which gave it actually measurable data to prove its findings, which had not been implemented before.

Many studies and current practices of hypnopaedia focus on the learning of new languages within subjects and practitioners. Sleep learning techniques have been used to augment the teaching of new languages. In many cases, the "playing of vocabulary or other lesson material during sleep, allowing the subconscious to absorb the new language," (Earle 2009). One famous study conducted by B. Fox & J. Robbin taught fifteen Chinese words to test subjects while awake and then tested them to see how many they had actually learned. These test scores were recorded to then compare to a later test given to test the words supposedly learned while the test subjects were asleep. The second half of the study focused on teaching entirely new Chinese words to the subjects while they slept, "They then gave the subjects an audio machine for the night which kept repeating 25 Chinese words, all different from the first test," (Klein 2009). The control group listened to 29 minutes of music while they slept and was later compared to the scores of the experimental group (McKenna 2003). Findings showed that the control group did learn the words taught to them in their sleep, but that they did not score as high as the 15 learned awake the previous day. However, one major aspect of this study that may have had an effect on its findings was that the study did not monitor the quality of sleep. According to research," the irregularity of sleep, and lack of consistent, continuous periods of sleep may contribute to an inhibition of learning, problem solving, and creativity," (Weistling 2003). Therefore future research, including this current proposed study, should continue to focus on the quality of sleep involved with the subjects being taught using practice of hypnopaedia.

Method

The method of this study will include three specific groups: one control, one experimental group not monitored for their sleep quality, and one control group which is monitored for their sleep quality. Since previous research failed to thoroughly examine the effect of sleep quality within study contexts, this will be an important piece of the current stud design. The group monitored for sleep quality will be conducted through the use of an actigraph, which measures brainwaves during sleep periods. The control group will be taught the same lesson as the experimental group, only awake rather than asleep. The sample subjects will be taken from a local university and therefore will be of college age, between 18 and 24 years of age, none of whom should have any prior experience with the Spanish language. The lessons planned for sleep learning will be simple in order to go along with previous research, since findings have seen that's how hypnopaeda works. The lesson planned is fifteen simple Spanish words in the present tense. These words will be repeated 50 times during the initial period of sleep. So, within the context of this experiment, the independent variable is the quality of sleep experienced by the experiment group, and the dependent variable is the test scores of the tested Spanish lesson.