Learning during sleep, or hypnoopia, was highly incentivized, there are many commercials in which we make sure that we have just come out of the lesson, while we sleep and, when we wake up, we will have acquired a number of knowledge, it is true. What does science say about it?
The appeal of the method is the little effort it requires for the results it promises, supposedly learned effortlessly. And, in theory, he learns well: he ends up learning something new without realizing it, and also without difficulties or mistakes, this is considered an alternative for those who don’t like to study very much, you sleep out of ignorance and wake up knowing.
“Any unnecessary help is an obstacle to development. “- Maria Montessori-
As an advertising theme, it is certainly very attractive, however, in practice things can be very different, perhaps traders started from a scientific basis, but at some point they went far beyond what they could actually drive. Let’s see what it’s all about.
First of all, it must be said that learning is a process by which there is a transformation of a person’s perspective or behavior from the experiences acquired, which can be physical or mental in nature, which is true, in any case, is that after learning something, the person is no longer as before.
On the other hand, learning is not just what we consciously remember, memory is just one part of this process. Learning not only generates memories, but changes in attitude, way of doing and seeing reality.
During sleep, there are essentially two phases: REM sleep and NREM sleep. The first is also called ‘fast eye movement’. Science has discovered that there is a relationship between this phase of sleep and memory consolidation, however, these mechanisms are not yet fully understood.
It has been established that the memory that is consolidated during this phase is long-term, in addition, if the person is deprived of this lack of sleep, there is not only an oversight, but also a state of stress. stimuli during this phase, will not rest properly, despite this, is it possible to learn by sleeping?
To determine whether it is possible to learn during sleep, an experiment was conducted at the Weizmann Institute in 2014, which was then published in Nature Neuroscience, which involved conditioning learning.
The volunteers were exposed to a series of tones with different tones during sleep, at the same time developing an aroma, which was repeated several times, but in the end suppressed the olfactory stimulus.
The next day, some members of the same group were consciously subjected to sound stimulation, the result was that almost everyone smelled the night before, even if it was not present, in a word, had they learned?To combine the two stimuli during sleep.
This leads to the conclusion that it is possible to generate some type of learning during sleep, although with very specific limits, the first one that was generated was a fully mechanical learning, without rationalization, none of those who participated in the experiment remembered what had happened the night before. Similarly, over time they have also stopped associating sound and smell, so it was a very basic and ephemeral learning process.
What surprised scientists at the Weizmann Institute was that even limited sleep learning had been acquired at phases other than the REM phase. Apparently, the brain is more receptive to external stimuli during the REM phase, but the experiment has found otherwise.
The truth is that what we do not know about sleep is much more important than what we know, what is clear is that this is a fundamental process for humans, when you sleep, the brain does a kind of purification, eliminating data that are not be used and consolidate what is relevant. At the same time, when you don’t sleep well, there are negative health consequences.
At this time, there is no evidence of learning during sleep, at least on topics that require reasoning, nor is there certainty about the duration and scope of any other learning that occurs during sleep, so at least for now, we probably will. continue to learn through traditional style.