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WHAT IS SLEEP-LEARNING? - part 1

Today it is possible to be equally conscientious with­out working nearly so hard. It is, in fact, possible to sleep on the subject—quite literally—and learn it faster and more thoroughly than the most determined application allowed in the past.

This new aid to education is called sleep-learning.

Sleep-learning, a very young science, is based on the receptivity of the subconscious to suggestion and instruc­tion during the sleeping period.

Its principles were known to the ancients. In Egypt, priests recited the scriptures to sleeping novitiates in specially built slumber temples, believing that this method would hasten the learning process. In both Egypt and Greece, people brought their problems to such temples. There, priests whispered helpful suggestions in their ears while they slept. The nocturnal advice dealt with matters of health, general living and the encourage­ment of confidence.

In informal ways we have been applying the principle of sleep-learning all along. We often decide to "sleep on" a problem we have been unable to solve and awake with the answer.

While we are asleep, some watchful part of us pre­vents us from rolling out of bed, or pulls the covers up when they have slipped. Mothers who sleep through traffic noises, thunderstorms and husbands' snoring awake at the slightest sound from their babies. The subconscious functions while we sleep and it has been proven that it can be directed into channels of our choice.

In 1932, Aldous Huxley envisioned a new world in which hypnopaedia (sleep-teaching) would be used for purposes of conditioning future citizens along lines con­sidered useful for the state, rather than for intellectual improvement. The methods Huxley described are almost identical with those now in use. He speaks of a con­tinuous, repetitious whisper under the pillow. The degree of his prophetic talent is apparent to people familiar with sleep-learning equipment, in which a pillow-speaker is attached to a clock-controlled phonograph or tape-recorder. The speaker's volume is just loud enough to reach only the ear of the sleep-learner and the material is repeated several times during the night.

More than a quarter of a century later, in Brave New World Revisited, Huxley discussed the facts then known about hypnopaedia. He was concerned about the pos­sibility of misuse but, at the same time, recognized that factual material was being taught successfully to sleeping people. Responsible proponents of sleep-learning point out that the same possibility exists in many scientific fields, but that this risk should not keep us from making use of the beneficial aspects of this new technique.

Related terms include sleeping babies and masturbate while sleeping.