Learning While You Sleep

Night School

New evidence suggests that we can learn while we sleep, but do we really want to put our hours of rest to work?

Kenneth Miller | October 2, 2015

[...]Almost a century ago, a fad for sleep-learning swept the industrialised world, ending only after neuroscientists determined it was physiologically impossible. Yet today, a growing body of research suggests they were wrong. Sleep-learning appears to be heading for a revival, on a far more solid scientific basis than its earlier incarnation. By subjecting sleep to a few engineering fixes, we could minimise the time our brains are offline each night, gaining precious hours for absorbing information. Over many nights, we could vastly expand our stock of knowledge and skills, or even treat stubborn addictions and psychological traumas. All of which raises an unsettling question: should the prospect be welcomed or dreaded? If we harness sleep for self-improvement, will we lose something essential about ourselves?

Source: http://wn.com/learn_french_while_you_sleep_night_1

<more at http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/does-sleep-learning-really-work/; related links: http://www.medicaldaily.com/sleep-memory-connection-and-all-ways-we-can-learn-our-sleep-348880 (The Sleep-Memory Connection And All The Ways We Can Learn In Our Sleep. August 21, 2015) and http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8175285/artificial-memories-created-sleeping-mice-ptsd-study (Learning while you sleep isn't impossible, as long as you're a mouse. Findings could bring hope to people suffering from PTSD. March 9, 2015)>