Foreword (Part 3)

This was a new and startling experience for me. As an educator I wanted to follow through on it, and investigate this process of learning while sleeping. But my time was taken up with many other activities—traveling, setting up new courses in World Cultures, trying to understand students with normal I.Q.'s who repeatedly failed in all subjects but one. I was experimenting in these fields, and was unable to turn my attention to this fascinating business of absorbing knowledge while asleep.

Learn While You Sleep reports concisely (but fully) the views of the great scholars of the past and present on this subject. Their conclusions about methods of learning, about memory, and about the role of the unconscious in the process of learning and recall are summarized and considered in relation to this approach which I call "learning plus." The idea of learning in one's sleep is not new. But because our modern world offers so many ingenious devices educators are able, for die first time, to help their students learn more effectively. Valuable time can be saved, freeing the student (and here I use the word student in its broadest sense) for more advanced thought and further study in related fields.

Educators have never found any one method equally effective for all people. Some students never learned to spell until Fernald discovered her unique system. In any subject, some grasp more quickly than others. Similarly, some will learn more rapidly than others when using mechanical sleep-learning devices. But certainly most people should be helped.

If we are to get the most out of life, if we are to make human endeavor meaningful and satisfying, the importance of learning cannot be overemphasized. With the availability of sleep-learning equipment a new world has been opened up to both educators and students. The increased capacity for experiencing and remembering which it offers sparks the imagination and excites greater interest in learning than ever before. I am sure many readers will find the thoughtful and objective evaluation in Learn While You Sleep both interesting and provocative—as I did.

—Woodman E. Hupltts, Jr., D.Ed.