What Is Sleep Learning? (Part 2)

It is known that childbirth has been rendered painless this way. Indeed, in 1951, the Soviet Union passed a law making it compulsory for doctors to use this method on every mother-to-be. Although many doctors still question sleep-learning, there are a growing number who, after investigation, are beginning to apply its principles.

Psychiatrists have evinced particular interest in its potential value in therapy. A May, 1960, article in a leading New York newspaper reported on a paper presented to the Scientific Session of the American Psychiatric Association in Atlantic City by Dr. M. Ralph Kaufman, of the Mount Sinai Hospital, which stated:

"The situation at present is such that psychoanalysis that began as hypnotherapy . . . has now given us the kind of understanding of hypnotic suggestion which again makes it available as a therapeutic measure for psychotherapy."

Sleep-learning advocates claim that at least 8,000 college students supplement their daytime work with sleep-study. Testimonials from high school and college students indicate better results in examinations resulting from their use of sleep-learning techniques. Language instructors as well as their students report that this method of study speeds up the learning process considerably.

• A mid-Western lecturer states that his memorization rate increased by 75%.
• A blind student finds the technique uniquely helpful and practical.
• Parents write that young children, whose studies involve a considerable amount of rote-learning, benefit greatly.

The memory training qualities of this technique seem to be of particular value to people who must remember specialized data. Television presented to the American public a young man who learned conversational French while asleep, under controlled test conditions. After only one week of sleep-learning, he was examined by Dr. Adrian Miller, Professor of Romance Languages at U.C.L.A., on the television program, "You Asked For It." The professor's judgment was that the young man had absorbed the equivalent of a SEMESTER of classroom study.

Others report considerable help in the learning or appreciation of music. Television actors, among them Larry Blyden and Marilyn Erskine, have learned complete roles quickly with the aid of sleep-learning equipment. Chilean opera star Ramon Vinay not only quickly memorized a leading operatic role but also learned to sing it in perfect, accentless Italian. Equally successful results have been reported by people of various language backgrounds in learning English, again free from foreign accent.

At the Institute of Logopedics, in Wichita, Kansas, where experiments were conducted to find out whether nocturnal education could help cure speech defects, the results showed that students who heard a list of words while they were sleeping memorized and improved much faster than the control group which did not apply sleep-learning.

Numerous famous personalities have attested to the benefits of sleep-study. Alexander de Seversky eliminated his Russian accent. Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby and Gloria Swanson have learned lines and lyrics in this way.

Perhaps the most impressive example of the retentive powers of the subconscious during sleep is that of Art Linkletter, radio and television star. Linkletter offered to test the theory by attempting to sleep-learn the most difficult language in the world—Mandarin Chinese. After sleep-studying for only ten nights, Linkletter invited the Vice Consul of China to his TV show, introduced him to the audience, and then proceeded to engage in a pleasant conversation with his guest in Mandarin Chinese. The Vice Consul's verdict was that Linkletter was indeed conversant in the language and would be able to travel throughout China and be understood perfectly by anyone who speaks the elegant Mandarin dialect.