The Logic of Sleep Learning (Part 2)

According to this theory it is not only the cortex, but also the midbrain (subconscious) which can store patterns of learned behavior. The cortex plays an important role in the learning of motor activity, but in time this is bypassed and the reticular system and the subcortical motor centers take over most of the work.

The electro-encephalograph, a machine which records brain activity, has shown us that the subconscious is receptive and alert twenty-four hours a day, and has established proof that the subconscious mind can absorb for that full period.

Proceeding from this knowledge, sleep-learning authorities base their approach on the fact that the subconscious receives and retains all stimuli regardless of whether the subject is awake or asleep. Similarities have been noted between some stages of hypnosis and normal sleep, in that the same influences can bring about either state.

Elimination of strong stimuli, a position of rest, gentle, monotonous stimulation of the sense organs, dismissal of disturbing thoughts—all these, added to the subjects' passivity, have been accepted as proven methods for putting people to sleep, either naturally or hypnotically. The influence of suggestion has operated not only on people in a hypnotic state, but on people in light sleep as well. In dreams, we accept without question many things which our conscious minds would reject, as do people under hypnosis.

It has been found that the subject remembers more of the suggestions made to him in light hypnotic sleep; it has also been found that the dreams we remember are those that occur during light sleep, during which people have been known to converse logically without being conscious of their participation. This is referred to as the 'Reverie Period/ and is of particular importance in sleep-learning.

Most people are susceptible to suggestion in their waking hours, susceptible to a much higher degree than they realize. In every life situation, we are exposed to many subtle suggestions, all of which influence us. We catch moods, we yawn involuntarily when we see another yawn, we pick up rhythms, we respond to ideas under the influence of charm, affection, and numerous other feelings, we accept much on faith in fields other than our own, we are influenced by books, clothing, atmosphere, words. We are educated by suggestion, to a great extent, and receive moral and religious instruction in the same way. In time we develop a large body of autosuggestions.

It is because of our suggestibility that we respond to the arts, that we buy what we buy, responding to the advertiser's repetitions. Suggestibility in the voter becomes evident at the polls. Broad social movements and mob action could never occur if it were not for the fact that most human beings are highly suggestible.

It is in a relaxed state—or any other state in which the reasoning function is less active, that we are most amenable to suggestion, and this fact appears to be responsible for the efficiency in learning that is claimed by adherents of the sleep-study school.

Relaxation increases with sleep, and so the subconscious is even more easily reached by suggestion than it is during waking hours, and is taught more effectively. "Suggestion," says Professor Bechterev, "enters into the understanding by the back stairs, while logical persuasion knocks at the front door."

Sleep-learning, then, since it is predicated on suggestion, avoids the necessity of waiting for the conscious mind to open the door for the desired information. It slips in more easily, unhindered, because the door to the subconscious is always open.