IMAGINE SLEEPING FOR 22 YEARS...
the actual length of time the average person spends doing so in their lifetime. Imagine again if this "lost" time could be utilized in a more productive manner. A group of educational entrepreneurs intended to do just that, proposing to use this unconscious sleep time to impress upon the mind instruction in chemistry, art, and even foreign language.

Researchers in the early and mid 20th century have supported the exploitation of sleep, advocating instead to use the nighttime as an instructional preface to the following day's exercise. This article will first discuss an experimental example of two researchers attempting to teach a different language during sleep. The article will then review the theory supported by another researcher who confirmed that playing a recorded message while children slept led many to discontinue their nail-biting habit.

Fox and Robbin (1952) used three separate 10-person groups to test the effects of hypnopaedia on learning Chinese. The facilitation group was administered a recording during sleep that was 29 minutes long and consisted of 25 Chinese words and their true English translation repeated 15 times. The interference group was administered a recording that consisted of the same 25 Chinese words, repeated 15 times, however, the English translations were incorrect. The control group was administered 29 minutes of music while they slept.

The following morning each group was administered the same recording given to the facilitation group, and tested on their comprehension of the Chinese language. The observable data was significant enough to support the conclusion that learning can occur during sleep. 

The above chart shows the results of the posttests administered the day after the three different exposures to the sleep stimuli. The Interference group performed best overall, followed by the Control and Facilitation groups, respectively.

Leshan (1942) tested the theory of sleep-learning on a group of nail-biting boys attending summer camp. The experimental group consisted of 20 nail-biting subjects, aged 8 to 12 years. There were two control groups: the first consisted of 8 nail-biters, aged 8 to 10 years, the second consisted of 12 nail biters, aged 11 to 14 years

The experimental group was administered a recording while they slept that said, "My finger-nails taste terribly bitter," repeated 300 times for 54 successive nights. The control group was not administered a recorded message. The researcher found that 40% of the boys in the experimental group stopped biting their nails, confirming Leshan's initial suspicion that people can be influenced by recorded messages during sleep. 

The recorded message, "My finger-nails taste terribly bitter," was repeated 50 times, 6 times a night.The results supported Leshan's theory that recorded messages played during sleep incite mental activity. 40% of the boys quit biting their nails.

Despite the aforementioned experimental evidence supporting the theory that humans can successfully process information during sleep, the true validity of sleep-learning is still questionable. The available research on hypnopaedia is outdated, addressing only a behavioral level of learning, nor is hypnopaedia widely practiced today.

Shannon McKanna
Graduate Student
San Diego State University