The modern human rarely gets the chance to sleep properly. Most of the day passes in a rush, and not so much time remains for the renewal of energy.
American scientists decided that we should not waste our time. While you are sleeping, you also can learn something. Researchers at Yale University are developing a program that allows you to learn and get a variety of skills and knowledge in your sleep.
The potential of lucid dreaming
But this is not about an ordinary night’s rest. There is a special altered state of consciousness, in which a person is aware that they are in the dream world. It is called lucid dreaming.
What is special about this type of dreaming is that people can control their actions and events in a dream. Many people can have dreams during the day, and six of ten people have experienced lucid dreaming at least once in their life.
You can spontaneously enter this state from ordinary sleep. There is also a special technique of hypnosis, which is often used by scientists in their research. It is believed that it is possible to learn to sleep “consciously”. Special exercises and a lot of practice can make you dream whatever you want.
Gaining skills and knowledge during sleep
This interesting state of consciousness attracted a group of psychologists led by Peter Morgan. They conducted a series of experiments in which volunteers were immersed in a lucid dream and asked to perform various tasks. The results confirmed the initial hypothesis.
It turns out that people who are able to control their dreams may be able to acquire different skills and knowledge in their sleep. They actually make certain parts of the brain absorb new information. In general, the ability to enter this state is a great advantage.
For example, during an experiment, scientists were observing a region of the brain responsible for decision-making and social interaction. The volunteers were asked to perform a task in a state of lucid dreaming.
When they woke up and performed it in the awaken state, they made a substantial success. The same results were shown in other studies. Participants better coped with a task if they had tried to do it in their sleep before.
In this sense, an interesting experiment was conducted by a Swiss physician at the University of Bern. Subjects were trained to toss a coin into a can while sleeping. When they woke up and began to do the same thing, they showed amazing results.
All this illustrates one of the most amazing features of sleep – the ability to improve ourselves in our sleep.
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