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Can a Person Learn While Sleeping?
- scottlegrand2 8y agoWhen I'm studying a subject intensely, the subject matter tends to invade my dreams, often when I'm confused by some detail I need to resolve for myself before proceeding further.
- zeta0134 8y agoI still have this happen quite frequently when I'm mentally working through a tough programming problem, especially if that problem involves a lot of moving parts. It's like my mind is organizing its understanding of the problem during a dream, so I get bits and pieces of it. Sometimes this leads to useful insights, but much more often I think I've solved some problem in my dream, only to wake up and immediately realize that the solution makes no sense at all. Once I do wake up though, I find that if I give myself a moment to rest and then come at the problem again, I can re-contextualize much more quickly and make quick work of the issue.
- neonate 8y agohttps://outline.com/Z8Nq7e https://outline.com/Z8Nq7e
- systemtrigger 8y agohttps://www.outline.com/dmca.html https://www.outline.com/dmca.html
- atomical 8y agoThat's interesting. I assume Outline thinks that the WSJ and other publications are submitting their own content?
- tyingq 8y agoDelusion as a policy is pretty common, e.g. "Pinterest respects the intellectual property rights of others and we expect people on Pinterest to do the same."
- hombre_fatal 8y ago> Because all DMCA notifications must be based on a work for which the copyright is registered with the Copyright Office (or for which registration has been applied for), and because a high percentage of DMCA takedown notices are not valid, it will speed our investigation of your DMCA notice if you attach to it a copy of your copyright registration, or registration application, for the work. > DMCA notifications based on unregistered works are not valid. Heh, would only be cheekier if their DMCA <form> had file upload inputs for copyright_docs and registration_docs. Outline seems exclusively used as a paywall bypass system in the wild. Can't be good for their longterm viability.
- tyingq 8y ago"Can't be good for their longterm viability" Any know if/how they make money?
- hombre_fatal 8y agoIt's surely just in its bootstrapped growth stage. If it wasn't for its annotation system, I'd put it in the realm of rather straightforward side projects. There are really good "readability mode" transformer libraries out there. And you can imagine buying a subscription to each of the major publications to bypass their paywall. Paywall bypassing is something I would've expected from archiving services too but I noticed this is perhaps false. For example, http://archive.is/ycfsk http://archive.is/ycfsk archived the paywall.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoIs that true, since USA signed up to the Berne Convention (18XX) copyright in USA has been an unregistered right (as was already common across the World). If DMCA only applies to registered works that's interesting to me -- seems it is, eg https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7f07e1c0-5264-4a13-8765-d205c71c6d54 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7f07e1c0-5264..., in fact it appears as in other areas of USA law you have to buy your right (from the government in form of a registration in this case) which seems contrary to Berne, I'm suprised it doesn't put USA in breech of their duties as it effectively reverses the "automatic" aspect of copyright for ordinary citizens.
- gre 8y agoexercising well before bedtime Get good exercise close to bedtime or exercise earlier in the day?
- 0xcde4c3db 8y agoProbably the latter; it's a common "sleep hygiene" recommendation to avoid unnecessary exertion close to bedtime. (scare quotes because it's really a slippery self-help kind of term that people use as though it has some concrete scientific meaning)
- matwood 8y agoI suggest people try it and see how they react. I can exercise before bed just fine, but I can't do anything competitive because I get too amped up.
- ghusbands 8y agoMany people can exercise directly before bed to good effect (as sibling comments note). Many people can't. The best "sleep hygiene" recommendation is to try it both ways and see which works best for you.
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- dane-pgp 8y agoObligatory Simpsons reference: https://frinkiac.com/caption/S03E23/713809 https://frinkiac.com/caption/S03E23/713809
- andrepd 8y agoCurse this chicanery!
- lialuna 8y agoI’m 33, when I was ~17 I took a discrete math course. During class teacher posed a challenge- to find algorithm for minimal number of cross beams to make an n by m lattice rigid, so it can’t flex like a parallelogram because triangles are fixing angles. I was asleep, realized I was dreaming, and decided to “work” on the problem. I found a solution, woke up and wrote it down. I think it was helpful to be dreaming because usually I cannot visualize more than simple shape, but while dreaming, I could try things out without using paper and pencil.
- snazz 8y agoI’ve sort of experienced the same thing—never quite to the same extent, but close. I wish there were some way to trigger this productive lucid dreaming, because it does feel very cool to wake up with a solution to something you were stumped on while awake.
- egypturnash 8y agoIf you reduce the problem to "some way to trigger lucid dreaming" there is a lot of information to be found on that subject. If you read a bunch of different guides you start to see a few common techniques. I can't say I've gotten anywhere near the state of attaining lucid dreaming on a regular basis by applying them but there's been some interesting moments in my on-and-off attempts.
- bergerjac 8y agoHere's an experiment.. ask a question, out-loud, with intent, immediately before a nap..
- newnewpdro 8y agoThere's a community of people online who employ dietary supplements to stimulate lucid dreaming. I accidentally discovered it when taking Methylcobalamin B12 supplements. For the first week or so I'd lucid dream every morning for a few hours before fully waking up. It was quite interesting, but would cease happening if I continued taking the MB12. Only after stopping for a few weeks would they recur upon reintroducing the MB12. There are more reliable supplements for stimulating lucid dreaming in particular, I'm pretty sure my MB12 experience is just a minor side effect. I've read it affects melatonin production, and I did find myself growing sleepy earlier and more consistently when taking it. I don't know if that's related to the lucid dreaming though.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoOften, too often, I forget to set the sleep timer and fall asleep with the TV on. Often enough to notice, what's on TV shows up in my dreams (in some form). I'm not sure if I could learn but I bet I could prime my brain with basics (e.g., vocabulary words in my non-native language).
- Cyphase 8y agoI remember once having a dream where I was fighting off bad guys like a ninja, with Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life" playing as soundtrack (which had been in the Daredevil movie). When I woke up, I realized I'd fallen asleep with the song playing on a loop. Coincidentally, the words "wake me up" and "I can't wake up" are said a total of 18 times in the song; I wonder what effect that had on me. considers an experiment
- stordoff 8y agoI've certainly had songs I've overheard appear in dreams. Weirdly enough, despite it being lucid dreaming and I'm fully aware that I'm dreaming, I have no recognition of where the music is coming from until I wake up.
- miguelmota 8y agoThomas Edison would sleep on a chair holding two steel balls that would drop as he was about to enter REM sleep and wake him up so that he can immediately write down ideas he learned of while sleeping.
- dfee 8y agoWhat about the opposite? I recently (past few years) have no problem thinking and solving problems while I sleep. Surely this is something a younger me strived for. How can I turn back to fantastic dreams, adventures and generally things of pleasure?
- bergerjac 8y agoWhy don't you ask yourself that same question right before bed one night.. 'Ask and you shall receive'
- _red 8y agoA common thing that happens to me is: Stuck on a moderately complex problem, usually in a field that I'm not intimately familiar with (ie. A complex mail server config). Work on it, feeling frustrated late into evening. Go to sleep and sort of "dream about the problem" in a loosely chaotic way. Come morning, its not that I suddenly have a solution, but more often than not I've developed a good strategy for how to test the problem. By using this new method I'm able then to trial-and-error the problem in a systemic way, leading to a solution. TLDR: Sleeping often gives me successful 'approaches' to problems
- dschuetz 8y agoI remember learning riding a bicycle in a dream. Woke up the next day and suddenly I could ride a bicycle, despite months of struggle without success. So, I guess sometimes it takes one especially lucid dream to solve an initially "unsolvable" problem.
- sonnhy 8y agoFor how cool it sounds, it seems more like you have managed to overcome the struggle than learning to ride a bike, as in you jumped on the bike for the first time in your life, in your dream, and the day after you could ride a bike in real life.
- dschuetz 8y agoThat's what I basically meant - sometimes one dream is enough to move on. Not only rational problems are being solved inside the brain while asleep. I believe that dreaming of riding a bike like it was effortless made me believe that it's actually effortless and voila, it worked.
- cimmanom 8y ago> Half the students were allowed to go to sleep while the words were played back to them. The other half stayed awake while listening to the words. ... Researchers found that those who had listened to the words while sleeping retained much more than those who didn’t sleep. Did they compare to a group who slept without listening to the words? I'm curious whether the playback actually had any effect or whether it was just sleeping right after learning that did it.
- hanniabu 8y agoIt also might not be "learning while sleeping" but "learning before sleeping".
- vidann 8y agopaywall lol
- jedberg 8y agoWhen I was in college, I took a Psychology class called "Altered states of conscienceness". The whole class was about how we learn and function under hypnosis, under the influence of drugs, when sleeping, etc. The overall theme of the class was that your body is always processing inputs from your senses, and different states of mind help you process differently by filtering certain things out while amplifying other things. But the same state of mind would have different outcomes for different people. So the answer to this question is: Depends on the person, but there is nothing in the way the body works that would prevent you from learning while sleeping.
- rjf72 8y agoI feel headlines like this can be answered using simple logic. Most people want to learn many things, but are lazy. Learning while you sleep would solve this. It would be an absolutely enormous industry. Want to know French, but too lazy ("busy") to learn it? Listen to this magical audio file before/during sleep and in just x weeks you can amaze your friends and neighbors with your positively paralyzing parlezing without any of the work! Order now, just $xxx! So the answer is going to range between a plain "no" and a "kind of sort of in a way that can, at best, work as an extremely modest supplement to conscious learning, under best conditions." And you need not worry about missing out on some cutting edge breakthrough. If and when such things happens this would be really really big news - not something restricted to a random classically clickbaited headline with the actual article hidden behind a paywall. I just mention this because I think our inclination is to let our curiosity get the best of us, and of course - what if there's something we've missed out on? But in the process of this, we greatly incentivize this form of faux journalism. And the nice thing is is that the above logic can be applied to absolutely huge swaths of the entire media.
- jayalpha 8y agoIf you are learning Chinese and want to try, I created a file a while ago. I downloaded a youtube video (sorry, can't give creds, don't have the link anymore), extracted the audio and added a long silence at the beginning, so that I actually can start sleeping. Have not tried it yet but will tonight. Good luck: https://ufile.io/577bn https://ufile.io/577bn
- poglet 8y agoWill give this a try, thanks. Do you use any other techniques?
- jayalpha 8y agoI started using anki too late. Repetitive vocabulary learning is a must. Start using Anki from the beginning.
- new_user8675309 8y agoAlso trying to learn. Any decks you'd recommend?
- jayalpha 8y agohttps://blog.timo-horstschaefer.de/chinese-anki-deck/ https://blog.timo-horstschaefer.de/chinese-anki-deck/
- new_user8675309 8y agoThank you!
- pedro1976 8y agoWithout reading the article sleeping is part of learning [0]. One idea of lucid dreaming is to "learn" during sleep. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20181017190008/https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/sleep https://web.archive.org/web/20181017190008/https://www.super...
- pedalpete 8y agoI've been trying this for about 18 months now and I rarely get it, but when I do, it's really magical. I am yet to be able to "learn" anything though. I try to search my mind for what I was supposed to do when I reach a lucid dreaming state, and that waakes me up.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sakopov 8y agoI remember listening Rogan's podcast on the subject of sleep with Matthew Walker, who is a professor of Neuroscience at Berkley. Hopefully I'm not making stuff up as it's been a while, but he talked about a study where each subject was given a task to learn while their brain activity was being recorded. The study found that the same areas of the brain that flared up during the learning and memorization processes were also very active during sleep, as if the brain was replaying the same activity over and over again. Edit: adding link to the podcast if anyone's interested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig
- KorematsuFred 8y agoI do all the time. Many times I am working on some bug or some complex issue. I give up on the problem for the day I go home, sleep and early morning (for some reason its always early morning) I actually solve the problem with minute details. When I wake up I know what the issue is. Happens at least once a month to me.
- ineedasername 8y agoSometimes when I'm working on a problem I'll put my head down and relax, breath deep, and try to get myself to nap. At the same time I think about the problem. I often find a solution that way, something about the semi-conscious brain storming works well that way. And when it doesn't, at least I had a relaxing nap :)
- davesque 8y agoMy anecdotal experience with this comes from learning musical instruments. I've come to believe that the brain does a fair bit of rewiring when you're not paying attention to something you're trying to learn. This happens when sleeping or otherwise.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]