Friday, June 4, 2010
Chapter 2: Hijacking Sleep
@ 2:06 AM
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
(William Dement)
The previous chapter gave us a brief overview of our sleep patterns and introduced the various functions of the different stages of sleep. Here, we will focus on the functions of REM sleep and learn how can we use it as a tool for learning. This knowledge is a valuable tool which I have been using throughout the course of my academic life. By learning how to exploit it, we can learn how to make learning more effective and efficient.
REM sleep has intrigued scientists of what it actually does. However, there is a common consensus among them, that is, REM sleep is essential to learning.
Humans learn by recognising patterns and repeating. Another important aspect of effective learning is speed. The brain is designed to recognise pattern and the patterns have to be presented rapidly enough for human to perceive the pattern. This concept can be easily illustrated by flipbooks. We can only see the animated picture of the stick figures at the corner of the book if we flip fast enough. To sum it up, speed, repetition and ability to recognise patterns are the essentials for effective learning.
How then can sleeping help us in learning? REM sleep is the way the unconscious mind process the experiences during our waking states at a neurological level. It is a way the mind programs and reprograms itself, and practising skills we learnt during the waking state repetitively to engrave the experience in our brains. Furthermore, dreaming allow us to perceive time differently. Our dream may seem to last several hours maybe even days but in reality we are only dreaming for a couple of minutes every night. Our mind is capable of expanding and contracting time! Imagine how wonderful will it be if we are able to utilise these ‘excess’ time. Does finishing revision on half the syllabus of a subject in 5 minutes interest you?
Before we get to the method of programming our brain to do what we want it to, we shall try an experiment:
Just before you sleep tonight, look at the clock, and tell yourself in an affirmative voice that you are going to wake up at a specific time the next day. Set the alarm if you want, but you will still wake at the specific time you are going to wake up anyway. Instead of speaking to yourself, you may also use alternative to reaffirm the waking time like tapping on your forehead the number of hours you will be sleeping for.
This experiment shows that our brains are highly programmable. That is, we can easily program them to do certain task such as keeping. If our brain can be programmed to wake us up, it can then be programmed to do certain work while we are asleep.
Given that our brain process ‘rubbish’ if we do not give it instruction to what it should be processing, how then do we program our brain to help us learn? You may have guessed it by now that all we need to do before we sleep is to give specific instruction of what you want your brain to do during the period of sleep. A couple of minutes before you sleep everyday, list down some of the things you want to do when you sleep, it can be revision of some subjects, practicing of piano, making of a decision or develop new ideas.
Now that you have learnt how to program your mind to do work while you sleep, you may have wondered how we can access to the ‘product’ of our sleep. The answer is: “you cannot”. I’m not joking here, nor taking you for a ride. You cannot directly see the results mainly because you forget you dreams. However, the skills and concepts are stored at the neurological level of your brain. Your subconscious mind is like a black box (in scientific term), you can see what information goes in and what comes out, but you have no idea of how information in processed in it. What you did while you were asleep was to rewire the ‘black box’ so that it can process information more efficiently and accurately when you were awake.
Diagram 2.1 Black box analogy
All that you need to do to complete the learning process is to practice what you have programmed your mind to do a few more time. It will feel easier, as if you have done it many times before, and you get the results you want more easily simply because your mind is already pre-programmed to attain the results.
I have come to the end of the topic on how we can use sleep for learning. I thank you for reading and those who supported me to write this article.
(William Dement)
The previous chapter gave us a brief overview of our sleep patterns and introduced the various functions of the different stages of sleep. Here, we will focus on the functions of REM sleep and learn how can we use it as a tool for learning. This knowledge is a valuable tool which I have been using throughout the course of my academic life. By learning how to exploit it, we can learn how to make learning more effective and efficient.
REM sleep has intrigued scientists of what it actually does. However, there is a common consensus among them, that is, REM sleep is essential to learning.
Humans learn by recognising patterns and repeating. Another important aspect of effective learning is speed. The brain is designed to recognise pattern and the patterns have to be presented rapidly enough for human to perceive the pattern. This concept can be easily illustrated by flipbooks. We can only see the animated picture of the stick figures at the corner of the book if we flip fast enough. To sum it up, speed, repetition and ability to recognise patterns are the essentials for effective learning.
How then can sleeping help us in learning? REM sleep is the way the unconscious mind process the experiences during our waking states at a neurological level. It is a way the mind programs and reprograms itself, and practising skills we learnt during the waking state repetitively to engrave the experience in our brains. Furthermore, dreaming allow us to perceive time differently. Our dream may seem to last several hours maybe even days but in reality we are only dreaming for a couple of minutes every night. Our mind is capable of expanding and contracting time! Imagine how wonderful will it be if we are able to utilise these ‘excess’ time. Does finishing revision on half the syllabus of a subject in 5 minutes interest you?
Before we get to the method of programming our brain to do what we want it to, we shall try an experiment:
Just before you sleep tonight, look at the clock, and tell yourself in an affirmative voice that you are going to wake up at a specific time the next day. Set the alarm if you want, but you will still wake at the specific time you are going to wake up anyway. Instead of speaking to yourself, you may also use alternative to reaffirm the waking time like tapping on your forehead the number of hours you will be sleeping for.
This experiment shows that our brains are highly programmable. That is, we can easily program them to do certain task such as keeping. If our brain can be programmed to wake us up, it can then be programmed to do certain work while we are asleep.
Given that our brain process ‘rubbish’ if we do not give it instruction to what it should be processing, how then do we program our brain to help us learn? You may have guessed it by now that all we need to do before we sleep is to give specific instruction of what you want your brain to do during the period of sleep. A couple of minutes before you sleep everyday, list down some of the things you want to do when you sleep, it can be revision of some subjects, practicing of piano, making of a decision or develop new ideas.
Now that you have learnt how to program your mind to do work while you sleep, you may have wondered how we can access to the ‘product’ of our sleep. The answer is: “you cannot”. I’m not joking here, nor taking you for a ride. You cannot directly see the results mainly because you forget you dreams. However, the skills and concepts are stored at the neurological level of your brain. Your subconscious mind is like a black box (in scientific term), you can see what information goes in and what comes out, but you have no idea of how information in processed in it. What you did while you were asleep was to rewire the ‘black box’ so that it can process information more efficiently and accurately when you were awake.
Diagram 2.1 Black box analogy
All that you need to do to complete the learning process is to practice what you have programmed your mind to do a few more time. It will feel easier, as if you have done it many times before, and you get the results you want more easily simply because your mind is already pre-programmed to attain the results.
I have come to the end of the topic on how we can use sleep for learning. I thank you for reading and those who supported me to write this article.