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Sleep learning is possible, proven
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Probably, each of us thought that it would be nice to gain new knowledge while peacefully snoring.
Researchers claim that this is not a fantasy, but a real reality.
Scientists from the Weizmann Institute, which is located in Rehovot, have found that people have the ability to learn during sleep. The results of their research were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
It turns out that even in a state of rest, a person reacts to auditory and olfactory stimuli and remembers them.
During the study, scientists analyzed the ability of people to associate certain sounds and smells after perceiving them simultaneously during sleep.
Previously, studies have been conducted that proved the need for rest for a person to concentrate on the learning process, as well as memory consolidation. However, it was never possible to prove the ability to perceive information in a dream. And the well-known experiments of students falling asleep while listening to lecture notes did not lead to the desired results.
A team of scientists, including specialists from the Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College and the Weizmann Institute's Department of Neuroscience, in collaboration with researchers from the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Center, led by Professor Noam Sobel, conducted work with 55 volunteers. The goal of the experiment was to find out whether it is possible to develop a conditioned reflex to sound and smell in a sleeping person.
For the tests, people with particularly deep and sound sleep were selected so that nothing would interfere with the purity of the experiment.
During the subjects' sleep, sound signals were fed into the room, which were reinforced by smells (pleasant and unpleasant). The reactions of the sleeping people were recorded using an electroencephalogram, and the experts also monitored the subjects' breathing rhythm.
The experts noted that when inhaling pleasant smells, they breathed deeper, but if the smell was unpleasant, their breathing became shallow. The same breathing reaction was observed if the sleepers heard sounds previously accompanied by certain smells.
The next stage of the experiment was to have people who were already awake listen to the same sound signals that were given during sleep. It turned out that after waking up, their body reflexively responded to the stimuli, exactly as in a state of rest. And this despite the fact that they did not remember the sounds.
Scientists have also established that the body reacts most strongly to external stimuli during REM sleep, while the process of memory consolidation and the transfer of associations from sleep to wakefulness occurs during slow sleep.
Professor Sobel's research focuses only on the human sense of smell at rest, but it gives scientists hope that the first significant step in discovering new possibilities for humans during sleep has already been taken.
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