{"id":34207,"date":"2025-01-03T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.saatva.com\/?p=34207"},"modified":"2024-12-17T16:52:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:52:46","slug":"can-you-learn-a-language-in-your-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saatva.com\/blog\/can-you-learn-a-language-in-your-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Learn a Language in Your Sleep? I Tried to Do Just That\u2014and the Results Were Surprising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About a year ago, I embarked on a somewhat wild journey to learn one language a month<\/a> for a year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that sounds crazy, but if you love languages and love learning and are the type of person who’s motivated by adrenaline and tight deadlines, it’s also a lot of fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I also happen to be a single working mother of two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, it was easy and fun. Then it became fun but less easy. Eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn\u2019t have the time to maintain<\/em> the knowledge of all the languages I\u2019d learned (apart from a few favorites\u2014I fell in love with Thai<\/a> and Arabic<\/a> and didn\u2019t want to let them go). But even just the learning part was very time-consuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did I mention that I have kids and had to work to pay the bills? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere do I fit all that learning?\u201d was the question constantly on my mind during those first few months of the journey. I was already doing most of my learning by listening to audio content while walking the dog, washing the dishes, or watching my daughter\u2019s gymnastics practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it was only natural that I started wondering if maybe I could use my sleeping hours<\/a> for learning as well. Can you learn a language in your sleep? I\u2019m here to share with you what I found out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you learn a language in your sleep?  <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, it was common wisdom that the night before a school test you put the textbook under your pillow to help you cement what you\u2019ve learned during the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not certain about the mechanics of that process (like, did the words on the pages of the textbook leak through its hardcover, through the filling of your feather pillow<\/a>, through your skull, and into your brain tissue?)\u2014but I credit that practice with my success in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time I decided to take it one step further and try actually learning new information in my sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found the very official-looking\u00a0Sleep Learning website<\/a>\u00a0that promised me that listening to their \u00a0\u201cspecially prepared CDs\u201d while unconscious \u201chas proved to be a highly effective way for people of all ages to realize their full learning potential […] enabling you to learn foreign languages, pass exams, and undertake professional studies […].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, the website warned me that \u201cthe average human only uses 5% of normal brain capacity, [while] the other 95% goes to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who wants the precious 95% of their brain to go to waste? No one, I would think. I especially needed all the brain space I could get my hands on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what finally did it for me was the information on the Sleep Learning website about the history of this practice in the Soviet Union (where I grew up sleeping with a textbook under my pillow) and the research into it over the years. While it\u2019s mostly been researched in the former USSR, it\u2019s also been studied in the US and other parts of the world. Per the Sleep Learning Website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn Minnesota, several hundred people stopped smoking when they tuned their radios to an overnight sleep-learning program designed to help them quit. In England, a television producer announced that he would learn Spanish by the sleep learning method. After two weeks, he demonstrated his success by broadcasting in Spanish\u2014with a very good accent! In California, 70 people a day reported that listening to an early morning radio broadcast of sleep-learning messages dramatically decreased their desire to overeat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I was sold and ready to get started. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened when I tried to learn a language in my sleep<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, I didn\u2019t go so far as to buy the \u201cspecially prepared\u201d sleep learning CDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, I went on YouTube and found an eight-hour-long video that promised to teach me the 2,000 most important Thai phrases while I was sleeping. Excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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