Comments on: Sleeping Fiction

By: mithril

mithril — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:11:38 +0000

in regards to sleep and the learning process, whether you can learn while asleep might still be under unproven, there is plenty of evidence to the fact that ones mental and physical state helps govern memory.. specifically that things learned in one state of conciousness are more easily remembered when in that sate, and less easily remembered in others. so if you learn something while tired, your more likely to remember it when you are tired than you are if you aren’t. so even if you can learn things in your sleep, odds are that it would be less helpful than if you learned the same thing while awake, since that information would be tied to the brain state of sleep.

of course, the scifi trope used to be hypnotic learning, where the character would be put into a hypnotic trance and then shown learning programs, with idea that the character would then be able to assimilate massive amounts of information rapidly, and it would be incorporated into their non-hypnotised state. given the fact that hypnotic trances can be used to create false memories in some circumstances, this idea might not be as crazy it sounds nowadays.

By: BiologyInSF

BiologyInSF — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:50:32 +0000

Sleeping Fiction: if we could take a sleep-replacement pill, would we still learn? http://t.co/3a6iQdaZ via @sharethis

By: Peggy

Peggy — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:47:52 +0000

I find the evidence that sleep may be involved in – or even necessary for – the learnings process really fascinating. A pretty common SF trope, that I think even goes back to Brave New World, is that you can quickly learn by being fed information while sleeping. I wonder what would happen with complete sleep deprivation – if you were taking sleep replacement pills, say. Would you have trouble learning new information or new tasks in that case?

By: Paul Schroeer-Hannemann

Paul Schroeer-Hannemann — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 02:19:53 +0000

On occasion brain uploading proponents have told me that the brain shuts down when you sleep so continuity doesn’t matter. I usually reply “then explain dreams.”

By: sandykidd

sandykidd — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 04:57:04 +0000

“@SciInMyFi: New Blog Post: Sleeping Fiction: http://t.co/F2hYO7nd” #fb