Hypnopedia (from the Greek hypnos — sleep + paideia — training, education) — learning during natural sleep. The term «hypnopedia» does not refer to the process of acquiring knowledge in a state of hypnosis or any other artificially induced sleep (electrosleep, drug sleep), since in these cases the learning process is in the nature of hypnotic or post-hypnotic suggestion.
History of occurrence
Sleep (natural and artificial) as a means of acquiring knowledge was used in antiquity (Buddhist priests in China, fakirs and yogis in India, etc.). The first attempt at the practical application of hypnopedia in modern times was made by D. A. Finney (USA, 1923). In the USSR, such an attempt was made by A. S. Svyadosch in 1936. Interest in hypnopedia and the desire to give it a theoretical justification resumed in the 50s and early 60s. XNUMXth century In traditional hypnopedia, the influence of psychoanalytic concepts is noticeable. Domestic scientists explain the possibility of hypnopedia on the basis of Pavlov’s teaching about the presence of so-called sentinel points in the cerebral cortex during sleep.
Experimental data indicate that the assimilation of information supplied by hypnopedia depends on the nature of memory, the age of the student, the number of sessions and the volume of the program in one training session, and the intonation characteristics of speech.
Many theoretical and practical problems of hypnopedia (performance, fatigue after prolonged use of hypnopedia, changes in the functional state of the nervous system as a result of the systematic use of hypnopedia, etc.) are not clear enough. Obviously, hypnopedia cannot replace the natural pedagogical process; it can be useful for fixing in memory only certain types of information (foreign words, telegraphic alphabet, formulas, etc.).