Indian Pattern, 1950s TV

QUIET!!!!

No Gravatar

Remember when we were kids?  We used to think we could play tapes of information and that would help us review what we learned- while we slept.

Yes, my parents got ticked off.  “Garbage,” they said.  “Go to sleep, it’s late enough.”  (Now it probably a good time to tell you that my mom had her TV running all night long. And, I am old enough to recall that sometime around 2:30 AM, the picture was an Indian head test pattern.  With a fairly loud “boooooooop” coming from the speakers.  That was ok.  the noises in my bedroom weren’t.)

Indian Pattern, 1950s TV

(An aside to my kids.  See?  There IS something I learned from my mom.  She’s the one who taught me to keep the TV on all night long.)

Guess what?  My parents- and probably yours, too- were wrong.  But, not totally so.  We DO hear words and process them when we sleep.  Drs. Thomas Andrillon and Sid Koudier (PSL Research University, Paris) , Andreas Poulsen and Lars Hanse (Technical University of Denmark), and Damien Leger (Sorbonne, Paris) published their study  that give these results in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Sure, the brain winds down at night.  That’s how we “rejuvenate” ourselves daily.  But, using EEG (electroencephelography)  during light, non-REM sleep (NOT deep-nREM sleep or REM sleep), the researchers found we could and actually do recognize words in our sleep.  The working hypothesis was that while the brain did shut down, it stayed functional enough to make sure that our environment was still safe.  There was no loss of consciousness of self or the outside world.

The subjects were asked to push a button with their left or right hands indicating if they heard a word- and whether that word was an object or animal.  During REM sleep, the subjects could still effect the task- if they heard and categorized the words already.  During light nREM (non-REM) sleep, the tasks were effected- regardless of whether the term was novel or previously presented to the subject.  But, in deep nREM, no corresponding brain activity was observed- nor did button-pushing come about.

So, it’s pretty clear we may recognize the words, but not complex theories that we would need to know if we were studying for an exam.

Darn.  It seems the concept would only work if we needed to expand our vocabulary.

 

Share this:
Share this page via Email Share this page via Stumble Upon Share this page via Digg this Share this page via Facebook Share this page via Twitter
Share

7 thoughts on “QUIET!!!!”

  1. In the 90s, I decided to go to sleep each night while listening to a relaxation tape. I never made it past the first minute or so, and I wondered if it was really working. After doing that for several weeks, I decided to try listening to it during the day. Well, I felt so INTENSELY relaxed that I knew it was because I had been listening at night.

  2. Roy, that Indian test pattern scared the stuffing out of me. I have memories of screaming apoplectically as my parents tried to console. This, of course, just before bed at midnight. Maybe they should have put me to bed earlier, I’m just sayin’. 🙂

    1. Sorry to bring back the bogeyman for you, Scott!
      I always associated that pattern with the Indian reservation that was 10 miles away fromm my boyhoood home.
      And, in Metropolitan NY, that pattern never appeared before 1:30 AM. (Yes, I was still up, too…)

Comments are closed.