Chapter 4: Learning and Growth in Sleep

...subsection menu...   Subliminal Learning   Sleep Learning   Personal Cybernetics and Affirmations: A Cautious Reappraisal   A 14-Step Personal Cybernetics Program   Ruminations   Using Dreams for Solving Problems

hances are good that you know about subliminal learning, sleep learning, autosuggestion, meditation, personal reprogramming, affirmations...all these opportunities, eight full hours' worth every night, nearly all of them going to "waste"! You've imagined the possibilities: education, improved mental and physical health, consciousness expansion, self-actualization. Every so often we all seem to get a glimpse of the possibilities we have open to us in these "lost hours" that never seem to get realized.

Many of us would make use of them, if only we had some sense of what works, what doesn't and why, and what these opportunities could mean to us personally. Just as many of us see these as nothing more than hassles to add to our load, more work at the end of a tiring day and who needs it? And perhaps there are just as many of a third group, who already lose this time to insomnia or simply lack knowledge of the possibilities.

This chapter is for everyone...but perhaps not for now. Most people simply don't take well to sleep-related growth opportunities, and the reasons are varied and generally valid. But that's no reason to deny yourself the knowledge of their existence. There may come a time when you want to make use of those opportunities, and if you have neither the knowledge nor the tools at your disposal, the opportunities will be lost.

Those who take an active interest in improving their lives are bound to find something of interest here, and virtually everyone will discover a few facts about sleep and self-development which will be new to them. But it was originally my hope that this chapter reaches the anxious sleeper, because that person is ready for something new. Those in need are the ones who will benefit most, and who most need the benefits.

But don't allow yourself to believe that taking advantage of sleep-related learning and growth opportunities will provide the solutions to all of your most pressing problems, because they most certainly won't. They can help you deal with many of them and cope with many more, but this is a relatively new field with little hard science on its side, and that poses risks and uncertainties for anyone venturing into this arena. We simply don't know how, why, or even if a lot of these things work. I can't give you more than partial answers, but I hope I can help demystify many of the processes behind these things, and help you make a more informed and enthusiastic choice about whether these things can be useful to you.

This chapter discusses five separate areas of "sleepwork". They include subliminal learning, sleep learning, affirmations and personal reprogramming, ruminations and problem-solving in sleep. I have heard and read as much positive about subliminal learning as I have negative. It is a very tricky subject, and there's definitely something to it, although I'm not quite sure what.

Sleep learning seems to be a fad at some point in every decade, and I've made mention of it elsewhere in this book. Affirmations and personal reprogramming have been hot topics for a long time and their popularity isn't about to wane. They can be extremely effective in many cases, providing you are aware of potential side effects and limitations. Rumination is a light-duty version of personal reprogramming which many people might find useful as a starting point, a basis for experimentation.

I once believed they were of use only as a substitute for a more effective technique, but I have begun to see that they are all many of us can handle, and highly valuable if this is true. The use of sleep for problem-solving has been taught by success trainers, in cybernetics courses and in a new age context for many years.