Can we REALLY learn new vocabulary in our sleep?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Franziska Schmidig and her team in Bern investigated!
They tested twenty volunteers to see if sleeping brains could learn new words. They used nonsense pairs, like “tofer–bird,” so only new words were being learned. The first word came during deep sleep, the second during the brain’s quietest wave.
Later, those sleepy students matched pairs correctly about thirty three percent of the time. That means they actually remembered the “dream words!”
The secret? Timing! Not REM, not light sleep, but during DEEP sleep memories form best!
Think of it as the brain’s night shift librarian shelving knowledge, and whispering SWEET NOTHINGS. “Tofer-bird.”
Reference: Schmidig, F. J., Ruch, S., & Henke, K. (2024). Episodic long-term memory formation during slow-wave sleep. eLife, 12, RP89601. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.89601