Wake up a little wiser! You really can learn in your sleep (but only while you’re dreaming)

FORGET playing a language tape while you’re asleep and expecting to be fluent by the time you wake up.

Scientists have found that while you can learn while you snooze, you’ll be better off targeting specific phases of sleep.

A study has shown that the brain takes in what it hears during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep – the time mostly spent dreaming, usually in the morning before we wake up.

But leaving a tape running overnight is probably counter-productive – as information gained in deep sleep can be completely lost.

This is thought to be because the brain is busy erasing memories at this time, and any new knowledge is dumped along with them.

For the study, French experts from the PSL Research University in Paris played 20 participants white noise, which contained patterns of sound.

They found that the sounds heard during REM sleep were the ones remembered when the volunteers woke up.

But the noises played while people were in deep sleep – the phase which makes up almost a third of our slumbers – was forgotten.

This means the best sleep phase to learn new things is during light non-REM sleep and dream-filled REM sleep, which makes up more of the cycle in the morning than at night. That is believed to be the time in which we bank memories and can learn new ones.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, said brain scans to judge the perfect sleep stage for learning may well be available ‘in the near future’.

However, lead author Dr Thomas Andrillon warned that we might be better off not even trying for fear of disrupting sleep.

He said: ‘It is unclear whether the advantages of learning during sleep offset the disadvantages, such as a poor night’s sleep.

‘While we show that learning is possible during sleep, it could prove quite impractical in our daily lives.’