PsychAntenna is a database of RSS feeds from psychology and neuroscience resources from all over the internet so you can search and gather sites news to create your own custom news channel.
It includes a wide selection of news websites, but also indexes podcasts, academic journals and blogs.
The site has been created by Australian psychologist Dr Gareth Furber – the same person behind the popular PsychSplash website.
Link to PsychAntenna.
This post tells you to how to help someone who is experiencing psychosis, based on first aid guidelines that have just been published in the medical journal Schizophrenia Bulletin
Psychosis is a mental state where someone might experience hallucinations, unusual beliefs, paranoia, mixed emotions, muddled thoughts, hyper-awareness or show unusual or puzzling behaviour.
The guidelines have been drawn from an international committee of professionals, patients and carers. The detailed points are in table 1 of the paper which is available online as a pdf file.
If you want additional mental health first aid information, there’s more on a dedicated website.
Recognising and acknowledging psychosis
Psychosis is the mental state where someone might experience hallucinations, unusual beliefs, paranoia, mixed emotions, muddled thoughts, hyper-awareness or show unusual or puzzling behaviour. If someone seems distressed or impaired by their experiences, even if they’re quite subtle at first, it’s best not to ignore them and hope they’ll go away. It’s good to give the person the opportunity to discuss the situation.
Approaching someone who might be experiencing psychosis
People experiencing the early stages of psychosis may be worried, and may be concerned about discussing their experiences because of what others might think. Also, the experiences might be frightening in themselves.
The key is to be caring, gentle and non-judgemental. Find somewhere where they can talk safely and that’s free of distractions. Say why you’re worried about them, but avoid talk of mental illness or diagnoses – you could be wrong and it might just make them more frightened. Don’t force a conversation if it’s not wanted and don’t touch them without permission.
Ask the person what will help them feel safe and in control, and allow them to talk about their experiences at their own pace, even if they seem quite unusual to you. Let them know that help is available, and if they don’t want to talk, they’re welcome to talk at a later time.
Giving support
It’s important to respect the person’s beliefs, even if you don’t agree. Someone who is experiencing psychosis might find it hard to distinguish what’s real from what’s not, so telling people that they’re wrong rarely helps. However, it’s always possible to empathise with whatever emotions are stirred up by the experience and this can be very comforting.
Avoid criticising or blaming the person. They may be talking or behaving differently because of their experiences. Although the person might be having some odd experiences and difficulty focusing, their intelligence is unlikely to be affected, so you can talk to them as any other adult. However, sarcasm might be misunderstood by someone who is very suspicious, so should be avoided. Be honest, and don’t make promises you can’t keep.
Dealing with delusions and hallucinations
Delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (false experiences) will probably seem real to the person. Avoid denying, dismissing, laughing at, or arguing about their perceived reality. Try not to be alarmed, horrified or embarrassed about any unusual ideas or paranoia.
Dealing with communication difficulties
People with psychosis are often unable to think clearly. Speaking at your normal pace is fine and usually you will be understood perfectly well, but you may need to give the person extra time to absorb and respond to what you say, and you may need to repeat anything they haven’t been able to focus on. The person may seem to show little emotional reaction – but be aware that they may well be feeling strong emotions inside.
Discussing whether to seek professional help
Ask the person if they’ve felt this way before and, if so, what helped then. Find out what sort of assistance the person thinks will help them this time. If the person has supportive family or friends, encourage the person to contact them. The person might need practical or emotional support when using mental health services, and if the person lacks confidence in the medical advice they’ve received, encourage them to get a second opinion.
What to do if the person doesn’t want help
Some people with psychosis don’t realise there’s anything wrong, even when they’re quite distressed or impaired, and may actively resist encouragement to get help. However, many people understand what’s happening and have a right to refuse help. Threatening the person with hospitalisation or mental health law is likely to make matters worse.
If you’re worried about someone you should encourage them to talk to people they trust or get a medical check-up. You may need to be patient, and remain friendly and open to the possibility that the person will seek help in the future as some people will need some time to feel comfortable with the idea.
What to do in a crisis when the person is very unwell
Try to remain as calm as possible, talking in a normal tone of voice and answer any questions the person might have. Your aim is to make the person feel more comfortable and calm the situation.
Try and evaluate whether the person is at risk of being harmed, harming themselves, or is suicidal. If you think this is the case, call for medical assistance immediately. If the situation seems risky, check how to leave and keep yourself safe.
If you need to call medical assistance, make sure they know the seriousness of the situation by describing specific observations about the person. If new people arrive, explain who they are, that they they’re here to help, and how they’re going to assist.
Find out if there’s anyone the person can contact who they trust and might be able to help. If you can help with any requests that aren’t unsafe or unreasonable, it might help the person feel in control.
What to do if the person becomes aggressive
It is very rare that people with even severe psychosis become aggressive. They are much more likely to be a risk to themselves.
However, people who are extremely suspicious, feel persecuted or are worried about their own safety may be jumpy or feel ‘on edge’. The best response is to make the person feel safe and calm. A good way is to lead the way by acting in a calm, reassuring, non-challenging manner. Try to avoid doing anything that might look ‘shifty’ or suspicious or avoid restricting the person’s movement.
Take any threats or warnings seriously. If you are frightened or worried about your own safety leave and call for help. If you call the police, describe any symptoms and immediate concerns and tell them if the person is armed. If possible, explain that you’ve called help to get medical treatment and because you’re worried about their aggressive behaviour.
To know the brain…is equivalent to ascertaining the material course of thought and will, to discovering the intimate history of life in its perpetual duel with external forces.
A quote from pioneering Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal. From his autobiography Recollections of My Life.
It’s often said that politicians need their head examined, but contrary to recent reports, you’re likely to find out more about whether they wear a hair piece than whether their brains ‘dictate’ their politics.
The fact that there is a brain difference between people with left-wing and right-wing views is hardly news. Because every view we have is supported by the brain, by definition they’ll be a difference somewhere – just as there’s a brain difference between people who prefer London to Paris, strawberry to vanilla, or Britney to Christina.
What is interesting about this new study, is that the researchers have found a difference in the ability to inhibit habitual responses in a ‘detect a letter’ task which was linked to brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex or ACC – a deep mid-line area in the frontal lobes.
Activity in this area correlates with ‘conflict monitoring’ – the ability to detect a conflict between completing mental demands.
It forms part of the brain’s cognitive control and self-regulation system and when it is triggered, the ACC calls in reinforcements to focus attention – in the form of the upper surface areas of the frontal lobes.
Some cases of people with damage to the ACC seem to have perfectly fine conflict monitoring, so it’s not certain that it’s a clear link, but the evidence increasingly points that way.
So the study found that conservatives showed less ACC activation and were more likely to respond when they weren’t supposed to – in other words, were more habitual in their responding.
Cue media pantwetting about brain types ‘dictating’ politics, conservatives being ‘rigid’ and liberals being more ‘flexible’.
Most of this is over-interpretation and, needless to say, the study only reports an association, so it’s just as likely that preferring conservative politics leads to more habitual responding.
Cognitive Daily have a great analysis of the study and I really recommend it if you want to avoid the hype and actually see what’s genuinely interesting about it.
It’s one of their wonderfully clear explanations and has a demo you can try yourself. Importantly, their pants stay dry throughout.
Link to abstract of scientific study.
Link to fantastic Cognitive Daily analysis.
Someone’s uploaded a video which serves both as an important teaching aid for MRI brain scanner safety and a wonderfully entertaining guide to the destructive power of a magnet the size of a small car.
The video itself is a a little bit old, and so has a sort of B-movie quality to it, but which makes it all the more fun.
However, it contains the classic sequence, part of virtually every MRI safety video, where technicians release a steel wrench near the magnet, which then flies through the air and obliterates a number of destructible objects in its path.
The magnetic field is designed to focus on a very specific area, and that’s where your head is placed when you’re scanned.
Any ferrous metals in the room will be drawn towards the centre of the field, probably at speed, which can be quite unfortunate if your head is occupying the same position.
We collected some nice examples of objects stuck in scanners earlier in the year, including chairs, oxygen bottles, and other assorted medical equipment.
If you want to see the sort of force generated by a steel oxygen bottle heading towards the centre of an MR magnet, there’s a short (and somewhat frightening) video on YouTube of some brave MRI technicians demonstrating the effect.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened in one tragic case where a six-year-old boy was killed. The incident is now also a standard part of MRI safety training.
However, the danger isn’t only from the ‘missile effect’. Additionally, elongated ferrous objects will try to align with the magnetic field. This is a problem if you have metal implants in your body.
For example, brain surgery to prevent aneurysms (strokes) often involves putting a small metal clip over the blood vessel to clamp it shut, to prevent blood flowing to the burst or weakened area. Nowadays, these clips are not ferrous, so aren’t a problem, but older ones might be affected by magnets.
Having a ferrous metal clip suddenly move inside your head can be disastrous, as it has the potential to shear the blood vessel, causing internal bleeding.
The video also talks about other sorts of possible MR hazards, largely involving the liquid helium and nitrogen boiling off and freezing, poisoning or pressurising the surroundings.
An explosion of an MRI magnetic when the gasses boiled off too quickly was caught on video by a TV news crew which creates quite a spectacular effect.
However, do bear in mind that these incidents are few and far between. Having an MRI is significantly safer than crossing the road.
If you go for an MRI scan, you’ll likely be interviewed and / or examined to make sure you have no metal in your body, and you’ll have all metal removed from you.
If you want to try, you can volunteer for brain scanning experiments where you’ll usually get a small payment and a picture of your brain – contact your local university or teaching hospital.
Link to B-movie style MRI safety video.
Link to video clip of oxygen bottle flying towards MRI scanner.
Link to MRI explosion video.
Link to previous Mind Hacks post on things stuck in scanners.
BBC Radio 4 is running a special season on sexuality that will cover everything from the history cultural views on sex to the medical aspects of sexual dysfunction.
The season spans a number of the BBC’s regular programmes over the next two weeks and has a remarkably wide remit.
Programmes tackle social issues, behaviour and medical aspects of sex – for example, looking at the history of how attitudes to homosexuality have altered, how sexuality has been depicted in art and what can be considered ‘normal’, among many others.
By the looks of it, all the programmes should be available online after they’ve been broadcast.
It looks like a really well put-together season and should make for some interesting listening.
Link to BBC Radio 4 ‘The Sex Lives of Us’ page (via Dr Petra).
Psychology and neuroscience carnival, Encephalon, has just been posted online by Dr Deborah Serani and contains some of the best in the last fortnight’s mind and brain writing.
A couple of my favourites include a piece on the possible natural selection of genes that increase risk for schizophrenia and an excellent analysis of the popular but simplistic ‘triune brain theory’ (it is responsible for the overused and largely meaningless phrase ‘reptilian brain’).
Whenever I hear something like “every time you get aggressive, your reptilian brain kicks in”, I think to myself, “that’s weird, I don’t own any reptiles”.
There’s many more insightful articles in edition 31, so have a browse and see what catches your interest.
Link to Encephalon 31.
The New York Times has an article on the changing fortunes of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and why psychoanalysis is being increasingly marginalised in mental health.
Psychoanalysis, the name for both the theory practice of psychological treatment developed by Freud, was once the driving force behind American psychiatry and the only game in town as far as psychological treatment was concerned.
It is now becoming increasingly marginalised, thought of as a bit eccentric, and overtaken by newer cognitive therapies. Some of the reasons for this are undoubtedly to do with the culture of psychoanalysis itself.
A major historical factor has been the long and contentious history of the movement, which has been subject to constant splits, disagreements and factional in-fighting.
Part of the reason for this, perhaps more than for other therapies, is that psychoanalysis involves a much closer relationship between theory and practice.
In this framework, mental illnesses arise from unresolved emotional conflicts that the mind tries to handle by various psychological defences. These defences may fail, or they may be counter-productive in the long-term, supposedly leading to the symptoms of mental disorder.
The goal of psychoanalysis is not necessarily to reduce the symptoms but to resolve the inner conflicts (Freud famously said he wanted to transform “neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness”).
So, what tells you when the patient is improved? Why psychoanalytic theory of course.
And if you come up with a new theory of a disorder, you are, by definition, suggesting a new form of treatment, and often, new criteria for therapeutic success.
You also might be suggesting that your colleagues’ practice is wrong – hence the infighting and divisions.
In contrast, most other forms of treatment (including drugs and other psychological therapies) rely on descriptive measures of symptom improvement that form of the benchmark of psychiatric outcome studies, so theory and practice are much less intertwined.
Analysts will argue that these other treatments only deal with the surface symptoms and don’t deal with the ‘deeper concerns’, but the same issue arises – what constitutes ‘deep’ in this context is psychoanalytic theory.
In contrast, the development of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) has seen an opposite pattern. If new innovations work, they are typically re-included under the same CBT banner – giving the impression of a single unified therapy, when in fact, the boundaries are quite loose and determined by what has been shown to be effective in studies.
One of the other quirks of psychoanalysis, is that it’s selective for people who are quite wealthy.
Training as a psychoanalyst takes up to seven years, and requires you are in therapy yourself, usually for five times a week, at a cost of up to £100 ($200) a session. This comes on top of the cost of the training course itself.
For patients, therapy can also take years, and while most analysts will have discounts for the less well off, the costs can be significant. So despite some notable exceptions, it’s mostly the wealthy treating the wealthy – a curious enclave of the upper middle classes.
These factors also mean it’s very difficult to subject psychoanalysis to randomised controlled trials, because it’s so unlike anything else. This has made a new generation of clinicians, brought up with the mantra of ‘evidence based medicine’, suspicious of it.
With great reluctance in some quarters, the principles of psychoanalysis have been shoehorned into a number of briefer versions: psychoanalytic psychotherapy, transference-focused psychotherapy and so on.
Interestingly, symptom outcome studies have found that these can be quite effective, particularly it seems for ‘personality disorders‘ – a group of fairly ill defined diagnoses, but which typically involves destructive mood and relationship problems.
Despite the eccentricities and circular reasoning involved in some aspects of psychoanalysis, 100 years of practice has led to some important insights.
However, only recently has research started to pull out the wheat from the chaff in terms of how it can be applied to the demands of 21st century mental health care.
Link to NYT article ‘Patching Up the Frayed Couch’.
Link to AJP editorial on treatment of borderline personality disorder.
Neurophilosophy has found a series of simply beautiful images created by using the electrical activity of the brain to seed fractal patterns.
They’re generated by BrainPaint, a custom system for neurofeedback – a technique in which a person connected to an EEG machine sees the output of their brain visualised in real-time.
This allows people to see the result of modifying mental states that might otherwise be difficult to monitor internally.
For example, the system might be tuned to show a specific pattern when a peak alpha frequency is reached – reported to correlate positively with cognitive performance.
The user can then practice making this pattern appear more often, as the system allows them to see when they’re being successful, where previously it might not apparent.
BrainPaint is a neurofeedback system created by researcher Bill Scott who seemed to have come up with the idea of making the feedback appear as beautiful images.
Neurofeedback is being used quite widely outside the mainstream and currently crosses the threshold between a fringe practice and a scientifically validated therapy.
Certainly, there are now a growing number of scientific studies which have demonstrated its modest but reliable effectiveness in some disorders.
However, its not difficult to find neurofeedback therapists on the fringes of the mainstream who claim amazing effects that aren’t supported by the research.
If you want to know more about the science of neurofeedback, Scientific American published an article about it last year.
Link to BrainPaint gallery (via Neurophilosophy).
Link to SciAm article ‘Train the Brain’.
Silent for three years, Osama Bin Laden just released a video tape in which he name drops academic Noam Chomsky, suggesting that while in hiding, he’s become familiar with the American researcher’s extensive work.
Exclusively, Mind Hacks publishes a deleted section from an earlier draft of Bin Laden’s latest speech that lays out his demands for the science of linguistics:
People of America: while the cognitive revolution started within your own shores and changed the face of the world, it seems the lessons of the destruction of behaviourism have not been learnt.
Through the careful analysis of Chomsky, it was clear that language could not be entirely accounted for by the influence of environment and culture on a general learning mechanism. While some heeded the messages, some of your brethren remained unconvinced.
Now that the spector of connectionism has raised its ugly head and has been inappropriately glorified by the power of technological corporations, our understanding of the role of transformational grammars in language development is threatened.
And I tell you, artificial intelligence is a false god that provides correlative and not causal models of language acquisition. The infallible methodologies are the comparative study of world languages and lesion analyses of those who must be treated with mercy owing to their acquired dysphasias.
Those who stray from the path will be doomed to repeated the errors of the empty vessels of strict behaviourism and the Standard Social Science Model. Every just and intelligent one of you who reflect on this will be guided to the truth.
Rumours that Steven Pinker has been taken in for questioning have not been verified.
Renowned psychologist Dr Mary Pipher has handed back her American Psychological Association presidential award in protest at the organisation’s refusal to ban participation in US military interrogations which some deem to be torture under the Geneva Convention.
However, the whole issue of psychologists participation in government interrogations shadows a significant, but little mentioned, change in the status of psychologists in the medical establishment.
Fifty years ago, clinical psychologists were little more than test technicians who provided information for psychiatrists to interpret.
During the last decade, clinical psychology training has become equally, if not more, arduous than medical training, and psychological interventions have been shown to be highly effective.
Consequently, psychologists are now being considered on a par with physicians in many organisations. For example, psychologist-led mental health and brain-injury teams are increasingly common.
This change in status is being increasingly reflected in the law. In the UK’s 2005 Capacity Act, psychologists are now able to sign assessments concerning someone’s mental competence to make a contested decision, something that was previously reserved for medical doctors.
The recently approved UK Mental Health Bill is likely to allow psychologists, rather than just psychiatrists, to take a lead in ‘sectioning’ people – i.e. detaining them if they’re deemed a risk to themselves or others owing to mental illness.
In the the US military, and in some US states, psychologists are now able to prescribe medication, previously the sole domain of physicians, and the APA is pushing for the extension of these rights.
Not all psychologists are of a same mind on these issues, and many see these changes as much as a ‘poison chalice’ as as benefit.
In many ways, psychologists and psychiatrists are a ‘good cop, bad cop’ double act in mental health. Psychiatrists can forcibly drug and detain people, while psychologists can tut and scowl with the patient and continue to work collaboratively to improve their mental state.
Of course, patients may be a lot less willing to work with psychologists if they’ve played a role in their detention or forcible medication.
Internal debates aside, the fact that the US Government is quite happy to rely on psychologists, rather than physicians, for their interrogation practices is testament to a general change in status.
Contentious issues concerning a potent mix of economics, ethics and power balance shifts are common for physicians, who are used to governments wanting to give or take responsibilities away from them to suit their political agenda or latest reform plan.
In contrast, these sorts of ethical dilemmas are relatively new for psychologists.
What makes this an interesting time, is that psychology is in a transition period where lots of legal changes are being made to solidify their responsibilities.
This makes the profession much more susceptible to influence by government, and it will be interesting to see how these issues play out, of which the debate over military interrogations is perhaps only an early skirmish.
Link to interview with Dr Mary Pipher.
The BPS Research Digest reports that children with autism are seemingly ‘immune’ to contagious yawning – perhaps as a result of their reduced social awareness.
Yawning is mysterious: no-one really knows why we do it, but we do know it’s reliably ‘contagious’.
Seeing someone yawn, or indeed, just thinking about someone else yawning, makes us more likely to do the same. For example, this article may well be enough to trigger a yawn in some people.
One of the three key aspects of autism is a difficulty with social interaction (the other two being difficulties with certain types of abstract thinking and a restricted or repetitive range of interests or behaviours).
So a group of researchers, led by psychologist Dr. Atsushi Senju, wondered whether children with autism might be less susceptible to yawn contagion.
They came up with the ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ idea of showing videos of people yawning to groups of typically developing children, and children with a diagnosis of autism.
The study [pdf] showed that children with autism were far less likely to yawn in response to watching others do the same.
Often, autistic social difficulties are put down to a problem with ‘theory of mind‘ the ability to understand other people’s beliefs, intentions and desires, but it’s not clear that contagious yawning relies on this.
The researchers don’t have any easy answers for why yawn contagion is reduced in autism, but suggest, without committing, that known differences in viewing faces, possible differences in mirror neurons or problems with imitating others might be linked.
The BPSRD has a talent for picking up on previously obscure but striking studies, and this is another great example.
Link to BPSRD on autism and contagious yawning ‘immunity’.
pdf of full-text of scientific paper.
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
ADHD is so last season: 4000% increase in US ‘child bipolar’ diagnosis.
BBC Radio 4’s science programme The Material World spends a week with students at the psychology summer school.
Science News lists caffeine levels in almost all the popular soft drinks.
I’ve been digging Deric Bownd’s MindBlog recently. You should too.
An article in The New York Times reports that a new schizophrenia drug that targets glutamate, rather than the traditional dopamine, shows promise in early trials.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, champion of the New Mysterian school of consciousness (aka the Private James Frazer approach) has a blog.
PsyBlog examines a fascinating study which examined the writing of poets who later killed themselves to get an insight into suicide.
Yet another speed dating study. This one suggests that men select every woman above an obtainable attractiveness threshold, women look for indicators of long-term security.
Science News tackles the effectiveness of school violence prevention programmes.
The BPS Research Digest discovers free full-text access to Sage neuroscience journals.
NPR Radio have a short segment on a recent brain scanning study of the placebo effect.
Time magazine reports that sleep deprivation in early life may lead to future behavioral and cognitive problems.
An article on social engineering tricks drug reps use to persuade doctors to use their drugs. Industry responds with ‘other industries do the same’ and ‘we just present the facts’ lines. Well, which is it?
There was a interesting segment on NPR Radio’s Talk of the Nation the other week on the psychology of the stock market that discussed what the science of social behaviour can tell us about the causes of booms and busts.
The guest on the show was Michael Mauboussin, professor of finance and author of a recent book on the psychology of the markets.
There’s a lot of talk about the wisdom, and indeed, folly, of crowds, particularly in light of the recent economic turmoil, but perhaps the show lacks a mention of Charles McKay’s 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
McKay notes how the herd mentality can lead to financial crises because people get excited about obviously foolish investments, simply because of widespread social hype.
It’s a classic in the literature that was not equalled until sociologist Robert Bartholomew examined the topic in more detail in a number of books, of which the wonderfully named Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics is undoubtedly my favourite.
Link to NPR on ‘The Psychology of Stocks’.
Link to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds info.
Computer games may contribute to mental illness in children, but for adults they protect against cognitive decline, at least according to neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. However, the evidence for these claims is non-existent for the former, and only preliminary for the latter.
Baroness Greenfield has lent her name, and investment cash, to the ‘brain training’ game MindFit which was launched today in the UK.
It has apparently been shown in an as-yet-unpublished randomized controlled trial to boost cognitive function in senior citizens.
Interestingly, this time last year, Greenfield was a signatory to an open letter suggesting that “sedentary, screen based entertainment” was damaging to children’s brain’s because they “they cannot adjust ‚Äì as full-grown adults can ‚Äì to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change”.
So what evidence is there that computer games are detrimental to children’s minds, but beneficial to adults?
There is some evidence that violent media, including computer games, is associated with aggression in children, but none that computer games in general affect mental health or that children cannot adjust to rapid technological and cultural change.
Limited evidence suggests that cognitive training can help healthy older adults stay sharp, but there is no evidence on how it can effect mood or mental health.
So, on the basis of current evidence, or at least the lack of it, we could just as easily warn against the possible mental health implications of “sedentary, screen based entertainment” for seniors as for children.
In lieu of further evidence, I suspect the message that computer games are ‘good for adults but bad for children’ is based largely on common, but unsupported, social concerns about how technology is used: too much by children, not enough by seniors.
Link to BBC News story ‘Mind games’.
A charming short article from the July 23, 1923 edition of Time magazine, about the supposedly receptive nature of the dormant brain.
Needless to say, sleeping radio operators were not adopted as the mainstay of the US Navy’s communication system.
It is true, however, that during the hypnagogic state, the transition from wakefulness into sleep, the mind can make connections between seemingly unconnected perceptions, thoughts and ideas.
The accidental falling asleep, with the phones on his head, of a student in training for a job as radio operator in the U. S. Navy led to a discovery which will vastly shorten the process of manufacturing experts in wireless telegraphy. While the code and its translation were coming through the ether, the brain cells of the sleeping man, in a state of plastic receptivity, were absorbing the meaning of the dots and dashes and forming new associations. On waking, he was able to repeat accurately everything he had received in sleep. Psychologists say that such results are feasible because of the automatic, repetitive nature of the material conveyed to the dormant brain.
Navy officials immediately instituted tests of the method at Pensacola, Fla. Twelve students who were making unsatisfactory progress were tried out. After two nights, during which the code was sent to those students in sleep, ten had learned the lesson, and the other two had left the class before completion of the experiment. The instructors now report that ” the experimental stage is past, and the method may now be termed a standard one.”
Link to 1923 Time article ‘Radio and Sleep’.
Mind Hacks 