Can you learn with subliminal stimuli while you sleep?

Learning without making an effort: That is what many people wish for. With subliminal stimuli and the right technique, it can work

Part 2 of our series: Learning in your sleep

The term subliminal (lat. sub: “under” and limen: “threshold”, literally “beneath the threshold”) comes from psychology. A subliminal stimulus is the subliminal presentation or perception of stimuli and information. Subliminal stimuli do not cross the threshold of consciousness, so we take them in subconsciously. These subliminal messages activate specific regions in the brain, although they are not consciously perceived.

They are used as affirmations, suggestions, messages that are usually played very quietly or transmitted in very high sound frequencies (ultrasound). They contain positively formulated statements that can bring about changes and/or learning in thinking and acting. One cannot actively hear the transported words, and therefore no questioning thoughts are triggered. The constantly active consciousness filters, shaped by one’s own expectations, ideas, fears, compulsions and taboos, are bypassed. The subliminal stimuli are usually accompanied by nature sounds or relaxation music. In this way, the messages have a particularly strong effect and can exert their positive influence on our inner being subliminally.

What can humans hear?

Between 20 Hz and 20 kHz (20,000 Hz) are the frequencies that human hearing can perceive. Our hearing spectrum is influenced by age, occupation and gender. With increasing age, the audibility of the upper frequencies decreases to about 12 kHz. Sounds that are higher than the audible frequency range are called ultrasound. It includes frequencies from 20 kHz to 1 GHz. Young people often still hear a few kHz in the ultrasonic range.

Acoustic subliminal messages

Acoustic subliminal stimuli are usually played so softly that they are not audible. The messages are often embedded in a sound background. The volume of the messages is turned down so low that they can hardly be perceived by the human ear, they are drowned out by the music. Due to the very low volume of the information to be conveyed, one hardly notices the individual words, but for the subconscious the subliminal information is usable. This procedure is called “masking”.

Silent subliminal messages

When the subliminal messages are shifted into a very high frequency range through special processing and technique, we speak of Silent Subliminals. The affirmations in the silent subliminal stimuli are not heard consciously and can therefore be left running in the background during other activities. They are considered an effective learning method with many advantages: You can use them anytime and anywhere and absorb the information unfiltered. They bypass our consciousness, especially the contradiction of our inner critic, and thus have an even deeper and more lasting effect.

How does learning with subliminal stimuli work?

Special frequency ranges of our brain are stimulated, especially the alpha state with 8-12 Hz and the theta state with 3-8 Hz. The effect of the subliminal information is absorbed more effectively because the two hemispheres of the brain work synchronously. Body and mind relax, the effects of meditation exercises or hypnotherapy improve and accelerate.

With the Neurophone, for example, a special analogue-generated ultrasound signal in the range of 40 kHz to 50 kHz is fed to the skin via electrodes (as sound transmitters). This signal can be modulated with any audio signal (music, language courses) fed in from a connected source. The information, which can no longer be perceived acoustically, is conducted through the skin into the body to our organ of equilibrium (sacculus). The “encoded” information is further conducted to the brain and subconscious and “decoded” there. One now “hears” the audio signal – without listening with the ears or the bone conduction.

We will present further methods in the next episode of our series “Learning in your sleep”.