You Can’t Learn a Foreign Language in Your Sleep

A study a few years ago found it might be possible to quit smoking by training people to associate cigarettes with bad smells while they're sleeping.  But the new study found that's probably not possible either.

Wouldn't it be great if you could learn a language, or quit smoking just by listening to audio tapes while you sleep?  You'd be a genius with zero bad habits in no time.  But sadly, a new study found it's probably not possible.

Researchers scanned people's brains while they slept, and found we can distinguish between different sounds.  But our brain can't group them into any sort of sequence while we're sleeping.  So whether you're listening to a foreign language or something in English, it's basically all just gibberish.

Nature