Relaxation. While Lozanov students often spend several sessions learning how to relax deeply enough to make the method effective, floaters can go rapidly and effortlessly to a state of extremely deep relaxation.How does floating affect learning ability? Texas A & M chemistry professor Dr. Thomas E. Taylor set out to answer that question in one of the most ingenious and meticulously executed studies in the history of float tank research. In the spring semester of 1982, Taylor carefully screened the EEG recordings of more than 450 volunteers to eliminate variables, and pared the group down to 40 subjects as near to identical as possible. His final group was all female (to avoid any physiological differences in the way men and women think or learn), all Texas A & M chemistry students between eighteen and twenty-two (to avoid cultural and age-group differences), all right-handed (to avoid possible differences in right and left hemisphere orientation), all white, monolingual, of average weight and physical activity, non-pregnant, with similar EEG patterns, and in the same stage of their menstrual cycle (the preluteal phase, days five to twelve). He randomly divided the subjects into two groups: a float group and a control group. Both groups underwent a series of seventy-minute learning sessions, during which they listened to taped lessons; all subjects heard identical tapes. The floaters heard the tapes while in the tank; the control group listened while lying relaxed on a sofa in a quiet room that was as dark as the float tank. “The only difference in the two groups was that the experimental group was floating,” says Taylor. After the lesson each group was tested (while their brain waves were recorded on the EEG) to determine how much and how well they had learned during the session.
Prompted by his earlier findings that learning takes place on at least three different levels, Taylor tested the subjects on each of those levels. The first, which Taylor calls “basic knowledge,” is essentially memorization: How well did the subjects recall the facts they had heard? The second, or “application level,” is the ability to understand a concept and use it. The third level, “synthesis thinking,” is the ability to put together several concepts and come up with a new idea or an original solution to a problem. A statistical analysis of the results showed that on the first level, floaters did better than the control group. On the second level, the gap between floaters and non-floaters widened. And on the third level, in the extremely complex task of synthesis thought, the superiority of the floating group was greatest of all. “There’s no question that the experimental group learned more,” said Taylor, “but where they learned is the most important point. People who floated learned at a different cognitive level. The results show that the more difficult the concept, the bigger the difference in the performance of the two groups.”
In analyzing the EEG results, Taylor found that floaters produced significantly greater amounts of theta waves. Even more interesting, he discovered that at the moment of comprehending, when all the concepts are brought together in a flash of insight and the problem is suddenly solved (Taylor compares it to a “click” or “mental light bulb going on,” and calls it “the Eureka event”), there are sudden changes in the brain waves recorded on the EEG. This moment of synthesis thought, says Taylor, takes place in the theta area. Also significant: He found evidence that visualization helps in learning, and that visualizers did better at all levels of learning.248
Lozanov and Superlearning
An extraordinary amount of evidence accumulated in recent years indicates that the greatest amount of learning takes place when the learner’s state is one of deep relaxation combined with mental alertness. Perhaps the most influential work has been that of Bulgarian psychiatrist and educator Georgi Lozanov, who has developed a program of accelerated learning he calls “suggestopedia,” which involves entering a state of deep relaxation, synchronizing mind and body rhythms through rhythmic breathing, and listening to whatever is to be learned, spoken over a background of slow, rhythmic MUSIC.148
Much of Lozanov’s work involves the teaching of a foreign language, because language study lends itself to testing: It is quite simple to quantify the new vocabulary presented at each session, and to test the number of words retained at given intervals of months. This type of learning corresponds to what Thomas Taylor called level one, basic knowledge or memorization. The results have been astonishing. While most accelerated-learning or “immersion” language programs consider learning eighty to one hundred words per day extraordinarily successful, and expect a rapid loss of retention, Lozanov’s experimental subjects have been able to absorb up to three thousand words per day with the ordinary (i.e., non-experimental) study groups regularly learning up to five hundred words per day. Unlike most accelerated learning programs, which emphasize the necessity of frequent repetition, suggestopedia needs little or no repetition. As for retention, Lozanov’s students have virtually total recall after learning, with retention remaining (in one study) at 88 percent six months later. Lozanov’s methods and results are now being duplicated at scores of universities and rapid learning institutes in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and applied to learning everything from chemistry to math to poetry. (Lozanov’s ideas and techniques are summarized and expanded upon in Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder’s Superlearning.180 This book deals not only with Lozanov, but with other methods of accelerated learning, and includes a wealth of information, including techniques for relaxation, visualization, and suggestions on how to put together tapes for learning. Floaters will find much of the book applicable for in-tank learning programs.)
There are several interdependent explanations for why the Lozanov technique, and other similar superlearning methods, enable people to absorb ideas and information at such an extraordinary rate. First is deep relaxation. As we know, even slight amounts of tension and stress can keep excessive amounts of fight-or-flight biochemicals circulating in the system, and tests have shown that while the fight-or-flight state is fine for executing simple actions, it is not conducive to complex learning. Interestingly, American researchers studying the Lozanov technique have found that not only is deep relaxation essential to the process, but the deeper the relaxation, the more the student is able to learn.
One side effect experienced by Lozanov’s students was a striking increase in health and general well-being. This can probably be attributed to the stress reduction resulting from frequent long sessions of deep relaxation. And reduction in stress is a crucial factor in learning—a recent test of four thousand children by Georgetown University researchers showed that those who were under emotional or physical stress scored 13 percent lower on I.Q. tests than those who were free of stress.232
Also important is the ability to enter the theta state. As Thomas Taylor’s study demonstrated, the reverie state of theta is where the mind is most open to the absorption of new material, and in theta the mind is most capable of the complex synthesis thinking—imaginative, visual—that is necessary for combining concepts in new ways, and creating original ideas.
From his emphasis on relaxation, music, and rhythm, it’s clear that Lozanov is attempting to involve the right hemisphere in the learning process, since it is the right hemisphere that processes and deals with patterns, rhythms, large-scale and non-detailed material, while the left hemisphere is more effective at detailed, fine-resolution work. Since the left hemisphere is usually dominant, our potential learning capacity is ordinarily crippled; using relaxation and rhythm, Lozanov’s technique brings about a cooperation between the hemispheres, with their complementary capacities for processing information. The result is a quantum leap in learning ability.
Another important factor in Lozanov’s suggestopedia technique is, as the method’s name indicates, the increased suggestibility of the learner. By becoming deeply relaxed and focusing on rhythmic, soothing music, the learner is in a state quite similar to hypnosis, with heightened receptivity to suggestion.
Lozanov also emphasizes the central importance of what he calls de-suggestion—getting rid of a lifetime’s accumulation of limiting or negative ideas, such as that we can only learn so much, that we have no aptitude for math or languages, that things like superlearning are impossible. Thus he has his students begin their learning sessions with a series of positive suggestions or affirmations, such as that learning is easy, that the students are calm, confident, capable.
Clearly all the essential elements of the Lozanov technique are present in the float tank experience—and usually to a greater degree:
Relaxation. While Lozanov students often spend several sessions learning how to relax deeply enough to make the method effective, floaters can go rapidly and effortlessly to a state of extremely deep relaxation.
Theta state. The float tank naturally brings about the theta state ideal for the uncritical acceptance of large amounts of new material.
Hemispheric cooperation. Tests show that floating increases access to the right hemisphere and results in a synchronization of the brain-wave activity of the two hemispheres.
Heightened suggestibility. Research indicates that floating leads to a dramatic increase in both suggestibility and the capacity for hypnosis.
De-suggestion. The float tank is a potent tool for what we have discussed earlier as deconditioning, or the unfreezing, changing, and refreezing of belief structures.
In addition to these elements, the float tank has certain characteristics not present in the Lozanov technique, such as the absence of distractions from external stimuli, and the mind’s response to sensory deprivation, known as stimulus hunger, which makes the brain even more highly receptive and sensitive to any information presented to it. The float tank is a learning tool of unprecedented power, and while the results of various superlearning programs such as suggestopedia have been remarkable, the float tank has the potential to far surpass them.
The enormous potential of the tank as a tool for enhancing learning ability has been clear to tank manufacturers and researchers for a long time, and there are already a number of superlearning programs in operation that use the tank, playing instruction tapes to floaters through in-tank speakers. So far, these superlearning programs seem to focus mainly on language instruction, using a modified Lozanov technique. However, language learning is mostly a matter of simple memorization, and as Thomas Taylor’s study showed, the tank’s learning-enhancement effect grows ever stronger as the material to be learned increases in difficulty and complexity. His study concludes that the amplified learning rate that commercial superlearning programs have “reported for the acquisition of a foreign language (a lower cognitive level task) is very small compared to the possible improvement of learning rates for more complex records.”248
What this means is that we’ve not even scratched the surface of the tank’s promise as an educational tool. Using the tank to learn a language may be rather like using a huge computer to do simple addition. The tank’s real power seems to lie in heightening the floater’s ability to understand difficult concepts, and to combine these concepts in original and imaginative ways—to come up with new answers to problems, to create new knowledge.
There is no doubt the tank can be a revolutionary instructional tool, with students of all fields of study—biology, economics, music, physics—using the tank as a means of rapidly absorbing large amounts of information and gaining insight into difficult concepts. But where the tank can be of greatest value is on the cutting edge of knowledge—in solving problems, in creating new wisdom and understanding. It’s not hard to imagine a nuclear physicist floating, absorbing recent research done by other physicists, reconsidering classical works, and suddenly, in what Thomas Taylor calls a Eureka event, the light clicks on, a new synthesis takes place in his mind, and he has that rarest of blessings: a new idea. Engineers, economists, literary critics, chemists, business executives, lawyers, doctors—all can profit from the augmented capacity for learning, understanding, and thinking that can be gained in the tank. For if the tank’s learning-enhancement effect increases as the difficulty and complexity of the material being learned increases, then it must be the scholars, the original thinkers, the finest minds, dealing with the newest and most difficult information and concepts, who will profit most.
Where the real work has yet to be done is in ascertaining how most effectively to present the material to be learned. So far, the most popular method has been to present it verbally, on tape, through in-tank speakers. But researchers are still uncertain about what constitutes the most efficacious presentation on tape. At this point it appears that tape-recorded material is very effective if the information is spoken distinctly, with a certain rhythmic quality, and presented in thought segments, with short pauses between to allow the matter to be digested—which perhaps means to allow it to be transferred from the short-term memory to long-term memory. Following Lozanov, many have found that background music enhances the effect; it should be calming, unobtrusive, beautiful. Ostrander and Schroeder recommend the largo movements of baroque composers, such as Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Corelli, because they move at a stately rhythm of forty to sixty beats per minute.
Our visual memory is much more powerful than our verbal memory, and many commercial float tanks are now designed to allow the installation of a video screen, so that the floater may satisfy his stimulus hunger by looking upward through the dark to focus with total concentration on a moving image. At least one company, SyberVision, is making videotapes of perfect golf and tennis strokes for “Muscle Memory Programming,” using slow motion, different angles, more than one thousand swings, aces, perfect putts, soaring drives, complete with audio sound track of the ball hitting the sweet spot. Described in Chapter Twenty, this kind of visual-motor behavior rehearsal is an enormously useful way to learn and practice, since the body unconsciously absorbs the right moves by a sort of osmosis. But again, this use of visual learning is really only scratching the surface, and present techniques could easily be expanded to include the visual learning of all sports, of dance, painting, and sculpture, how to operate computers or machinery, and much more.
And there’s no need to limit visual learning to physical movements. Instruction in mathematics, for example, could combine spoken material with illustrative equations on the video screen, and this combination of eye and ear could be extended to virtually every field of learning. At this point, the only apparent limitation on what and how much can be learned in the tank is our own imagination.