Andrew Huberman· PhD
two researchers Jenkins and dback did a landmark study they had participants learn a whole bunch of nonsense syllables and they had them learn them over and over and over again and gradually they got better and then they started to test them across an 8 hour period they tested them 2 hours later 4 hours later 6 hours later and 8 hours later the only difference is that in one of those testing sessions that 2 hours 4 hours 6 hours 8 hours was a cross awaking day in the other they had them learn that information to near Perfection before sleep just as they did in the waking group but now they woke them up after 2 hours and tested them after 4 hours and tested them after 6 hours and then again when they woke up in the morning 8 hours later and what they found is that in those people who stayed awake after learning there was essentially just catastrophic forgetting the amount of information 2 hours 4 hours 6 hours 8 hours later just declined dramatically but when they repeated that in the same individuals after learning things to the same degree 2 hours 4 hours later memory was starting to decline but after about two and a half three hours of being asleep all of a sudden sleep had fixated those memories almost like um like an animal that's been trapped in Amber and set in Amber like a fossil and then those memories just would not Decay any further and you retained them