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By C. Jake Williams. March 26, 2008
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Today's selection will be based on a form of brainwashing, but first I'd like to share a quick thought. I've never considered it before today, but three strange looks directed my way made me notice that drinking a caffeine-rich Mountain Dew in a Philosophy of the New Testament class isn't a socially acceptable activity. Indeed, I deduce that many short-haired members of the class perceive me as a hypocrite.
On to today's lesson!
My father knows best and I love my father. My father knows best and I love my father. My father knows best and I love my father.
My children will hear that message four thousand times a night from the day they are born to the day they turn seven. That's a total of ten million repetitions of fatherly love by the time they are old enough to question my authority or parenting methods.
You might say this is wrong, but my children will be conditioned to follow my advice and love me unconditionally.
You can screw up Your children however You like; this is my plan.
Hypnopædia is the theory that, with sufficient repetitions, a concept can be learned via audio recording while a person sleeps. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is how I learned of this theory, though I had vaguely conceived it sometime in grade school.
Here's how I conceive the method working best:
- Recordings should be one sentence in length. We're not trying to teach the kid French, just a simple idea that should be summarizable without involving a second period.
- Recordings should contain no more than fifteen words. Ideally the sentence would be under ten words, like the example given above, but it's difficult to imagine a child understanding a sentence beyond some measure of complexity.
- Repetitions should be separated by no more than ten seconds and no less than three. Children have short attention spans, so spacing the repetitions too far apart will reduce the effect desired, but running them together too closely will jumble the message. Recordings two seconds in length spaced three seconds apart can be repeated four thousand times in less than six hours.
- Recordings should address basic principles first and if continued through adolescence should evolve into more complex messages.
Do You have an idea for improving this method?
You were there.