Actually, sleeping on a book doesn't imbue with it's knowledge...

When I was a teenager I was very gullible. I didn't know this at the time, I thought I was a hard-edged critical thinker eschewing the conventions of dusty academia, I was wrong. In my mad attempt to try and fit in and understand the world I decided the only logical explanation could be the world as presented was wrong and it was almost everyone else who didn't understand it. 

I was really into the X-files for quite a while; videos, comics, magazines, anything I could get my hands upon. Except I believed most of it was based on fact. To help fill out that i started reading what I would now refer to as 'fringe' books but at the time I thought was the actual truth that would help me to unlock and understand my differences. 'Why are these in the health, mind & spirituality section I would wonder and not the history section'. 

I believed it all, specifically Atlantis a lost civilisation based on civility and learning! That had to be true right? Probably somewhere I'd fit right in but the knowledge of it was lost and what little bits had remained were being purposely suppressed by obscure Egyptian archaeologists to keep that sweet archaeology gravy train rocking. Alongside this were other useful facts I picked up; self-hypnotism, crop circles, religious prophecy; I was utterly convinced if I concentrated hard enough I could pull my consciousness out of my body by an imagine piece of string and fly about the place. Convinced the only reason it wasn't happening was because I wasn't trying hard enough. 

One of the funnest one's I picked up though was that there were people who could absorb the knowledge of books by sleeping on them. I had my A-levels in a few days and due to the onslaught of depression and uncertainty had done nothing for any of them. I needed a solution. I could've tried studying but as I'd spent the past year not doing anything it was a bit late to learn an entire a course. So I slept on my books. Everynight. For a good week. Funnily enough I didn't learn anything, I just assumed by sleep self was too lazy to pick them up. 

In hindsight it all seems insane how I could believe this stuff, and not just as some 6 year old child but as a technically 18 year old adult. But I completely did. Non of it did make any sense to me until recently when I've realised that my driving though for all this was it was an untapped world I couldn't quite see and if I could reach into and be part of it then I would have a world I belonged in. It wouldn't just be me who didn't understand stuff but in fact the rest of the world would be the ignorant. 

Also, why would anyone lie in print that this stuff is true? I couldn't comprehend that someone wouldn't be writing the truth, it didn't even enter my head. Sadly it now means i Just automatically don't believe anything but it's probably the lesser of two evils.