It’s late in the evening: time to close the book and turn off the computer. You’re done for the day. What you may not realize, however, is that the learning process actually continues—in your dreams.

    It might sound like science fiction, but researchers are increasingly focusing on the relationship between the knowledge and skills our brains absorb during the day and the fragmented, often bizarre imaginings they generate at night. Scientists have found that dreaming about a task we’ve learned is associated with improved performance in that activity (suggesting that there’s some truth to the popular notion that we’re “getting” a foreign language once we begin dreaming in it). What’s more, researchers are coming to recognize that dreaming is an essential part of understanding, organizing and retaining what we learn.

    While we sleep, research indicates, the brain replays the patterns of activity it experienced during waking hours, allowing us to enter what one psychologist calls a neural (神经的) virtual reality. A vivid example of such replay can be seen in a video researchers made recently about sleep disorders. They taught a series of dance moves to a group of patients with conditions like sleepwalking, in which the sleeper engages in the kind of physical movement that does not normally occur during sleep. They then videotaped the subjects as they slept. Lying in bed, eyes closed, one female patient on the tape performs the dance moves she learned earlier.

    This shows that while our bodies are at rest, our brains are drawing what’s important from the information and events we’ve recently encountered, then integrating that data into the vast store of what we already know. In a 2010 study, researchers at Harvard Medical School reported that college students who dreamed about a computer maze (迷宫) task they had learned showed a 10-fold improvement in their ability to find their way through the maze compared with participants who did not dream about the task.

    Robert Stickgold, one of the Harvard researchers, suggests that studying right before bedtime or taking a nap following a study session in the afternoon might increase the odds of dreaming about the material. Think about that as your head hits the pillow tonight.

解析：C。根据题目中的scientists’ finding和dreaming可定位到原文第二段第二句。该句提到，科学家们发现，梦到我们已经学过的内容，与在相关任务中表现得更好，这两者之间是有关系的。C项与此内容相符，其中的Dreaming about a learned task对应定位句中的dreaming about a task we’ve learned，betters its performance对应定位句中的improved performance in that activity，故C项为正确答案。

错项排除：原文第二段第一句中虽然提到，人们在睡梦中仍在继续学习这件事听起来像是科幻小说（science fiction），也提到了fragmented, often bizarre imaginings（零碎、时常稀奇古怪的想象），但这些都不是科学家们的研究发现，故排除A项和B项。D项利用原文中出现过的learned和sleep设置干扰，但原文只是说学习的过程其实是在睡梦中仍在继续，没有提及梦见自己正在学的内容是否会扰乱睡眠，且D项中的disturbs在原文中没有依据，故排除D项。