State-dependent memory or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon where people remember more information if their physical or mental state is the same at time of encoding and time of recall. State-dependent memory is heavily researched in regards to its employment both in regards to synthetic states of consciousness (such as under the effects of psychoactive drugs) as well as organic states of consciousness such as mood. While state-dependent memory may seem rather similar to context-dependent memory, context-dependent memory involves an individual's external environment and conditions (such as the room used for study and to take the test) while state-dependent memory applies to the individual's internal conditions (such as use of substances or mood). History of research In 1784, a French aristocrat named Marquis de Puységur, realized that when people were put in a hypnotic state then awoken, they had no recollection of what they were told. However, when they were put back under hypnosis, in the state they would be able to recall everything from the last time. In 1910, a man named Morton Prince came to a realization about dreams. He hypothesized that the reason we have a hard time remembering our dreams when we wake up is not due to the fact that we are unable to, but because dreams are not like the real world. In 1937, at the University of Illinois, Edward Girden and Elmer Culler conducted an experiment on conditioned responses in dogs under the influence of the drug curare. In the experiment, dogs were taught a conditioned muscular response – to draw their paw away from the ground when they heard a buzzer. The buzzer was often accompanied by a small electric shock, which motivated the response. For dogs that had been under the influence of curare when they first learned the response, after the curare was no longer in their system, they were less likely to remember to draw their paw away on hearing the buzzer. Once they were given curare again, the response returned. This result indicated that the dogs' ability to recall the responses was connected to their state of consciousness. Girden and Culler's research opened the door for further investigation of the influences of state of consciousness on an organism's ability to encode memory. Following this discovery, other researchers looked into the effect of different states of being on the ability to learn and remember responses or information. In 1964,