Lucid dreaming - customizable head cinema for everyone?
[12:18 Sun,12.November 2023 by Rudi Schmidts]
Lucid dreaming is a highly tempting concept that Mother Nature has created in our human functional pool. For those who don't know what it's all about, here's a quick comparison with Wikipedia:
Lucid dreams, also known as lucid dreams "are those dreams in which you have complete lucidity that you are dreaming and can act on your own decision." According to the theory, you can take control of a lucid dream yourself and then "consciously" control your experiences. For example, you could experience adventures of your own invention.
In the broadest sense, the classic film Inception, among others, already touched on the subject and there is also little scientific doubt about the fundamental possibility of lucid dreaming. Many people claim to have experienced such a lucid dream at least once. However, one major problem with lucid dreams remains unresolved: Namely, that the majority of people do not want to succeed in specifically entering a lucid dream.
Although there are a lot of books and YouTube videos that want to teach techniques on how to consciously intervene in your own dreams, not many people seem to have actual success with this advice.
But as we are currently in the age of emerging AI, it should soon have a solution to this problem too. It's curtains up for the start-up "Prophetic", which wants to provide a portal to your own lucid dream with its Halo headband.
This headband uses ultrasound and AI to "recognize" when dreamers are in the REM phase in order to trigger and "stabilize" lucid dreams. The first prototypes of the Halo headband should already be able to read out EEG data from users. This data will then be used for AI training in 2024. The data should then be used to trigger targeted neuronal activity in users using relatively harmless ultrasound transducers, which in turn should induce lucid dreams.
Prophetic also wants to try to manipulate dreams in other ways, for example by specifically reducing negative emotions through ultrasound activation.
The Halo headband is expected to be available from 2025 - it can already be pre-ordered today for a deposit of 100 dollars. However, a final price has not yet been set. However, the website suggests that you will only be able to trigger lucid dreams with a subscription. In any case, the first 1,000 pre-orders already secure an annual subscription with their payment.
If it really is possible to trigger lucid dreams, this could, at best, be much more attractive than any VR/AR glasses, no matter how technically advanced. However, there are still many unanswered scientific questions behind Prophetic's business model. We are therefore very excited to see whether and how the story continues here, but are keeping our hopes rather low. But we can still dream a little...
;)