8 ms·

A new way to control experimentation with dreams

94 points by apsec112 6y ago

Ancient 6y ago
Basically "Inception" alpha version.
- martyvis 6y ago
  Yep, I'm halfway through watching Inception for the first time and I was thinking exactly this.
  - dfee 6y ago
    What are you doing?! Get off HN and finish it up. It’s a great movie (though I think they could’ve chosen better actors for a few of the roles). Enjoy it.
- totetsu 6y ago
  > a sleep-tracking device that can alter dreams by tracking hypnagogia and then delivering audio cues based on incoming physiological data, at precise times in the sleep cycle, to make dream direction possible. Inception via smart speaker.
  - trhway 6y ago
    >Inception via smart speaker. add small electrical impulses upon the muscles (electronic massager style) and you will feel running. Add temperature changing clothes/blankets - and you're running away from a polar bear... Especially if to add a smell of the bear.
e1ghtSpace 6y ago
Last night I had a dream that I woke up from and went to my computer to find a video file of that dream. I went to watch it but then I woke up for real. Kinda funny.
- scanny 6y ago
  Had something similar where I had a terrible nightmare about some humanoid thing and woke up as it grabbed me. I remember feeling a huge relief as I opened my eyes to see my bedroom and be in bed, only to tilt my chin and see the thing sitting on my chest, which then lept at my face. I woke up for real, almost falling out of bed shouting expletives. That's the only time I have had a dream (or sub-dream?) so lucid it felt no different to real life ( for that brief moment).
  - ajuc 6y ago
    I've had very similar experience - a dream that turned into horror (I was visiting family when I remembered my grandpa is dead and they all turned into zombies and started pursuing me) - then I "woke up", sit up in my bed (and my room mate seen me sit up with open eyes), I looked at him, and he turned into a zombie and attacked me, then I woke up for real, already siting. It was very scary. It might have something to do with the fact that we were studying before an exam late into night and I drank about 2 liters of pretty strong tea to keep studying (and fell asleep anyway eventually).
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    I've had multi-level deep false awakenings before, 3-4 levels or so. But a few weeks ago I actually had one that was maybe around 20 consecutive false awakenings, waking up something scary happening then waking up again repeated well into the double digits. Freaked me out a lot because normally when I'm having a nightmare I know how to force myself awake instantly but that wasn't working that time. Honestly started to wonder if I'd died towards the end of it and had to pull myself together a bit when I did wake up for real.
duopixel 6y ago
Here is the PDF of the thesis dissertation for the project: https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2020/06/09/Incubating+Dreams+Awakening+Creativity+Adam+Haar+Thesis+8.5.19-compressed.pdf https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2020/06/09/Incubating+Dream...
HamSession 6y ago
I've talked to some neuroscience friends and was interested to learn that lucid dreaming hasn't been studied much if at all in lab conditions. I welcome such research and hope more people get inspired to study deeper.
- zeleza 6y ago
  Not at all true, there's been a ton of study on lucid dreams. Check out a summary of the research by Jennifer Windt: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dreaming https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dreaming
galaxyLogic 6y ago
No doubt this can help do some "creative work" while sleeping, but does it also mean that you wake up tired?
throwaway189262 6y ago
I used to lucid dream a lot. Probably the most wonderful experiences of my life. I did everything you could think of. Flying, visit impossible places, superhero, wreck stuff, bang movie stars, deepest oceans, space. Sometimes you get into a wierd head space where everything is hyper real. Impossible colors, undescribable textures. I got good at keeping myself from waking up, and had lucid dreams that lasted seemingly hours. It seems I've lost the ability with age :( . They became less common in middle age and I haven't had one in years now. How I wish I could have that skill back
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  Same here. More than once a week when I was a kid, once a week as a teen, now it's about once every few months in my late 30s. I have correlated it to body temperature though - the more blankets I use and the hotter I am over night, the more dreams remembered, lucid dreams, and nightmares I get. Although they're fun, I value my sleep more, and so these days sleep with the thinnest donna with the windows open (even in winter).
- dorkwood 6y ago
  Me too! I was quite obsessed as a teenager. People don't believe me when I tell them that a lucid dream can be indistinguishable from reality. I think to most people, a dream is a fuzzy unrealistic thing. While reading Richard Feynman's biography, I was struck by one of his descriptions of lucid dreaming, which I found very relatable: "The next time I had a dream, there was a girl lying in tall grass, and she had red hair. I tried to see if I could see each hair. You know how there's a little area of color just where the sun is reflecting -- the diffraction effect, I could see that! I could see each hair as sharp as you want: perfect vision!"
  - bodhi_mind 6y ago
    Don’t you need to be able to distinguish it from reality in order to convince yourself it’s a dream? Otherwise, aren’t you just dreaming of lucid dreaming?
    - deleted 6y ago
duopixel 6y ago
Aside, but I find it fascinating that the inventor of Modafinil, Michel Jouvet[1], was also a dream researcher and even wrote a novel on dreams. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet
DoingIsLearning 6y ago
> sleep-tracking device that can alter dreams by tracking hypnagogia and then delivering audio cues based on incoming physiological data Neither the press release article nor the actual paper abstract seem to mention how is a hypnagogia phase detected? Anyone with access to the full paper can expand on this? For what is effectively the most important/novel part of this device it seems fairly handwavy on details.
- 0xdeadb00f 6y ago
  In the early 2010s I remember reading about a eye mask that detected when you were in REM sleep by the literal rapid movements of your eyeballs while you slept. When REM was sufficiently detected it would flash three red LEDs over your eyes. The idea being that in your dream you would see the three red LEDs faintly, and realise that you were in a dream. I'm not sure if this actually works or how accurate it was however.
  - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    But Rapid-Eye-Movement cycles happens at some point in between deeper sleep cycles. In this case they claim to detect hypnagogia which from the article is the early transition from wakefulness to sleep. In this stage you might have muscle relaxation or breathing pattern changes but probably not rapid eye movement.
    - 0xdeadb00f 6y ago
      I see
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  Thanks to duopixel! Found the answer in the thesis pdf. Jump to figure 19. They found a good enough relation between finger muscle relaxation (EMG electrodes) and EEG sleep signals. This is really cool because you bypass all the other issues/disconfort with other headband devices. I would be much more willing to have something on my fingers during sleep than strapped to my head. Edit:typo
gverrilla 6y ago
in ancient times, dreaming was rare, says the legend. when a king had a dream, it was seen as a great sign

94 points by apsec112 6y ago

Ancient 6y ago

Basically "Inception" alpha version.

martyvis 6y ago
Yep, I'm halfway through watching Inception for the first time and I was thinking exactly this.
- dfee 6y ago
  What are you doing?! Get off HN and finish it up. It’s a great movie (though I think they could’ve chosen better actors for a few of the roles). Enjoy it.
totetsu 6y ago
> a sleep-tracking device that can alter dreams by tracking hypnagogia and then delivering audio cues based on incoming physiological data, at precise times in the sleep cycle, to make dream direction possible. Inception via smart speaker.
- trhway 6y ago
  >Inception via smart speaker. add small electrical impulses upon the muscles (electronic massager style) and you will feel running. Add temperature changing clothes/blankets - and you're running away from a polar bear... Especially if to add a smell of the bear.

e1ghtSpace 6y ago

Last night I had a dream that I woke up from and went to my computer to find a video file of that dream. I went to watch it but then I woke up for real. Kinda funny.

scanny 6y ago
Had something similar where I had a terrible nightmare about some humanoid thing and woke up as it grabbed me. I remember feeling a huge relief as I opened my eyes to see my bedroom and be in bed, only to tilt my chin and see the thing sitting on my chest, which then lept at my face. I woke up for real, almost falling out of bed shouting expletives. That's the only time I have had a dream (or sub-dream?) so lucid it felt no different to real life ( for that brief moment).
- ajuc 6y ago
  I've had very similar experience - a dream that turned into horror (I was visiting family when I remembered my grandpa is dead and they all turned into zombies and started pursuing me) - then I "woke up", sit up in my bed (and my room mate seen me sit up with open eyes), I looked at him, and he turned into a zombie and attacked me, then I woke up for real, already siting. It was very scary. It might have something to do with the fact that we were studying before an exam late into night and I drank about 2 liters of pretty strong tea to keep studying (and fell asleep anyway eventually).
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  I've had multi-level deep false awakenings before, 3-4 levels or so. But a few weeks ago I actually had one that was maybe around 20 consecutive false awakenings, waking up something scary happening then waking up again repeated well into the double digits. Freaked me out a lot because normally when I'm having a nightmare I know how to force myself awake instantly but that wasn't working that time. Honestly started to wonder if I'd died towards the end of it and had to pull myself together a bit when I did wake up for real.

duopixel 6y ago

Here is the PDF of the thesis dissertation for the project: https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2020/06/09/Incubating+Dreams+Awakening+Creativity+Adam+Haar+Thesis+8.5.19-compressed.pdf https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2020/06/09/Incubating+Dream...

HamSession 6y ago

I've talked to some neuroscience friends and was interested to learn that lucid dreaming hasn't been studied much if at all in lab conditions. I welcome such research and hope more people get inspired to study deeper.

zeleza 6y ago
Not at all true, there's been a ton of study on lucid dreams. Check out a summary of the research by Jennifer Windt: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dreaming https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dreaming

galaxyLogic 6y ago

No doubt this can help do some "creative work" while sleeping, but does it also mean that you wake up tired?

throwaway189262 6y ago

I used to lucid dream a lot. Probably the most wonderful experiences of my life. I did everything you could think of. Flying, visit impossible places, superhero, wreck stuff, bang movie stars, deepest oceans, space. Sometimes you get into a wierd head space where everything is hyper real. Impossible colors, undescribable textures. I got good at keeping myself from waking up, and had lucid dreams that lasted seemingly hours. It seems I've lost the ability with age :( . They became less common in middle age and I haven't had one in years now. How I wish I could have that skill back

alfiedotwtf 6y ago
Same here. More than once a week when I was a kid, once a week as a teen, now it's about once every few months in my late 30s. I have correlated it to body temperature though - the more blankets I use and the hotter I am over night, the more dreams remembered, lucid dreams, and nightmares I get. Although they're fun, I value my sleep more, and so these days sleep with the thinnest donna with the windows open (even in winter).
dorkwood 6y ago
Me too! I was quite obsessed as a teenager. People don't believe me when I tell them that a lucid dream can be indistinguishable from reality. I think to most people, a dream is a fuzzy unrealistic thing. While reading Richard Feynman's biography, I was struck by one of his descriptions of lucid dreaming, which I found very relatable: "The next time I had a dream, there was a girl lying in tall grass, and she had red hair. I tried to see if I could see each hair. You know how there's a little area of color just where the sun is reflecting -- the diffraction effect, I could see that! I could see each hair as sharp as you want: perfect vision!"
- bodhi_mind 6y ago
  Don’t you need to be able to distinguish it from reality in order to convince yourself it’s a dream? Otherwise, aren’t you just dreaming of lucid dreaming?
  - deleted 6y ago

duopixel 6y ago

Aside, but I find it fascinating that the inventor of Modafinil, Michel Jouvet[1], was also a dream researcher and even wrote a novel on dreams. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet

DoingIsLearning 6y ago

> sleep-tracking device that can alter dreams by tracking hypnagogia and then delivering audio cues based on incoming physiological data Neither the press release article nor the actual paper abstract seem to mention how is a hypnagogia phase detected? Anyone with access to the full paper can expand on this? For what is effectively the most important/novel part of this device it seems fairly handwavy on details.

0xdeadb00f 6y ago
In the early 2010s I remember reading about a eye mask that detected when you were in REM sleep by the literal rapid movements of your eyeballs while you slept. When REM was sufficiently detected it would flash three red LEDs over your eyes. The idea being that in your dream you would see the three red LEDs faintly, and realise that you were in a dream. I'm not sure if this actually works or how accurate it was however.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  But Rapid-Eye-Movement cycles happens at some point in between deeper sleep cycles. In this case they claim to detect hypnagogia which from the article is the early transition from wakefulness to sleep. In this stage you might have muscle relaxation or breathing pattern changes but probably not rapid eye movement.
  - 0xdeadb00f 6y ago
    I see
DoingIsLearning 6y ago
Thanks to duopixel! Found the answer in the thesis pdf. Jump to figure 19. They found a good enough relation between finger muscle relaxation (EMG electrodes) and EEG sleep signals. This is really cool because you bypass all the other issues/disconfort with other headband devices. I would be much more willing to have something on my fingers during sleep than strapped to my head. Edit:typo

gverrilla 6y ago

in ancient times, dreaming was rare, says the legend. when a king had a dream, it was seen as a great sign