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Net Connected Dream Inducer 176

Posted by CmdrTaco from the remember-when-we-had-to-hunt-to-survive dept.
Chudmorph writes "Philips is developing some odd thing they call Nebula. In a nutshell, it's "an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed, sleeping and waking up." "The system consists of a ceiling projector linked via the Internet to a database of content. The content consists of just about anything ranging from an alarm clock, to clouds, and even poetry." This thing even responds to body movements! " Here's a review, but I gotta believe that this is a joke.
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Net Connected Dream Inducer More

Net Connected Dream Inducer

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  • Hey... If this is real, think how cool this could be. You could actually feel like your living out your dreams. This would replace the need for videogames!
  • This article was first published on newVALUEnews April 2001

    • Re:Joke? (Score:2, Informative)

      by aka-ed ( 459608 )

      No, not a joke. A later Philips Design press release indicates there was a public demo:

      Philips Design's visionary projects on show at the Künstlerhaus in Vienna from July 11 to September 9

      July 12th 2001 -- Following the success of the public presentation of Smart Connections (Milan, Magna Pars, April 4-6), the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna has decided to include some of the Philips Design visionary concepts in its prestigious exhibition 'Global Tools', which opened its doors on July 11.

      NEBULA: consisting of a ceiling projector linked via the Internet to a database of content, Nebula is an interactive projection system, designed to enrich the personal experiences around the ritual of going to bed, sleeping and waking up. It aims at creating an atmosphere that encourages and enhances rest, reflection, conversation, intimacy, imagination and play. The user can select the content (images and sounds) to be projected on to the ceiling by placing a pebble in the bed side pocket. The way the projected images change depends on the random movements that the people in the bed will make. A pebble 'clouds' will allow relaxation, a pebble 'games' will allow the users to play a game (accessible only by two people together) by using the duvet as a joystick. The system is also connected to an alarm clock, which projects two dots onto opposite sides of the ceiling. During the night, the distance between the dots diminishes, making it possible to gauge the remaining sleeping time from the distance left between the two. When the dots collide, sound and images are combined to create the waking experience. Users can also create a note or a sketch on a piece of paper and place it underneath the alarm clock. When it goes off, a snapshot of the note is projected.

  • Do you just have to wave a hand in its general direction to change the channel?
  • Now... tell me your password.
  • give one of these to a geek and they'll have to change their sticky sheets every night :P
  • Cripes, can you imagine if someone hacked into the database and inserted subliminals? they could have you buying things you'd never heard of, killing people, etc.
    • funny, but completely irrelevant. subliminal messages and hypnotism cannot make anyone do something they wouldn't otherwise do. anything that claims the contrary is a parlor trick.


    • You can suggest something
      but you cannot "Make" people do something they wouldnt normally do to begin with.

      Someone who can be suggested into killing someone, was capable of it in the first place or else it wouldnt work.
      • I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of us out there capable of killing, but choose not to. Perhaps all we need is a whisper in the dark?

      • Maybe you can't make people do stuff by changing their dreams, but you can certainly influence important decisions. For example [washingtonpost.com]:

        "Recent reports suggested that Mullah Omar, facing almost certain defeat, had agreed to surrender Kandahar. But yesterday Ahmad Karzai, whose brother Hamid has been negotiating with the Taliban for the surrender of the city, said Mullah Omar had changed his mind because he had had a prophetic dream in which he remained in power. 'I have had a dream in which I am in charge for as long as I live,' Mr Karzai quoted Mullah Omar as saying."

        I sense some serious black-helicopter possibilities here...

        • I have had a dream in which I am in charge for as long as I live.

          That may very well be true. Especially considering that he's not much longer to live. After all, the man is facing the combined wrath of both his brother Afghans and the most powerful nation on earth...

    • see I had an idea like this machine many many months back, but I figured the same thing... how in the world do you secure it for people's safety!!

  • They're called mirrors.

  • So, it's pr0n? (Score:5, Funny)

    by john@iastate.edu ( 113202 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @01:39PM (#2610576) Homepage
    The system Nebula consists of a ceiling projector linked via the Internet to a database of content. Once users have selected the content for projection, they can manipulate it simply by adjusting their sleeping positions and interacting with their partner while in bed.

    Interact, indeed!

    • no, it just senses people having sex and then puts on some porn music.
    • Be careful. I tried using one of these for porn, and when I woke up, my bed was filled with blinking pop-up ads. It took me half an hour to close them all, and as a result, I was late to my 8AM class. When I got back from class, the bed had started to fill up again, because I had missed a small one that had somehow managed to get inside my pillowcase.

      I tried installing Mozilla so I could disable pop-up ads, but it didn't have enough RAM to run Mozilla. So I returned the Nebula and went back to using Mozilla on my computer (with the Pornzilla [netscape.com] modifications, of course).

  • I dunno... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by interiot ( 50685 )
    Most of my life is already commercialized, I don't know if I want to concede my bedtime too... (you just know they're going to pull an OnStar)

  • dream state (Score:2, Funny)

    by liquide ( 96613 )
    I can't say that I think projecting anything on the wall would impress me during a dream. I'd much rather have my movements analyzed so I can figure out why I wake up in the morning wearing pants when I go to sleep in just my boxers...
    • ...why I wake up in the morning wearing pants when I go to sleep in just my boxers...

      Romantically speaking, I think it's probably not a good sign if your date is putting clothes on you.

  • porn (Score:1)

    by Casca ( 4032 )
    Holy porn batman! Can you imagine what will happen when the adult entertainment industry gets its mits on one of these?

    It does sound pretty cool actually. I could see waking up with the weather, my days schedule, slashdot headlines, and maybe the latest pics of Natalie Portman on my ceiling.
    • Forget the porn industry, can you imagine what will happen when the ADVERTISING establishment gets a hold of this? F that! I spend enough time fighting off targeted advertisements when I'm AWAKE...no way in hell am I going to do it while I'm sleeping, too.
  • This thing is just begging to be made fun of with respect to sexual activities. Therefore I will refrain.

    an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed,

    -slap-

    This thing even responds to body movements!

    -SLAP-

    Uh, now refraining...
  • Does that mean that if I move during my sleep, than I'm considered a "zapper"?

    Great! Now I can not only not watch any of the channels on cable, I can also not dream of anything for more thatn two seconds!

    And I thought I could sleep my problems off...

  • April! (Score:2, Funny)

    by ZarfMouse ( 154055 )
    Two people have pointed this out and still no one seems to get it. April. This article was published in April. "Maybe its a joke."

  • Hypnagogic dreaming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Sunday November 25, 2001 @01:50PM (#2610606) Homepage
    It has been known for some time that the earliest stages of dreaming can be strongly influenced by sensory input just before going to sleep. Whereas you cannot predict exactly what will be in the dream, it is fairly certain some of it will relate to what was happening just before you fall asleep. This is not as true of dreams later in the evening.

    There is a nice trio of reviews of theories of sleep and dreaming in the latest issue of Science.


    • Its easy for anyone to learn to control their dreams and dream about whatever they want really. I dream about what I want usually, when i dont, thats when its a nightmare.

      The reason most people cant dream about what they want is because they dont know they are dreaming.

      This thing wont be any good unless people believe its part of the dream, perhaps if it were in goggles it would work but if its on the wall i dont really know.

      I need some tests.

      I do think dreams can be influenced somewhat by the enviornment you sleep in but what i really want to see is a brain to computer interface, which can sense what a person is dreaming and based on this, send various images to the goggles to try to control it.
  • What would happen if you somehow got stuck in a pr0n javascript loop? Would you doze off or would you just sorta give a 3 finger salute with your hands?
  • From the text :
    [...]
    Content is selected by placing a smart 'pebble' into the bedside pocket. Each pebble corresponds to a different topic or theme. For example, a 'cloud' pebble produces content related to clouds
    [...]
    Pebbles can also contain games, such as ping-pong, which will only be revealed when a particular combination of sleeping positions has been assumed. Once the positions have been discovered and the game is revealed, the couple can activate the game at any time
    [...]

    Need I say more about other games than ping pong ? Your personal kamasuta director is now alive !
  • I'll make a sequence that includes smbliminal images designed to induce everyone to use vi and shun emacs. ;-)

  • I know I'm an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lavaforge ( 245529 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @01:57PM (#2610625)
    But how does this work if my eyes are closed?
    • Way to count the sheep without closing your eyes!

      You can control the size cand speed of sheep with movements of one hand, set the height of fence with other.. endless fun for insomniacs :)
    • you can sleep with your eyes open

      most people don't, but you can
    • you can see through your eyelids. For example, do this: Turn off all the lights so it's pitch black, and close your eyes. Wait a while so you get adjusted to it, and then turn the lights on. You'll realize that the lights are on by seeing the blackness brighten a little. Sure, you can't consciously see around you, but subconsciously you can; and that's the part that affects your dreams.

      I also wouldn't be surprised if, while in REM, you (unknowingly) opened your eyes to be able to clearly see the picture. (still subconsciously, because now you're asleep.)
      • I also wouldn't be surprised if, while in REM, you (unknowingly) opened your eyes to be able to clearly see the picture. (still subconsciously, because now you're asleep.)

        I'm pretty convinced I already do this. I've had lots of occasions where I had something really important to get up for, the kind of thing where you set 2 alarms just in case, and I've woken up about 5 minutes before either of them went off.

        I figure I either open my eyes subconciously and check in the middle of the night, or I have a remarkable internal clock :) If it's the latter, I wish I could make use of it when I was awake, I'd never need a watch again!

  • Dreaming is possible even in artificially intelligent robots and cyborgs. The system described in the SourceForge article may permit individual humans to have separate, individual dreams, but multiple AI Minds [sourceforge.net] might easily merge their mutual memory spaces and experience shared interactive dreams.

    One mode of existence for Artificial Minds is To live in the waking state only for the sake of the dream state [sourceforge.net].

    These artificial minds capable of dreaming are not merely a pipe dream, but are already underway in such projects as Mind.VB (3.Apr.2000) [virtualentity.com] and, more recently, Mind.JAVA (June 2001) [angelfire.com].

  • Just in.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sanglant ( 538731 )
    Thankfully several well known companies have
    stepped to the plate and will be offering anti-virus
    software for the device. Despite early reports there
    is no evidence to support any correlation between
    usage of the device and spontaneous proclamations
    of "A compliant citizen is a happy citizen! Privacy
    is for Bad People!"

    -Franklin Beach Investigator, Nov. 25, 2001

  • Dream Hackers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @02:01PM (#2610636) Journal
    Some research has indicated that the brain is somewhat sensitive to magnetic fileds, and that certain unusual magnetic fields can cause wierd dreams.

    So if you had something that induced odd magnetic patterns, like a sleeping pad under the sheets, you could get weird effects.

    Taking it to the next step and hooking it up to internet control would perhaps not be wise.

    I keep imagining the end results of Dream Hackers reprogramming your dreams for their pleasure.

    Someting that would only happen in a science fiction story, of course.

    • > I keep imagining the end results of Dream Hackers reprogramming your dreams for their pleasure.

      John Brunner, please call your office... ever read the short story "Speech is Silver"?
    • I keep imagining the end results of Dream Hackers reprogramming your dreams for their pleasure.

      Someting that would only happen in a science fiction story, of course.

      Isn't the whole world of ours, a science fiction story written by someone 'outside'? That makes it all plausible...

    • Forget about "dream hackers"... Be worried about whether or not that squirrel soul is still floating around the 'net... Talk about a nasty case of posession.
  • Soon we will get commercials pumped into our dreams
  • Now I can use my bed as an input device. I suppose someone could write a BedOS, but it would have to use a different metaphor than desktop/windows.

  • Popular In Japan (Score:2, Interesting)

    by r.suzuka ( 538257 )
    Hello. These devices, or similar devices, are actually quite popular in Japan. It is a headset that one will wear while one is preparing to go to sleep. The device actually monitors the on set of Rapid Eye Movement sleep and when such sleep is detected, a bright red light is shined into the wearers eyes.

    The idea is that when the wearer detects this red light he will be able to recognize it as a cue that he is dreaming. Henceforth he is able to imagine whatever he would like in the dreams. There is a brief English phrase for such a state of dreaming, but I cannot recall it at the present.

    I will be happy to find more information on these devices if it would be interesting to anyone else. Thank you.

    R. Suzuka
    • It`s called "lucid dreaming" - the state, when you`re aware, it`s only dream.

      LUCIDITY INSTITUTE [lucidity.com]

    • Re:Popular In Japan (Score:2, Informative)

      by nido ( 102070 )
      The device you speak of is called 'NovaDreamer' (or 'Super NovaDreamer' for the version w/ the computer interface), and it's availible from the Lucidity Institute here [lucidity.com]. I have one, it's kinda neat, but hasn't worked for me quite yet.

    • the phrase (Score:5, Informative)

      by unformed ( 225214 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @03:22PM (#2610840)
      lucid dreaming.

      The trick is to realize you're dreaming without waking yourself up. It's a bit difficult in the beginning because you usually realize you're dreaming when something happens that can't happen in real life. The shock makes you wake up. If you can control the shock and stay asleep after realizing you're dreaming, you have full control over what's going on in the dream. I've successfully done it once (maybe more) and it is truly a cool experience.
  • Studies have shown that light patterns can affect your sleep... So, if I go to sleep in class, I'll have a different "experience" than if I go to sleep in my bed. Right...

    Now, I don't know about you, but I see no difference when I sleep in total darkness or with laser lights all around me (I've tried this before), so how the heck will this affect my lifestyle other than me having bad dreams of the damn system crashing. Who knows?

    This sounds really interesting, and I'd like to see how this thing actually works. But alas! Something like this was already invented! It's name- marijuana. It sounds like you make someone trippy in their sleep w/o narcotics w/ this machine. Just an observation

  • What if it... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rockwood ( 141675 )
    Everyone knows that a subliminal state of mind is very powerful and has been thoeretically tested and proven based on case study. A major concern of something I am unaware of is: How immediate are the effects of subliminal suggestions?

    IE: What would happen if the 'net connection were to dropped during a suggestive state.. would we become vegatables?
    What if the screen skipped.. would we wake up with a stutter? Or what if the content was hacked and tomorrow we all woke up and found ourselves transferring our money to some off-shore account and killing or neighbors?

    I know this sounds far fetched... But in reality, if the content was hacked and a idea or suggestion was implanted into the imagery.. how long (if ever) would it take to be discovered? And when it was.. would it be to late? Who would be responsible?

    Hell, maybe the message can reprogram your mind to never see the message in the first place.

    All your bases belong to us!

  • Camera? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @02:22PM (#2610690)
    Presumably if this thing can sense your movements, it's got a camera of some kind. Do you really want a net-connected camera pointing at your bed?
  • Forgive me for not reading through every post if I missed this, but here's a picture of it...I've gotta get me one of these! http://www.news.philips.com/mondial/archive/2001/m ay/artikel4_2.html
  • It would be much cooler to take other peoples' brain activity when dreaming, amplify it, and reproduce it in other people by affixing electrodes to their skulls.

    Sure, you wouldn't have the same dreams, but you'd be damn sure having a sex dream if you ordered a sex dream pattern, or a nightmare if you ordered a nightmare pattern. That'd be pretty nifty, and it seems pretty plausible given modern technology.

    Now, if they could tap into our visual centres a bit easier, we'd be able to get product placement, or even our favorite shows in our sleep. Television takes up four hours from our day, so putting TV into the 8 hours when we're drooling vegetables already might be a better alternative, for advertisers and TV stations alike.

    In fact, when we're asleep odds are we won't be flipping channels, and ratings will be much easier to grab.
  • What ever happened to the idea that sleep was for rest. Really, what is wrong with a nice dark quiet room and comfortable pillows. I think that we have this desire to improve upon everything with connectivity and content. You have to remember that in the good _very_ old days, sleeping on a straw mattress thrown over a netting of rope was an improvement over the cold damp ground. Now we sell "sleep systems". Don't get me wrong, I _CAN_ see the value of a little bedroom entertainment to spice up the relations, but when I'm done, I want to shut it off and sleep in quiet, dark silence.

  • Joke? (Score:2)

    by fm6 ( 162816 )
    I gotta believe that this is a joke.
    You've obviously never seen any of those weird, incomprehensible Philips commercials!
  • A picture can be found here [philips.com]. Pass the bong...

  • where they projected the advertisments into people's dreams? Mabye tin foil hat crazies aren't so crazy afterall =)

  • "an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed,..."

    Now maybe I'm just old fashion, but the way I see it, we already have something that enriches the experience of going to bed. They're called girls! Going to bed is much nicer when you've got a soft skinned hard body to curl up next to..

  • ...I can't wait to see what happens when someone cracks it! Hundreds of people calling Philips...
  • Sounds like Total Recall to me.
  • That would make for one good game of quake...
  • Mmm.... federally monitored bedroom... Wonder if McAfee is in on this yet.
  • Hopefully they will also sell advertising so that I may be better informed of the products and services available to me.

  • SETI@dream (Score:2, Funny)

    by Codeala ( 235477 )

    Instead turn it into a disturbed number crunching project by hooking up all those "unused" brain power while you sleep. Imagine running SETI@home code in your dream... now you can never be sure whether you were abducted by aliens or just received their signal in your brain ;-)
  • You can see what this thing looks like and get some more details here on Philip' site. [philips.com]
  • In general, the ceiling projection becomes livelier as the participants become more active.

    Mmmmmm.... Kinky.

  • I was a beta tester for this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @04:11PM (#2610990) Homepage
    First of all, this is a safe and recreational device. It has enhanced my calm though one side effect is that I crave Taco Bell a bit more than I did prior to the testing. I can't conclusively say that the craving and the testing are related but they did occur around the same time.

    I was skeptical of this thing at first but once I relaxed and began to accept what was given to me, I found that I had a greater level of peace and serenity both in sleep and while awake. Clearly this level of mental and emotional peace has aided in my understanding various aspects of life that I simply couldn't see before.

    1. Bill Gates is NOT the devil. HE is an innovator in the truest sense of the word. Sure he "borrows" ideas from other sources, but don't we all? Isn't the doorknob a variation on the wheel? I see nothing wrong with enhancing the existing world by extending it. But since the extension cannot live or exist without the root portion of the technology, it's only fair that Microsoft should own whatever they extend, even if it was free to begin with. You're just angry because you didn't think of it first.

    2. Politics are no longer confusing for me. The motivations of the government favoring larger corporations makes compelte sense to me now. First of all, it's in the interest of the people that the government hand over control to distributed corporate interests. Think of it! Now instead of electing our government, we can buy stock in it! What could be more democratic or capitalistic than that?

    3. Of course the automotive and energy industries have been sitting on technologies that could reduce our use of fossil fuels!! But is it a bad thing? I think not! Those fossil fuels are a poison to our planet and need to be burned up as quickly and as often as possible. Once we clear those contaminants out of the way, we can move on to a cleaner, more pure world! So instead of crying about the cost of fuel, use it all up so we can move on to better sources. By the time we're done with all those fossil fuels, our corporate leaders will have found a way to measure out our use of hydro, thermal, solar and hydrogen based energy usage so that it is fair and equitable for everyone. The fact that they occur naturally is no reason to cheapen them with low value assessments [low prices]. And again, what's good for our corporate leaders is definitely good for us in the end.

    I encourage everyone to get involved with this enlightening new technology. It's amazing how a good night's sleep can enlighten your day.
  • ok the picture of the ceiling of the clouds and stuff this is a high quality projector so why not get it and hook up a svga output and make a cave like system their was an article a few weeks ago about that IATFLTLIU (I Am To Friggin Lazy To Look It Up) but if this gets down in price it could be a cheep why to use that big wall w/ nothing on it as a 8' screen

  • A picture of the product (Score:4, Informative)

    by SpookComix ( 113948 ) <spookcomixNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday November 25, 2001 @04:16PM (#2611008) Homepage Journal
    This appears to be a picture [philips.com] of the product in question. It's like something you'd see on a brochure.

    --SC

  • Oh wow... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by erroneus ( 253617 )
    ...imagine being part of a Beowulf cluster of these!

  • nyeh (Score:2)

    by zephc ( 225327 )
    wouldnt work for me, seeing as how i sleep on my stomach all night long. I prefer using music or the TV to alter my dreams, not necessarily making them controllable - or lucid - but just to insert fun/weird stuff into them =]

  • Save your $500 and buy Nicoderm patches. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @04:35PM (#2611061) Homepage


    Why waste your money on elaborate internet-connected electronics? There are plenty of things you can do to "enhance" your dream state.

    1) Nicoderm Transdermal Patches. If worn during sleep, they have the tendency to cause very interesting and detailed dreams/nightmares. The only downside here is that you cant determine in advance which will happen. You could have an awesome dream, or, you could have a titanically bad nightmare. More interestingly, the number of patches you wear at night correlates directly with the vividness of the dream you have.

    2) Self-Hypnosis. $4.95 and a self-help book from Borders will give you everything you need to know to make yourself a porn star during sleep. The content of your dreams is largely determined by what you think about just before you go to sleep. Entering a state of deep relaxation while concentrating on gonzo Roman orgies will do the trick most of the time.

    3) Drugs. More adventurous and stupid people take drugs before going to sleep to produce interesting dreams. Drugs are bad, mmkay?
    3) The monitor trick. Sleep with the back-end of a couple large computer monitors or TV's near your head. Turn the volume off, point the display away from you, and run a screenblanker on each display. The EMF produced by the monitors may be significant enough to affect brainwave patterns. Good for wacky dreams.

    Cheers,
    • Hmm.

      So taking drugs is a bad idea, and puts you in the stupid category. But irradiating your head with high doses of EMR is a good idea?

      (Btw, nicotine... also a drug.)
    • In line with suggestion #3, folks may wish to try out a dream pillow. These consist of a number of a soporific (i.e. sleep-inducing) herbs. The recipe I have is 2 oz. dried whole hops, 2 oz. dried chamomile flowers, 2 oz. crushed dried rosebuds (rosehips?), 1 oz. dried mugwort, 1 oz. dried lemongrass and 1/2 oz. benzoin as a preservative. Mix everything together in a double-bag of cheesecloth, then cover with something appropriately pillowish.

      I'm told that many folks stop using these, so vivid are the dreams thereby created. I've not gotten together the ingredients to try it out yet, so cannot offer my own experiences.

      An idea I've had is to brew up a batch of mead with the herbs as flavouring. It could then be distilled and another batch of herbs steeped in it to make a tincture. This tincture could then be used to fortify a second batch of the mead. One could then drink several glasses of the mead and go to sleep with the pillow at one's head. I can only imagine the dreams which might be produced thereby.

      The recipe is from The Home Brewer's Companion, by Charlie Papazian. Excellent book.

    • Why waste your money on elaborate internet-connected electronics? There are plenty of things you can do to "enhance" your dream state.

      1) Nicoderm Transdermal Patches. If worn during sleep, they have the tendency to cause very interesting and detailed dreams/nightmares. The only downside here is that you cant determine in advance which will happen. You could have an awesome dream, or, you could have a titanically bad nightmare. More interestingly, the number of patches you wear at night correlates directly with the vividness of the dream you have.

      skip...

      3) Drugs. More adventurous and stupid people take drugs before going to sleep to produce interesting dreams. Drugs are bad, mmkay?

      Mmkay.

  • I imagine it would be fun to have one of these in your guest bedroom. It would be a great way to make people go home early.

    If my Mother-in-law were staying over, I might pipe "Pearl Necklace" into her room at two or three in the morning. Or maybe a German scat video. Or a video feed from the next room. Oh, the posibilities....

  • It reminds me of that time on "The Jetsons" where Jane punched up a Rocket Ranger dream or somesuch for Elroy. Elroy had a special bed with programmable dreams in it. :)

    The future is here, folks.
  • Remember Clockwork Orange? Can you imagine what could happen if someone inserted nice little messages like the ones in the movie into your "dream machine".

  • Yay!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jessh ( 144140 )
    Now they can insert advertisements into our dreams.
  • I am happy to be an Epsilon. Epsilons work for others. Alphas are so smart, but they work so hard. I'm glad I'm not an Alpha...

    Incidentally, I always considered BNW far, far scarier than 1984. Huxley's dystopia was more frightening and more bleak than was Orwell's. More realistic, too--I can see it happening. Rule them with pleasure, and they will not revolt.

  • Something that can tell when you're asleep would be marginally useful, for controlling lights, sound, video, and such. But "home control" has been a market fiasco so far; X10, Echelon [echelon.com], and Jini never took off. There's probably room for self-contained products in this space, but not total integration.

  • Hmm... (Score:2)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 )
    I am not even sure what this device does, but from the description, it sounds like it would be an annoyance device, more than anything.

    Already, I fall asleep (or attempt to) to the TV going, because my SO needs it on to fall asleep to. At first, slight noises on the TV (even when the volume was turned waaay down) would cause me to wake up - but since that time I have gotten used to it. Still, it isn't the best thing, but I tolerate it (earplugs and one of those eye pillow things help).

    Anyhow, what would be better than this, if you wanted to "mess" with your dreams, would be something I have thought about playing with, but right now it is a back burner project.

    How about messing with the REM stage? We have all seen those alpha brainwave machines (there are tons of plans on the internet as well - some even on my site) - what if you made a similar system, with the lights and sounds (using headphones, etc) to be triggered during REM sleep (using some kind of sensors on the eyelids to sense the REM stage) - see what can happen.

    I have also wondered about using one of those devices (or just headphones) to have a computer monitor REM sleep, then speak a keyword (or story) to trigger lucid dreaming (now there is fun dreaming). Perhaps even give cues to control the lucid dream. If there could be feedback to the computer from the dreamer - dream games might be a possibility (maybe via brainwave monitoring, or other monitoring systems?)...

    The possibilities for such a system - wow...

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