Some interesting things have been uncovered by dream research, most of which seem to point to dreams being necessary for human development. Dreams occur in REM sleep, a state only achieved periodically during normal sleep. However, studies have revealed that animals, including humans, when deprived of REM sleep for a long enough time, will immediately enter that state upon falling asleep. A completely different study proposes that dreams are a vital way to test out responses to threats without the obvious risk of failure. They have found that video games also act as a risk-free environment to test out reactions to threats, and people who play video games report less threat scenarios in their dreams.
Dreams are being studied as I type, and technology is being used in new and exciting ways. We can almost see the future where a computer can help us record our dreams. The next step would be to somehow allow that computer to not only receive signals from dreams, but to send signals to the dreaming consciousness. Eventually a two way communication could be established, and after that it’s purely speculation.
Luckily, I enjoy speculation, especially when mixed with anecdotal evidence.
My own experiences with lucid dreaming have been few, but those few have been extraordinary. One thing I have noticed during my few lucid dreams has been the overwhelming urge to let myself forget that I am dreaming and return to the relaxed state of the passive dreamer. With a computer program reminding me I am dreaming at regular intervals, I could resist that urge and remain aware of my current state.
This may sound dull, but what if I want to get things done in my dreams? I have a lot of time in there, and although I do enjoy the relaxation of being passive to my dreams, I often wonder how much I could accomplish if I had the means. I have heard of a style of meditation that lies on the verge of consciousness, where apparently with dedication and concentration one can explore their own mind through a dream-like consciousness, although they cannot fall asleep while they are exploring or they will fall into nonsense and irrelevance. That’s not the way I want to explore dreams. I think the technology that can interact with a dreaming consciousness is the first step in creating a persistent dream world. If we can establish a two way communication with a dreamer, then we should be able to hook that communication up to other dreamers. Parallel to this, if we can pinpoint the origin of our dream worlds within our physical brains and develop a way of overriding that with a computer signal, then we can experience our dreams within a virtual digital environment.
The main advantage of dreaming in a virtual environment is the ability to create a persistent world. The dream world will remain the same until you return, and changes you make will be permanent. If this program took the form of a narrative it would be exactly like loading up the most recent save file of a video game every night. The technology would almost certainly be linked to the internet, allowing massively multiplayer experiences. Console and computer games would almost certainly be forgotten, and any type of virtual reality would pale in comparison to having the computer directly take control of your sensory functions.
And while I do dearly wish to create such a persistent virtual dream world, I would have to hope that entertainment is only the secondary goal of this technology. If we can keep a persistent dream world that can communicate with our waking world, we immediately give scientists, mathematicians and philosophers a huge extension of their productive life. Much like the invention of spectacles has added an extra ten to twenty years of productivity since the thirteenth century, this could enhance the productive output of our species by a huge factor.
Of course, this is purely speculation, but it’s not something unreachable within our lifetimes. Already images can be mapped from brainwaves, and neuroscience is constantly evolving. The range of problems this kind of persistent dream consciousness could cause is immense, and it’s only multiplied by the range of problems people already have with their single consciousness. If the dream self and the waking self are not the same, then we have a lot of interesting problems to look at, but that sounds like a completely different topic.
larsvonroots 