Dream of Watching Dreams
(Source: CBAM UCSD)
Everyday I wake up to my smart watch analyzing my sleep schedule. How long was I asleep? How much of that was REM sleep? How restless was I? Everything at the fingertips, ready for me to consume.
(Source: Google Images_sleep-tracker)
What if we could say the same for our dreams? What if there was a way for us to record our dreams and view them once we awake?
What if this isn’t a dream?
Dream Watching
We can already see major efforts in recreating dreams throughout the University of California campuses. UC Berkeley took on this task by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) software to showcase what exactly the brain visualizes while watching any media (Engadget).
First, the participants are shown random short videos. The scientists then observe the cerebral activity. When the computer collects enough data to predict what videos elicit brain activity, the scientists insert loads of random Youtube videos into the computer, which uses the new inputs to create a film representation of neural activity. Currently, this process only works with already viewed clips; the next step is to recreate people’s memories and dreams.
The implications of this work are endless and the most exciting are in terms of recreating dreams. With this ability to analyze brain activity and output recreated imagery, scientists may eventually be able to watch the dreams of everyday people.
Below is a video of the computer’s output along with the input videos.
(Source: Engadget)
Looking to the future
With the ability to recreate dreams many doctors could use that information to gain insight into mental disorders and other ailments. Those who frequently have sleep issues due to nightmares, often fall victim to weight gain, attention problems, and productivity loss. These symptoms could be helped if healthcare workers and mental health specialists had a better understanding of what occurred in the nightmares. Additionally, dream and sleep analysis allow researchers to “isolate conscious experiences from the confounding influence of the senses” (Source: Scientific American).
Dream science impacts don’t stop in public health. This type of brain understanding could create a different way for us to interact with our devices. What if artists could create in their heads and a device would create the physical representation for them?
More and more research teams are coming on board with the idea of Dream Science. UC San Diego, in fact, created the Center For Brain Activity Mapping (CBAM) to devote time and energy into understanding the brain and creating devices that could better interact with brain signals.
(Source: UC San Diego News)
More information about them can be found at the following link: CBAM UCSD
They even discuss how these devices could go beyond dream analysis and help people with vision and paralysis. In a future world where we can understand how to translate brain signals into code and back, we could potentially recreate the function of the optic nerve or the spinal cord. Dream science, and the better understanding of the brain we would achieve through it, opens up endless possibilities for extending what human beings can do.
Works Cited
(Source: Google Images_Smart Bedtime)
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