DreamThrower: An audio/visual display for influencing dreams

2021

Highlights d Dream reports given after people awaken are often fragmentary and distorted d Our methods allow for two-way communication with individuals during a lucid dream d For a proof-of-concept demonstration, we presented math problems and yes-no questions d Dreamers answered in real time with volitional eye movements or facial muscle signals

SSRN Electronic Journal

Highlights d Dream reports given after people awaken are often fragmentary and distorted d Our methods allow for two-way communication with individuals during a lucid dream d For a proof-of-concept demonstration, we presented math problems and yes-no questions d Dreamers answered in real time with volitional eye movements or facial muscle signals

Shared Dreaming Experiment, 2024

Presented at the International Association for the Study of Dreams 4th Many Worlds of Lucid Dreaming Conference, October 26 – November 7, 2024.

Consciousness and Cognition, 2020

Information processing during sleep is active, ongoing and accessible to engineering. Protocols such as targeted memory reactivation use sensory stimuli during sleep to reactivate memories and demonstrate subsequent, specific enhancement of their consolidation. These protocols rely on physiological, as opposed to phenomenological, evidence of their reactivation. While dream content can predict post-sleep memory enhancement, dreaming itself remains a black box. Here, we present a novel protocol using a wearable electronic device, Dormio, to automatically generate serial auditory dream incubations at sleep onset, wherein targeted information is repeatedly presented during the hypnagogic period, enabling direct incorporation of this information into dream content, a process we call targeted dream incubation (TDI). Along with validation data, we discuss how the Dormio device and TDI protocols can serve as tools for controlled experimentation on dream content, shedding light on the role of dreams in the overnight transformation of experiences into memories.

2015

Introducti o n : Studies have revealed significant impacts of different external stimuli during sleep on dream content and have reported various incorporation rates. The present study was performed to evaluate possible effect of auditory stimulation with sophisticated method. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, fifteen healthy male volunteers, who were tested for having normal auditory sensation, slept for two consecutive nights on sleep laboratory and monitored by polysomnography device. Subjects were not informed about content and time in which the sound was played. Traffic ambience sound (40‐60 decibel for 1 minute) played during second Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of experimental (second) night and self-written dream report has collected after second and fourth REM sleep of both nights. Dream reports were coded by two independent coders according the Hall and de castle coding rules. Results: Dreaming something related to traffic sound (according to coding rules) was reporte...

2013

The digital Dreamhacker is an application that collects dream themes reported by individual dreamers and turns them into crowdsourced imagery. These dream visualisations are then uploaded onto the Social Web, allowing for further commentary and collective interpretation. We thereby focus on the social context of dreams, creating visualisations that are neither depictions of individual imaginings or a means of enhancing artistic skill, but involve the reframing of dreams within the technical and social imaginary, which forms our collective understandings and expectations of social life. We outline a research strategy in which social media, supported by methods that emanate from both critical design and network analysis, are innovative contexts in which to explore the connection between technology, culture and our individual ‘imaginings’, including our dreams.

2024

Lucid dreams-when one is aware of dreaming while still asleep-are notoriously elusive but highly valued both for personal goals and basic sleep research. Lucid dreams can be produced by pairing sensory cues with cognitive training, followed by cue presentation during REM sleep. This method, Targeted Lucidity Reactivation (TLR), requires minimal personal effort, unlike many existing methods for promoting lucid dreaming. Theoretically, TLR might be effective either because cues produce a lucid mindset during sleep or because cues operate nonspecifically to increase arousal. Here we show that TLR can be translated from a laboratory procedure that requires an experimenter to monitor sleep stages to a procedure implemented with a smartphone application for individuals to use on their own. Results from two experiments provided insights into TLR procedures and how to improve them. In one experiment, we found that participants reported significantly more lucid dreams while using the TLR app compared to prior to app use. In a second experiment, we replicated this result and found that cues were most effective if paired with cognitive training before sleep, suggesting that success depends on reactivating a lucid mindset. TLR thus holds promise for broad scientific and personal purposes.

International Journal of Dream Research, 2014

A new waking influence has emerged that is becoming so widely experienced that it bears further consideration in its own right as to it's influence on subsequent night time dreams. That is, digital life. It ranges from listening to music to texting to checking facebook status to playing video games to information checking. All of these activities are computer mediated. In this inquiry, students at a western Canadian university indicated if they had played computer games or used the computer for non-gaming purposes during the day prior to a recent dream they reported. Respondents indicated their confidence about the type of dream they reported as well their video game play habits and generic media used the day prior to the dream. There was some indication that the high end non-gaming computer use group had more lucid (females only) and control dreams but less bizarre dreams. Unlike previous research there were no differences in nightmares or bad dreams among groups. This was discussed in terms of previous video game play and dreams research.

Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2019

Anthropology of …, 1996

Rather than regarding dreams as "things" or property, and grammatically treating them as nouns, the suggestion is to formulate a dream as an activity, label it "dreaming" and more specifically accept dreaming as interactional. For dreaming to be of importance, several psychological factors must be considered, including retention and selection, as well as external factors, such as to whom dreams are reported and their style of communication. Examples from anthropological writers on dreams are provided. It is noted that societal beliefs about dreams tend to influence the amount and types of dreams that are communicated.