There’s nothing like drifting off to sleep and having a night full of dreams.
Usually they’re pleasant nonsense, but sometimes they can get scary and unsettling.
Ultimately, though, they’re just dreams and have no bearing on our waking lives...right?
Not exactly.
Experts have discovered that our dreams can say a lot about what’s on our mind, and
that they might be essential to the process of getting a good night’s sleep.
Without dreaming, our minds don’t clear out the clutter in our memory and can’t
be properly refreshed to take on a new day’s worth of information.
So it’s no surprise that scientists have spent a lot of time trying to understand,
study, and even influence the process of dreaming.
Wait, influencing dreams?
That’s not possible, is it?
Not in the way Hollywood might want you to think - there are no undead sleep demons looking
to turn your dreams into a haunted house, or crack teams of thieves trying to break
into your subconscious to steal your ideas.
But what might soon be possible is to use technology to hack dreams and make it easier
to enter the dream state and get the closure your mind needs from dreams - even if you
can’t seem to get there naturally.
And that dream salvation may come in the form of a glove.
The device is called Dormio, and it looks a little like the notorious failed Nintendo
gaming device Power Glove.
This isn’t designed to help your favorite plumber jump on some turtles, though - it’s
designed to manipulate the dreaming process, record data, and even insert specific themes
into your subconscious.
While still in its early stages, this revolutionary idea started at one of the most famous scientific
hubs in the world - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, at the Media Lab.
This unconventional division doesn’t have a specific area of study, but fuses elements
from technology, science, media, art, and design.
They’ve tackled projects including neurobiology, bionics, and artificial intelligence.
And now, dreams.
The world first became aware of Dormio when the Lab published a paper titled “Dormio:
A Targeted Dream Incubation Device”.
The Media Lab doesn’t always announce its research projects to the public, so this bit
of mad science took the world by surprise.
But head researcher Adam Haar Horowitz and Fluid Interfaces head Professor Pattie Maes
had been working extensively on their prototype, and the project was presented in a surprisingly
advanced form.
And the key may have been in our brains all along.
The people behind Dormio aren’t the first to gain some level of control over dreams.
Some people can enter a dream state called lucid dreaming, where they are aware that
they’re dreaming and can even influence the events of their dreams - going on personally
shaped adventures and sometimes encountering terrifying sights.
Dormio uses a similar process called Targeted Dream Incubation that starts while the person
is still awake and continues through an early sleep stage called hypnagogia.
While those using Dormio don’t control their dreams, they are able to influence the direction
they’ll take before they start.
It all starts in a moment we’re all familiar with.
Do you remember trying to fall asleep and getting an odd sensation, like you’re just
about to drift off?
And then the dog barks, and it’s back to square one.
Those moments are hypnagogia, the transitional moment between wakefulness and sleep.
This can be a weird period, as people have reported hallucinations, lucid thoughts and
dreams, and even sleep paralysis.
While not everyone experiences these things during the transition, the Dormio team believes
that the mind is especially susceptible to influence during this period - and this might
be the key to hacking your dreams.
The problem is, it can only last seconds and is hard to track.
So they built a device to track it.
Dormio might look like a glove, but it’s much more than that.
It’s a high-tech sensor that tracks multiple metrics in the body like heart rate, electricity
level on the skin, and the position of the fingers to sense when the brain is entering
hypnagogia.
That’s the golden moment for the second part of the Dormio program to enter the fray
- an app that is programmed to go off at the exact moment hypnagogia starts, and deliver
specific audio input that is supposed to influence the dreams of the subject.
The subject wakes up, and this cycle is repeated several times.
Later after the subject is allowed to sleep, they report the dreams they have, which are
reported in the app.
So does it work?
Early indications are that it has a significant impact.
For a test case where a tree was mentioned in the audio stimulus, two-thirds of the subjects
reported that they had some element of a tree in the dreams that followed.
Sometimes it was a weird side turn, like a car shaped like a tree or an old man sitting
under a tree, but it seems like Dormio’s process is the first proven scientific innovation
that can actually influence our dreams.
But a question on everyone’s mind is - is it safe?
Our brains are tricky things, and many are concerned about what hacking the dream process
could do.
After all, jailbreaking your iPhone so you can install different apps on it will void
the warranty - could this be getting close to jailbreaking the brain?
While there haven’t been any adverse effects reported long-term in using Dormio, subjects
did report that as the dream-hacking process was repeated on them with the same prompt,
their dreams became more intense, more immersive, and more surreal with every passing cycle.
This could just be the mind processing the increased stimuli - but as everyone who’s
woken up from a particularly intense nightmare and felt sweat pouring off them knows, intense
and surreal dreams can stick with you for a long time.
How does the mind and its dreams have such an influence on the body?
It’s all about three letters - REM.
REM, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep, is the stage when we do most of our dreaming.
It’s the final stage of sleep after hypnagogia, light sleep, and deep sleep.
This is when we’re deepest in the dream world, and virtually all intense dreams will
take place during this period.
Any influence of the dreams we have will have to take place before this stage, and Dormio
aims to ease us into the stage by working prompts into our mind in various ways - starting
before we’re even lying down for sleep.
The most effective tests started by having the subject repeat verbal prompts while awake,
and then have them reinforced during the hypnagogia stage.
And as one scientist found out, these dreams can get very specific.
Tomas Vega, a former grad student at the Media Lab, went on to co-found Augmental Tech, a
company that specializes in integrating technology with the body.
He was one of the first people to experiment with Dormio, and he decided to theme his dream
to one of his favorite movies - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
He used the app to put the music of the factory’s singing Oompa Loompas into his head.
And when he dreamt, he was under a chocolate waterfall, surrounded by the little orange
men.
But one thing was different.
Tomas Vega is lactose intolerant.
And he noticed in his dream that the chocolate waterfall was made out of dark chocolate.
So the dreams we have under the influence of Dormio are still guided by our subconscious.
Vega’s mind knew he would never wind up under a milk chocolate fountain, so it tailored
his dream into a safe one.
Dormio influences our dreams, and our mind influences them right back.
While it could be said that Dormio hacks our dreams, the process is maybe better described
as giving them a nudge in the right direction, and letting our subconscious do the rest.
So what are the possible benefits of this new technology?
Have you ever had a crazy brainstorm in your dreams, only to wake up and scramble to write
it down before you forget?
Well, what if you were struggling to come up with the right idea for a project?
Dormio could possibly help you brainstorm by guiding your dreams towards that subject.
If you’re looking for, say, the next great video game idea to pitch your boss, you could
give Dormio the prompt and let it feed it back to you as you go to sleep.
The odds are that your brain will spend the night feeding video game-related content into
your brain - and your brain may just come up with the idea you’re looking for.
The device could have some very practical benefits too.
It’s a common challenge for anyone who’s ever studied for a test or practiced a specific
activity.
You spend hours cramming, try to get it down pat, and then go to sleep - and when you wake
up you can’t quite remember what you spent the last day studying.
But what if you could harness those hours of sleep towards reinforcing those topics
in your mind?
You study like normally, then use the Dormio app to give your mind the prompts it needs
related to that topic.
If you’re lucky, you spend the night practicing your skills in your mind, and the topic buries
itself even deeper in your subconscious - preparing you for the big day on multiple levels.
But could Dormio help with thornier topics?
One of the challenges of therapy is helping people face past trauma.
But confronting your demons while awake poses challenges, including getting past the levels
of subconscious defense your mind puts up.
The subconscious is much more open to stimuli when asleep, and Dormio could set people up
to relive certain situations that might be too uncomfortable to confront while awake.
Combining Dormio’s influence with therapy sessions while awake might make it possible
to tackle repressed trauma and get a fresh start.
So when might Dormio’s benefits become available widely?
Well, I wouldn’t stay up waiting.
Since MIT published the paper introducing Dormio to the world in early 2021, the project
has attracted a lot of attention.
But it’s still in a prototype phase, and the University will continue research until
they’re confident in their product.
Before it’s widely available, it would likely go through outside testing to ensure it’s
safe and reliable like any product relating to the human body.
While Dormio doesn’t have any medical function and wouldn’t need to go through those boards,
its influence over the sleep cycle would likely mean added scrutiny.
Then it would have to be purchased or licensed by a tech company that could mass-produce
it.
When it finally comes out, would it be affordable?
That’s one of the best parts about Dormio.
While other sleep-tracking devices tend to be cumbersome and are often only used in medical
settings, Dormio only requires one piece of equipment - a portable glove.
The rest of the system is contained in an app that can be downloaded to any standard
smartphone once released to the public.
That means that Dormio can be mass-produced and released to the public more easily, and
could retail for several hundred dollars when complete - not cheap, but definitely affordable
for electronic fans, and possibly worth much more if it can help you make better use of
your sleeping hours.
But until it comes out, are would-be dream hackers out of luck?
Not exactly.
While the precise timing of Dormio’s app can’t be duplicated yet, studies show there
are ways to influence our dreams.
How you sleep can have an impact, with sleeping on your right side being the most likely to
create pleasant dreams.
Eating cheese before bed has actually been shown to influence dreams - with cheddar encouraging
pleasant dreams, while blue cheese can create more intense ones.
Your choice of media before bed can have an impact, with scary movies creating nightmares
- no shocker there.
But if you want to see some strange effects on your dreams, there are surprising ways.
Those who watch black-and-white movies or TV before bed have often reported experiencing
their dreams in shades of grey as well - showing just how susceptible our subconscious is to
visual influences.
But if you just want a good night’s sleep and pleasant dreams, the best way may simply
be to go to sleep on a good note.
Take care of anything that’s stressing you out before you go to sleep, and you’re less
likely to have stress creeping into your dream.
Go to bed with something on your mind, and it may just follow you there.
It may be a while before you can hack your dreams with the power of technology, but the
process of harnessing them to your advantage can start now.
For more on the weird nature of dreams, check out “Why You Can’t Punch Hard or Run Fast
in Dreams”, or watch “Most Common Nightmares and What They Mean?” for more on the darker
side of dreaming.