There's An App For That: Programming Your Dreams

Greetings, ATS!

So I found an interesting advertisement for an iphone app that supposedly helps program your dreams. I don't know the T&C for posting links to advertisements, but here's the page (please take note that in the FAQ section it answers a lot of questions you might have. Mods, if the link is inappropriate let me know and I will remove it.

Dreamon App

So how does this work? According to the webpage, the app

Before going to bed you indicate the type of dream you would like to have and when you want to wake up. You then place your iPhone on your bed and go to sleep. Dream:ON then activates and begins monitoring your sleep pattern.

When Dream:ON senses that you are dreaming, it plays a 'soundscape' that has been carefully designed to help create your desired dream. Whilst your chosen soundscape is playing, Dream:ON continues to monitor your movement and adjusts the volume accordingly to ensure you're not woken up.

Apparently the makers of the app are running a "social experiment" using their app. You use the program, then report your results to the makers of the app. This in turn provides feedback and allows the makers to make any adjustments as necessary.

So I have a proposition for you, ATS. The app appears to be free, so I thought it would be neat to run our own little experiment. Particularly, I'm interested in determining the following:

* For lucid dreamers, does the app help you dream lucidly, or hinder your dreaming?
*Do your dreams change?
*For those able to astral project, does this app help or hinder?
*Any peculiar side effects? (hallucinations, nightmares, poor sleep, etc)

I will be trying the app tonight and will report back on my findings. Hope you can join in!

I'm really curious (and worried!) about how in the world it would monitor you?

If my iPhone has those capabilities, I'm going to stop taking it to my bedroom at night...

it would most likely use the microphone to listen to your breathing, possibly the accelerometer to sense when you turn over, and how frequently, and the mobile internet function to give you cancer while you sleep

More Information:

source

Before going to bed, the user selects the time they want to wake up and chooses their ideal dream scenario.

Author: Psychology professor Richard Wiseman helped develop the software
They then put their phone face down on the mattress – ideally close to their head – and it uses a motion sensor to detect when the sleeper is dreaming.
During the night, we pass through cycles made up of three different stages of sleep. During deep and light sleep, the first two stages, we are restless in bed.
But during rapid eye movement, or REM sleep – the time in which we dream – the brain paralyses the body so we don’t act out our dreams and harm ourselves. The app waits until the last period of REM sleep before the chosen waking time, then plays the soundscape.
Once this dreaming sleep is over, the app wakes up the user within a minute to increase the chances of them remembering the dream. They are invited to record their dream and submit a description into an online database.
Some of the soundscapes are designed to encourage ‘lucid dreaming’, where the sleeper is aware they are dreaming and can influence what happens.


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

Originally posted by Schkeptick
I'm really curious (and worried!) about how in the world it would monitor you?

If my iPhone has those capabilities, I'm going to stop taking it to my bedroom at night...

I agree totaly.
it can brain wash you to make up a Plot to take over the giv and Kill Obama!

oh! they did that allready...

this sounds very much like the promotional INCEPTION movie app - it's pretty cool, you're supposed to turn it on before going to sleep and it integrates your room's ambient sound and your breathing into some pretty trippy soundscapes.

From the source article:

Dream:ON is also a social experiment - in the morning Dream:ON presents you with a graph of your movement during the night, allows you to tag any of your friends who appeared in your dreams via Facebook (just like you would when you tag a picture)

I'm not sure if I want to know that anyone is dreaming about me....

Well, as promised I tried the app. Didn't last long, I apparently knocked the iPod off my bed. And my dreams were very weird, which is quite normal for me.

I'm deleting the app.