Dream a Little Dream: How Brain-Reading Tech Will Unlock Our Innermost Desires
Learning who we are and what we want may be as easy as going to sleep
Often so deeply rooted in our depths of brains that the most self-aware, disciplined minds still can’t easily comprehend them. Scientists employing large AI language models to interpret data collected by non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging scanners may soon be able to explore those unknowabledomains and perhaps potentially alter them as well.
See you in my dreams
As reported by Vox, in 2023, University of Austin researchers used an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine to monitor their test subjects while listening to a fifteen-plus hour-long podcast.
The data was subsequently collated by a specialty-programmed AI algorithm which linked spikes in neurological activity to the test subjects hearing different certain phrases, giving the team a type of mental vocabulary; this pattern meant they were likely thinking about that, in effect allowing the researchers to understand what their subjects were thinking.
Though lacking in specifics, as in identifying more generalized concepts, less exact words the Austin team was nevertheless concerned their technology could be put toward less-than-ethical uses, writing, “Future developments might enable decoders to bypass these requirements. Moreover, even if decoder predictions are inaccurate without subject cooperation, they could be intentionally misinterpreted for malicious purposes.”
Sweet dreams are made of this
Later that same year, Professor Yukiyasu Kamitani from Kyoto’s TR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories announced they’d found a way to not just decipher a person’s thoughts but actually visualize their dreams.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Kamitani explained, “I had a strong belief that dream decoding should be possible at least for particular aspects of dreaming.” Adding that, “I was not very surprised by the results, but excited.”
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While the Austin researchers tried to read the conscious mind, Professor Kamitani’s team used a similar fMRI scan and AI combo before waking their subjects from early REM sleep and having them describe as much of their dreams as they possibly could.
A second round of scans took place while the subjects were awake. They were shown a variety of images, which enabled the researchers to assemble their own dream-interpretive vocabulary.
University of Oxford cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Mark Stokes pointed out Professor Kamitani’s lexicon as above couldn’t be generalized, “You would never be able to build a general classifier that could read anybody’s dreams. They will all be idiosyncratic to the individual, so the brain activity will never be general across subjects.”
Runnin’ Down a Dream
Even so, imagine if fMRI technology was portable and affordable—coupled with a few more years of fine-tuning—peering into our uniquely primordial selves might provide us with invaluable insights like revealing and possibly helping us to emotionally process unconsciously suppressed sexual urges.
Imagine the therapeutic possibilities, a world where our dreams wouldn’t be half-remembered, barely understood, and frequently misinterpreted but sharp, clear, and amazingly vivid: laid out for us to learn and grow from, with the aid of a new breed of sexual wellness experts.
Why knows, maybe we’ll see the rise of artists who use not film, cameras, paints, or canvas but their own highly-trained subconscious minds to create fantastically alluring, erotically dreamy VR entertainments—or feel as well as see, by throwing next-gen haptic tech into the mix as well.
Dream weaver
But what about when our nocturnal voyages twist, turn, or darken into nightmares? Thankfully, the geniuses over at MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces are way ahead of you, having developed an innovative technique for reshaping a person’s otherwise unpleasant dreams.
According to Live Science, it begins during hypnagogia, an early, semi-lucid dream state, where MIT discovered their Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI) can be used to implant any number of positive suggestions to positively alter the course of their test subjects’ dreams.
“Simply put, people tell us whether the prompts appear in their dream,” the group’s lead author said, “Often, they are transformed—a ‘tree’ prompt becomes a tree-shaped car—but direct incorporation is easily identified.”
Again, the psychologically beneficial aspects of Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI)—partially in regard to coping with sexual trauma are potentially limitlesas.
As is adding it, perhaps as part of a portable fMRI rig that, alerted to the wearer’s hypnagogic state, would automatically feed them a series of sexual-fantasy enhancing prompts?
In any case, as these and other burgeoning dream-related technologies demonstrate, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Image Sources: Depositphotos
