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MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

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Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#11
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

Can you share any interesting links on that topic? I am interested to see how I could use this myself.

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#12
post #8
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concen…

I'm not who you're replaying to, but...

When I was learning how to lucid dream, one of the triggers that I used to tell I was in a dream was flipping a light switch on and off. When I saw nothing happened, I knew it was a dream. Another big one I use is looking at any words, numbers or clocks to see if they were legit, or random characters / garbage.

I started to "feel" what a lucid dream was because I would get some nightmares that would eventually wake me up. It felt real and I could remember everything about it (for a few minutes). The big ones always involved me falling from a building, and waking up once I hit the pavement.

Over time, I forced myself to try to mostly stay asleep during these nightmares. I remember falling from stuff, hitting the pavement, waking up, but keeping my eyes closed and trying to keep from waking up. It got to the point where I would "half" wake up, but still be in the nightmares. Then with some practice, I could do that to normal dreams too.

I can't really do it on demand, so it's more if I am having a crazy dream, I can usually snap out of it and fully control everything about it.

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#13
post #4
post #3

> As they were falling asleep, the Jibo robot would prompt them with one of two phrases: “remember to think about a rabbit” or “remember to think about a fork.” I'd imagine a queue like this would work, regardless of if I was sleeping.

A cue* not queue

queue of cues

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#14
post #8
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concen…

Its funny you say that one twchnique for lucid dreaming is focusing on mundane things that you do in everyday life and within a dream the behavior is different. A friend actually used light switches as anchors so whenever there was one in a dream he would realize he was dreaming. Im not a practitioner so im not 100% sure how this works in practice but I remember him talking about light switches specifically

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#15
post #8
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concen…

Lucid dreaming is a skill. There's varying levels of experience and control that can be exerted via different methods. It comes naturally to some people, but is very much also a learnable skill (to varying degrees of difficulty for different people).

I spent about a month practicing methods to lucid dream before being able to achieve a few lucid dreams over a couple weeks. It became difficult for me to keep up some of the exercises in order to do so (such as waking up to write down my dreams in my dream journal in the middle of the night would interrupt my wife's sleep). It can be time-consuming for some people as well, as learners benefit from being able to get 7.5+ hours of sleep each night. I still attempt to lucid dream when convenient, but I don't practice every day like I used to.

Great resources to get started with learning lucid dreaming:

- Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold

- https://www.dreamviews.com/

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#16

>> ... the world starts dissolving, but you still have awareness of your descent into unconsciousness and memories mixing with hallucinations, >> Jibo robot would prompt them So this is basically someone going on a guided acid trip. An induced state where real perceptions and illusions can be directed by an outside guide. As further proof, I'd like to see the robot say "your skin is covered in spiders". I'm betting t…

I'd be interested in experimenting with Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies [1][2] as cues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

[2] http://obliquestrategies.ca

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#17
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

Yup. And if you look in the usenet archives back in the mid to late 90s on alt.dreams.lucid you'll find people were building eye movement monitoring glasses that would trigger flashing LEDs even then.

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#18
post #14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concen…

Its funny you say that one twchnique for lucid dreaming is focusing on mundane things that you do in everyday life and within a dream the behavior is different. A friend actually used light switches as anchors so whenever there was one in a dream he would realize he was dreaming. Im not a practitioner so im not 100% sure how this works in practice but I remember him talking about light switches specifically

A great way to become conscious in your dreams is to notice something that isn't supposed to happen while you're awake. For reasons I'm not sure why, many people share a lot of experiences that happen in dreams that work well as anchors; your hair falls out, you look in a mirror and have missing teeth, technology doesn't work the way it's expected to, light switches don't work, clocks don't display a proper time or you can't read them, and more.

There are more ways to purposefully check if you're dreaming, such as by trying to push your finger through your hand, or breathing through your nose while you pinch it with your fingers. But some of the examples above just passively happen while you're dreaming and you can train yourself to notice them.

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#19
post #11
post #7

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able…

Can you share any interesting links on that topic? I am interested to see how I could use this myself.

[deleted]

Re: MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’

#20
Sleep As Android can do this same thing. It uses your microphone/accelerometer to sense motion and estimate when you're entering REM sleep. It's not as advanced as the more complicated set up here, but anecdotally I can say it works fairly well. You can set it to play a trigger phrase when you enter REM sleep to help train lucid dreaming. I've never done it though because they default trigger phrase included is downright creepy sounding. It's some echo-y modulated voice that goes "You are dreaming-ing-ing-ing...."

I was expecting the article to be an actual dream control device and not just a device that helps you control your own dreams. Kind of misleading.

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