Researchers have found a way to turn on the lights, kettle, and radio while asleep. In the future, these technologies could allow us to connect dreams with physical reality.
Summary: Researchers at REMspace developed a technology enabling a lucid dreamer to control smart home devices—turning on lights, boiling water, and operating a radio—all while asleep. This experiment, documented in a preprint on PsyArXiv, suggests future possibilities for utilizing sleep time for daily tasks.
Key points:
- A lucid dreamer was able to control smart home devices from within a dream, demonstrating the ability to perform morning tasks while still asleep.
- This experiment by REMspace suggests future possibilities for utilizing sleep for daily tasks, merging dreams with reality.
Researchers from the startup REMspace tested technology that allows people to control a smart home from lucid dreams. As a result, these people completed some typical morning actions before even waking up.
A preprint of the experiment is available on PsyArXiv.
People dream of making use of the time they spend asleep, which accounts for a third of a person’s life. One way to make good use of this time could be to carry out daily tasks while asleep. Researchers at REMspace are developing technologies with this goal in mind.
In a new study, an experienced lucid dreamer slept in a laboratory with two apparatuses. One of them recorded the stages of sleep, and the other read electrical impulses from the practitioner’s hands and face while he was dreaming. These impulses were then converted into commands given to a smart speaker that was connected to a light bulb and an electric kettle; it also had a built-in radio.
When the subject found himself in a lucid dream, he tensed the combinations of muscles that were linked to the smart home. The subject was able to turn the lights and radio on and off, and he boiled water using the kettle. During this time, the apparatus showed that his brain was in REM sleep.
“When we drank tea in the laboratory using the water which was boiled by a command from a dream, we felt a taste of the future. Within a few years, such technologies will begin to blur the line between dreams and reality. Gradually, people will learn not only to control dreams but also to use them for personal and everyday purposes,” says Michael Raduga, CEO of REMspace, in a release.
Previously, researchers from REMspace demonstrated the real-time transmission of music and speech from dreams, showed that a virtual Cybertruck can be controlled from sleep, and tested a brain implant for controlling dreams.
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