Lucid dreaming induced by new device?

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Scientists Are Researching a Device That Can Induce Lucid Dreams on Demand, at https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bxdx/s...-on-demand:

Quote:Lucid dreams - You can tell you’re not fully conscious—there’s a dreamscape all around you, after all—but you’re aware enough to be able to control parts of the phantasm.
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A new tech startup, Prophetic, aims to bring lucid dreams to a much wider audience by developing a wearable device designed to spark the experience when desired.
Prophetic is the brainchild of Eric Wollberg, its chief executive officer, and Wesley Louis Berry III, its chief technology officer. The pair co-founded the company earlier this year with the goal of combining technologies, such as ultrasound and machine learning models, “to detect when dreamers are in REM to induce and stabilize lucid dreams” with a device called the Halo according to the company’s website.
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....one of central technologies behind Prophetic’s vision is known as transcranial focused ultrasound (TUS). This non-invasive technique uses low-intensity ultrasound pulses to probe the brain, and interact with neural activity, with a depth and precision that cannot be achieved with previous methods, such as transcranial electrical stimulation or transcranial magnetic stimulation.
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...Prophetic intends to train machine learning models that will stimulate targeted neural activity in users with ultrasound transducers as a means of inducing lucid dreams.

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[-] The following 2 users Like nbtruthman's post:
  • Sciborg_S_Patel, Ninshub
Seems like a bad idea, maybe not as bad as driverless cars but I can imagine it having unexpected mental effects...
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


[-] The following 3 users Like Sciborg_S_Patel's post:
  • Obiwan, nbtruthman, Typoz
(2023-11-07, 08:04 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Seems like a bad idea, maybe not as bad as driverless cars but I can imagine it having unexpected mental effects...

Or being used for purposes other than originally intended with unknown implications.
[-] The following 2 users Like Typoz's post:
  • Obiwan, Sciborg_S_Patel
In the (I think unlikely) event that the developers are actually successful, there certainly is a large potential for misuse and psychological damage resulting. However, it is intriguing that in the past OBEs have been reported during which the experiencer was apparently in a "lucid dream" state, able to control his travel through space or other realms. A hypothetical: if any of these spontaneously occurring experiences that are occasionally reported were veridical and therefore proved to be actual out-of-body travel, that would imply that this new projected technology might be used to induce actual OBEs and travel of the immaterial spirit to other locations in the physical world and other realms. This new capability would have many and important ramifications on our society.
(This post was last modified: 2023-11-07, 04:11 PM by nbtruthman. Edited 1 time in total.)
[-] The following 2 users Like nbtruthman's post:
  • Typoz, Sciborg_S_Patel
(2023-11-07, 10:35 AM)Typoz Wrote: Or being used for purposes other than originally intended with unknown implications.

If lucid dreaming is purely hallucinatory I think the downside of this new invention would not be too terrible (assuming adequate testing). However, if it works and works in that it also actually enables real OBEs in which the subject actually psychically travels to other locations and observes and maybe even interacts with others, then there would be a lot of big problems. Especially, our notions of being able to assure absolute personal privacy would go by the wayside, along with the ability to absolutely hide from view and examination sensitive information or other things. It could overturn our society.
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  • Valmar

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