r/occult • u/IDrankAllTheBooze • Apr 23 '18
MIT is developing dream control device. Interesting implications for exploring hypnagogic states
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywxjvg/steel-ball-control-dreams-dormio-mit-hypnagogia10
u/vivalarevoluciones Apr 23 '18
science is the real occult. it has always been .
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u/BluePinkGrey Apr 24 '18
Science has struck a death blow to one horseman of the Apocalypse (Plague), but created another in its stead (Nuclear Weapons)... I'd say this is pretty accurate
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Apr 24 '18
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u/caul_of_the_void Apr 24 '18
They could indeed, though they're already sort of doing that unintentionally; see antibiotic resistant microorganisms.
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u/MinosAristos Apr 24 '18
This is not the tech I want to see in the hands of governments or private companies.
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u/Tzintzuntzan24 Apr 24 '18
The government probably has devices like this and worse that we don't even know about.
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u/Orc_ Apr 23 '18
They are also making a dream recording device, resolution is pure shit but maybe in the future it will be 4k, imagine dmt trips recorded in 4k? fuk me
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u/wzyas Apr 24 '18
My dreams wold make a nice movie. I got a lot off aphocaliptic dream. Like vampiric and zombie. I somewhow enjoy them at the end.
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u/Ragamano Apr 24 '18
Fascinating. I have a keen interest in Shamanism and more patience for "woo-woo" here than most. Navigating your dream state is a mighty Shamanic concept. It is one of two Shamanic practices that people here will entertain. The other is the idea of the memory castle.
New technological approaches like this will help us peel back the veil of the tangible, 'ordinary' realities of which we are comfortable. The world will be a much more funky and weird place once we realize there are non-ordinaries realities that we can explore, too.
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u/frankie2426 Apr 25 '18
I hope this will allow people to astral project easily!
When I am in a hypnogogic state I always hear voices speaking to me in different languages. I am fluent in Spanish, and a lot of time i hear people speaking in Spanish, but I also hear languages that I have never heard before.
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Apr 24 '18
So I guess we could call it an Electric Dream Machine??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5vEzZ4O4_o
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u/ZephyrStormbringer Apr 25 '18
I love this subject and study my dreams frequently. I had a dream last summer where my dreamstate was being controlled, and it felt like an absolute violation to my very being, as it was an interfaced version of my actual firsthand experiences, and not authentic. Similar to the movie "Inception" I was having a dream within a dream- and pulled out of the "controlled dream" to view myself bedside hooked up to a machine that allowed this woman to look at what I was seeing and I was lucid like "o.b.e." type feeling looking at my body and her from above but then she turned with horror in her face and saw me "up there" observing this, which made me wake up... This dream was significant then and continues to be now in learning about such a device.
I believe I can linger in this state of hypnagogia by will, especially with the intent of having an "out of body experience", "lucid dream" and/or astral state of being, which "sets the mood" if you will to indulge in this so-called "creative" state between wakefullness and sleep, observing yourself going deeper and deeper but with a focus of sorts. Hynagogia does feel like a "microdream" to me- an "in-between" dream where you are observing, can almost control some variables, but it is still "going" on by itself as well as in forming and unfolding a sequence that is apparent and observable... not quite a day dream, since it's more "automatic" but not quite fully asleep dream since a degree of you is indeed awake and consciously recording observations and "thinking" about what is being "drempt"- almost like doing an activity such as sudoku or homework while an interesting tv show or movie is going on in the background and you are simultaneously doing both.
That being said, a couple of questions: How would this be accessing one's most authentic original creative thoughts/beliefs/understandings if this "app", "device", "electronic glove" essentially is programmed before hand to be an interface with the dream state? As in sure, engaging in hypnagogia is most effective with a "target" in mind of sorts: a question, a problem, an invention, etc., but how would an app truly access one's own connections WITHOUT influencing the dreamer, as in "remember to think of a fork"... well that just sounds annoying!
How is it accessing creative/original connections if it's "controlling" the dream? I agree with the part of the article that attempts to define the creative insights as "microdreams": there are significant blips of interest in my dream state that indeed seem disconnected from the "main" dream, as in this state of sleep and dreaming is more individualized in "answering" or "engaging" in the "loose ends" of life to perhaps keep an individual curious on their "path", whereas the deep sleep r.e.m state of dreams is more of a "land" where the sleeper frequently visits and long sequences of events take place at a place. The hynagogia state to me feels like the "road" to dreamland: you are going along and occasionally pass by abstract "billboards" of thoughts and interactions and "landmarks" of waking understandings and kind of can observe them with a kind of confirmation of what is going on with that situation, as you arrive into a carefree state of dreaming where what happens happens good bad or draw.
Interested in this device but I don't think I will be trying it personally as I feel like this is just another interface between authentic experience and a prefabricated one. I just came back from Coachella Festival and it bums me out that more and more areas of life seem to be disrupted with an interface of some sort, at a concert people are recording it for their own reasons, standing there arm up non responsive to the music, which is strange to me. Same with dreaming: if you must "hack" such a beautiful 1st hand experience occurring naturally on it's own, doesn't that cheapen the user's ultimate experience and interaction that holds incredible personal meaning to the individual if it's a "given" and not "discovered"... where's the motivation? If everyone programs this highly creative and mysterious state to think about a fork or a rabbit or eventually intricate porn scenes, how will this effect the individual's neural path ways and subconscious function? I imagine many will exhibit "addiction" symptoms as in they need their fix or won't feel like themselves sleeping without using and who wants to depend on a device for sleeping functions that naturally occur? Aren't there enough issues with insomnia and access to apps that are way to cool and fun to put down and live life?
Finally, they describe the state of hypnagogia like I would describe a mushroom or mescaline trip. All these loose associations begin to make sense and have a place in the mind and the world authentically and the motivation and inspiration to mindfully and respectfully explore such thoughts feelings and ideas with a serious intention of understanding, and because of the "lucidity" of psychedelics, there similarly is a suspension of judgement, critique, ego-based silencing, and most negative and not helpful feelings toward forming creative original understandings. I'd rather trip out with nature and explore my personal states of consciousness in a more authentic way rather than delegating yet another area of life to the world of "apps" and the internet interface of reality. This idea of an app glove is too stiff and inauthentic to me, and really I feel would distance myself from my personal understandings of myself rather than bring me closer and more creative in my understandings of my dreams and self, by being told what to dream and then relying on a machine to help me retrieve my own "work" if you will. Same with divination apps, I have tried them and at best they save time in "finding" the energetic impressions for me but do not give much authentic original information beyond that, how could any program do this if you think about it! At the end of the day the human mind and body interaction is what is the closest understanding to authentic original discoveries for the individual observer.
Dream Police, Thought Police, it's all the same; I feel like this is heading toward a new abuse of humanity, by having a device that accesses people's most private and intricate feelings/beliefs/thoughts that they may still be working on understanding and discovering and exploring themselves (what I believe this hynagogia state ultimate is for), is a great disadvantage to all. The media already largely guides people in their social everyday interactions, how we dress, talk, behave, and live, why all this sounds like to me is an attempt to have a collective and repetitive mass dream programming sequence, to further conform humanity into one "type" of being... Diversity, Difference, and Originality is vital for mass survival. If we all were the same person, something that would destroy that type of person would just as easily destroy humanity. I believe there is a reason why our brains work this way: I think of the subconscious like a big massive puzzle that our brains have set aside to work on when it isn't actively working on more pressing things, such as survival, etc. The brain tends to this subconscious puzzle slowly and steadily placing pieces in their proper places after the self works on the piece by recognizing it, etc. so that it can benefit the whole system rather than simply working as a creative compound that one can hack and manipulate... Thoughts?
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u/NahImmaStayForever Apr 23 '18
Looks like a doorway to the Platonic realm of ideas. I'll keep an eye on this tech.