Slashdot Mirror
Net Connected Dream Inducer
Chudmorph writes "Philips is developing some odd thing they call Nebula.
In a nutshell, it's "an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed, sleeping and waking up."
"The system consists of a ceiling projector linked via the Internet to a database of content. The content consists of just about anything ranging from an alarm clock, to clouds, and even poetry."
This thing even responds to body movements! "
Here's a review, but I gotta believe that this is a joke.
Hey... If this is real, think how cool this could be. You could actually feel like your living out your dreams. This would replace the need for videogames!
This article was first published on newVALUEnews April 2001
http://www.thehungersite.com
Do you just have to wave a hand in its general direction to change the channel?
Now... tell me your password.
give one of these to a geek and they'll have to change their sticky sheets every night :P
Carpe meam simiam!
Cripes, can you imagine if someone hacked into the database and inserted subliminals? they could have you buying things you'd never heard of, killing people, etc.
They're called mirrors.
Interact, indeed!
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
Most of my life is already commercialized, I don't know if I want to concede my bedtime too... (you just know they're going to pull an OnStar)
I can't say that I think projecting anything on the wall would impress me during a dream. I'd much rather have my movements analyzed so I can figure out why I wake up in the morning wearing pants when I go to sleep in just my boxers...
Holy porn batman! Can you imagine what will happen when the adult entertainment industry gets its mits on one of these?
It does sound pretty cool actually. I could see waking up with the weather, my days schedule, slashdot headlines, and maybe the latest pics of Natalie Portman on my ceiling.
Casca
This thing is just begging to be made fun of with respect to sexual activities. Therefore I will refrain.
an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed,
-slap-
This thing even responds to body movements!
-SLAP-
Uh, now refraining...
The coolest voice ever.
Does that mean that if I move during my sleep, than I'm considered a "zapper"?
Great! Now I can not only not watch any of the channels on cable, I can also not dream of anything for more thatn two seconds!
And I thought I could sleep my problems off...
Two people have pointed this out and still no one seems to get it. April. This article was published in April. "Maybe its a joke."
It has been known for some time that the earliest stages of dreaming can be strongly influenced by sensory input just before going to sleep. Whereas you cannot predict exactly what will be in the dream, it is fairly certain some of it will relate to what was happening just before you fall asleep. This is not as true of dreams later in the evening.
There is a nice trio of reviews of theories of sleep and dreaming in the latest issue of Science.
What would happen if you somehow got stuck in a pr0n javascript loop? Would you doze off or would you just sorta give a 3 finger salute with your hands?
From the text :
[...]
Content is selected by placing a smart 'pebble' into the bedside pocket. Each pebble corresponds to a different topic or theme. For example, a 'cloud' pebble produces content related to clouds
[...]
Pebbles can also contain games, such as ping-pong, which will only be revealed when a particular combination of sleeping positions has been assumed. Once the positions have been discovered and the game is revealed, the couple can activate the game at any time
[...]
Need I say more about other games than ping pong ? Your personal kamasuta director is now alive !
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
I'll make a sequence that includes smbliminal images designed to induce everyone to use vi and shun emacs. ;-)
But how does this work if my eyes are closed?
How is this difference from the pseudo-psychology that parents have been practicing for years?
Parents have been told that putting Mozart close to this stomachs during pregnancy will help them rear a child more attuned to music. I'll be that's all this new technology will be used for -- call me a skeptic.
- Mike Johnson
"Who can't find a link to start a new thread."
Dreaming is possible even in artificially intelligent robots and cyborgs. The system described in the SourceForge article may permit individual humans to have separate, individual dreams, but multiple AI Minds might easily merge their mutual memory spaces and experience shared interactive dreams.
One mode of existence for Artificial Minds is To live in the waking state only for the sake of the dream state .
These artificial minds capable of dreaming are not merely a pipe dream, but are already underway in such projects as Mind.VB (3.Apr.2000) and, more recently, Mind.JAVA (June 2001).
Thankfully several well known companies have
stepped to the plate and will be offering anti-virus
software for the device. Despite early reports there
is no evidence to support any correlation between
usage of the device and spontaneous proclamations
of "A compliant citizen is a happy citizen! Privacy
is for Bad People!"
-Franklin Beach Investigator, Nov. 25, 2001
So if you had something that induced odd magnetic patterns, like a sleeping pad under the sheets, you could get weird effects.
Taking it to the next step and hooking it up to internet control would perhaps not be wise.
I keep imagining the end results of Dream Hackers reprogramming your dreams for their pleasure.
Someting that would only happen in a science fiction story, of course.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Soon we will get commercials pumped into our dreams
Now I can use my bed as an input device. I suppose someone could write a BedOS, but it would have to use a different metaphor than desktop/windows.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Hello. These devices, or similar devices, are actually quite popular in Japan. It is a headset that one will wear while one is preparing to go to sleep. The device actually monitors the on set of Rapid Eye Movement sleep and when such sleep is detected, a bright red light is shined into the wearers eyes.
The idea is that when the wearer detects this red light he will be able to recognize it as a cue that he is dreaming. Henceforth he is able to imagine whatever he would like in the dreams. There is a brief English phrase for such a state of dreaming, but I cannot recall it at the present.
I will be happy to find more information on these devices if it would be interesting to anyone else. Thank you.
R. Suzuka
Studies have shown that light patterns can affect your sleep... So, if I go to sleep in class, I'll have a different "experience" than if I go to sleep in my bed. Right...
Now, I don't know about you, but I see no difference when I sleep in total darkness or with laser lights all around me (I've tried this before), so how the heck will this affect my lifestyle other than me having bad dreams of the damn system crashing. Who knows?
This sounds really interesting, and I'd like to see how this thing actually works. But alas! Something like this was already invented! It's name- marijuana. It sounds like you make someone trippy in their sleep w/o narcotics w/ this machine. Just an observation
Everyone knows that a subliminal state of mind is very powerful and has been thoeretically tested and proven based on case study. A major concern of something I am unaware of is: How immediate are the effects of subliminal suggestions?
IE: What would happen if the 'net connection were to dropped during a suggestive state.. would we become vegatables?
What if the screen skipped.. would we wake up with a stutter? Or what if the content was hacked and tomorrow we all woke up and found ourselves transferring our money to some off-shore account and killing or neighbors?
I know this sounds far fetched... But in reality, if the content was hacked and a idea or suggestion was implanted into the imagery.. how long (if ever) would it take to be discovered? And when it was.. would it be to late? Who would be responsible?
Hell, maybe the message can reprogram your mind to never see the message in the first place.
All your bases belong to us!
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
Presumably if this thing can sense your movements, it's got a camera of some kind. Do you really want a net-connected camera pointing at your bed?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Forgive me for not reading through every post if I missed this, but here's a picture of it...I've gotta get me one of these! http://www.news.philips.com/mondial/archive/2001/m ay/artikel4_2.html
Way to count the sheep without closing your eyes!
:)
You can control the size cand speed of sheep with movements of one hand, set the height of fence with other.. endless fun for insomniacs
It would be much cooler to take other peoples' brain activity when dreaming, amplify it, and reproduce it in other people by affixing electrodes to their skulls.
Sure, you wouldn't have the same dreams, but you'd be damn sure having a sex dream if you ordered a sex dream pattern, or a nightmare if you ordered a nightmare pattern. That'd be pretty nifty, and it seems pretty plausible given modern technology.
Now, if they could tap into our visual centres a bit easier, we'd be able to get product placement, or even our favorite shows in our sleep. Television takes up four hours from our day, so putting TV into the 8 hours when we're drooling vegetables already might be a better alternative, for advertisers and TV stations alike.
In fact, when we're asleep odds are we won't be flipping channels, and ratings will be much easier to grab.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
What ever happened to the idea that sleep was for rest. Really, what is wrong with a nice dark quiet room and comfortable pillows. I think that we have this desire to improve upon everything with connectivity and content. You have to remember that in the good _very_ old days, sleeping on a straw mattress thrown over a netting of rope was an improvement over the cold damp ground. Now we sell "sleep systems". Don't get me wrong, I _CAN_ see the value of a little bedroom entertainment to spice up the relations, but when I'm done, I want to shut it off and sleep in quiet, dark silence.
That's not my hand.
You could learn the difference between your and you're.
For example, on your ceiling, you could see sentences like...
Your dog is cute. You're not a cop, are you?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
A picture can be found here. Pass the bong...
- *Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
You can suggest something
but you cannot "Make" people do something they wouldnt normally do to begin with.
Someone who can be suggested into killing someone, was capable of it in the first place or else it wouldnt work.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
where they projected the advertisments into people's dreams? Mabye tin foil hat crazies aren't so crazy afterall =)
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
"an interactive projection system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed,..."
Now maybe I'm just old fashion, but the way I see it, we already have something that enriches the experience of going to bed. They're called girls! Going to bed is much nicer when you've got a soft skinned hard body to curl up next to..
...I can't wait to see what happens when someone cracks it! Hundreds of people calling Philips...
"I don't trust goats," --To Catch a Spy
Its easy for anyone to learn to control their dreams and dream about whatever they want really. I dream about what I want usually, when i dont, thats when its a nightmare.
The reason most people cant dream about what they want is because they dont know they are dreaming.
This thing wont be any good unless people believe its part of the dream, perhaps if it were in goggles it would work but if its on the wall i dont really know.
I need some tests.
I do think dreams can be influenced somewhat by the enviornment you sleep in but what i really want to see is a brain to computer interface, which can sense what a person is dreaming and based on this, send various images to the goggles to try to control it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Sounds like Total Recall to me.
Free Web based FTP
lucid dreaming.
The trick is to realize you're dreaming without waking yourself up. It's a bit difficult in the beginning because you usually realize you're dreaming when something happens that can't happen in real life. The shock makes you wake up. If you can control the shock and stay asleep after realizing you're dreaming, you have full control over what's going on in the dream. I've successfully done it once (maybe more) and it is truly a cool experience.
That would make for one good game of quake...
Mmm.... federally monitored bedroom... Wonder if McAfee is in on this yet.
Hopefully they will also sell advertising so that I may be better informed of the products and services available to me.
A choice of masters is not freedom
Instead turn it into a disturbed number crunching project by hooking up all those "unused" brain power while you sleep. Imagine running SETI@home code in your dream... now you can never be sure whether you were abducted by aliens or just received their signal in your brain
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
You can see what this thing looks like and get some more details here on Philip' site.
In general, the ceiling projection becomes livelier as the participants become more active.
Mmmmmm.... Kinky.
I remember in high school we had a star lab it was an inflatable dome that you crawl in it could fit around 15 people and it projected the start up on the dome in the exact places they would in if you were star gazing as i recall we teamed up w. 3 or 4 other schools to buy it so it was a bit expensive
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
First of all, this is a safe and recreational device. It has enhanced my calm though one side effect is that I crave Taco Bell a bit more than I did prior to the testing. I can't conclusively say that the craving and the testing are related but they did occur around the same time.
I was skeptical of this thing at first but once I relaxed and began to accept what was given to me, I found that I had a greater level of peace and serenity both in sleep and while awake. Clearly this level of mental and emotional peace has aided in my understanding various aspects of life that I simply couldn't see before.
1. Bill Gates is NOT the devil. HE is an innovator in the truest sense of the word. Sure he "borrows" ideas from other sources, but don't we all? Isn't the doorknob a variation on the wheel? I see nothing wrong with enhancing the existing world by extending it. But since the extension cannot live or exist without the root portion of the technology, it's only fair that Microsoft should own whatever they extend, even if it was free to begin with. You're just angry because you didn't think of it first.
2. Politics are no longer confusing for me. The motivations of the government favoring larger corporations makes compelte sense to me now. First of all, it's in the interest of the people that the government hand over control to distributed corporate interests. Think of it! Now instead of electing our government, we can buy stock in it! What could be more democratic or capitalistic than that?
3. Of course the automotive and energy industries have been sitting on technologies that could reduce our use of fossil fuels!! But is it a bad thing? I think not! Those fossil fuels are a poison to our planet and need to be burned up as quickly and as often as possible. Once we clear those contaminants out of the way, we can move on to a cleaner, more pure world! So instead of crying about the cost of fuel, use it all up so we can move on to better sources. By the time we're done with all those fossil fuels, our corporate leaders will have found a way to measure out our use of hydro, thermal, solar and hydrogen based energy usage so that it is fair and equitable for everyone. The fact that they occur naturally is no reason to cheapen them with low value assessments [low prices]. And again, what's good for our corporate leaders is definitely good for us in the end.
I encourage everyone to get involved with this enlightening new technology. It's amazing how a good night's sleep can enlighten your day.
ok the picture of the ceiling of the clouds and stuff this is a high quality projector so why not get it and hook up a svga output and make a cave like system their was an article a few weeks ago about that IATFLTLIU (I Am To Friggin Lazy To Look It Up) but if this gets down in price it could be a cheep why to use that big wall w/ nothing on it as a 8' screen
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
...imagine being part of a Beowulf cluster of these!
wouldnt work for me, seeing as how i sleep on my stomach all night long. I prefer using music or the TV to alter my dreams, not necessarily making them controllable - or lucid - but just to insert fun/weird stuff into them =]
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
And Then, theres some people like me who dont kill because its WRONG.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Why waste your money on elaborate internet-connected electronics? There are plenty of things you can do to "enhance" your dream state.
1) Nicoderm Transdermal Patches. If worn during sleep, they have the tendency to cause very interesting and detailed dreams/nightmares. The only downside here is that you cant determine in advance which will happen. You could have an awesome dream, or, you could have a titanically bad nightmare. More interestingly, the number of patches you wear at night correlates directly with the vividness of the dream you have.
2) Self-Hypnosis. $4.95 and a self-help book from Borders will give you everything you need to know to make yourself a porn star during sleep. The content of your dreams is largely determined by what you think about just before you go to sleep. Entering a state of deep relaxation while concentrating on gonzo Roman orgies will do the trick most of the time.
3) Drugs. More adventurous and stupid people take drugs before going to sleep to produce interesting dreams. Drugs are bad, mmkay?
3) The monitor trick. Sleep with the back-end of a couple large computer monitors or TV's near your head. Turn the volume off, point the display away from you, and run a screenblanker on each display. The EMF produced by the monitors may be significant enough to affect brainwave patterns. Good for wacky dreams.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
I imagine it would be fun to have one of these in your guest bedroom. It would be a great way to make people go home early.
If my Mother-in-law were staying over, I might pipe "Pearl Necklace" into her room at two or three in the morning. Or maybe a German scat video. Or a video feed from the next room. Oh, the posibilities....
It reminds me of that time on "The Jetsons" where Jane punched up a Rocket Ranger dream or somesuch for Elroy. Elroy had a special bed with programmable dreams in it. :)
The future is here, folks.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Remember Clockwork Orange? Can you imagine what could happen if someone inserted nice little messages like the ones in the movie into your "dream machine".
> system designed to enrich the experience of going to bed, sleeping and waking up."
:)
Woah... get a girl man
"This article was first published in newVALUEnews nr 8, April 2001."
1. is it old?
2. is it an april joke??
Now they can insert advertisements into our dreams.
If you hear noise while dreaming and you know you are dreaming, You know its a noise "OUTSIDE" of the dream.
If you dont know you are dreaming, then it might work.
That is my point.
If someone lucid dreams then this wont work.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Anyone else reminded of The Jetson's and Elroy's bed?
Next thing you know, they'll be coming out with walking, talking robots (oh jeeze, Honda just did)!!
I hate vapor ware
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
This all sounds a little strange so off I trotted to philips to chuck Nebula in there search engine (to no avail) then on the front page was there new other form of time saving life changing device... a fridge that scans barcodes as you put stuff in it. One massive pic of a barcode sat deed centre of the homepage. Do I remember this from a cretin TV programme on FOX, Dark Angel perhaps?
Be afraid....
A rough video of this can be found here
Never underestimate the power of denial.
I routinely used to fall asleep in a beanbag infront of my television on a Saturday morning, after my hour long 6am ice skating training session. In Australia at 7am or so on a Saturday morning, most free to air channels have music videos for a few hours.
The effect was better than any drug I've ever heard of. I'd have the most weird, and most entertaining dreams. It actually had such a feel good effect that I ended up doing it on a regular basis.
Of course, should I leave the television tuned to the ABC, come 11:30am, Heartbreak High would come on, and I'd become catatonic. Infact, my landlord would have to hit me repeatedly with a broom handle while playing Britney Spears at volume on my stereo to induce a fight or flee response. Useless it was flee, followed by 30 minutes of cowering in my shower under running cold water.
This device is NOT a 'dream inducer' nor is it a machine to control what you actually dream about. This is a projection machine onto the wall, that doubles as an alarm clock. It makes sleep more enjoyable by creating pleasing images on the wall, which may cause dreaming.
Crackpot Theory #1: If the machine senses my movements, then doesn't it have a camera? Can't people spy on me?
It does not have a camera, it senses movement based on pads on the bed. How could it tell what's going on underneath sheets anyway?
How Nebula Works (Quicktime video)
Crackpot Theory #2: If the machine is connected to the Internet, can't people hack my dreams?
The Nebula device gets content from the Internet, yes. However, the machine's output is controlled by the "pebbles" you insert, not by the Internet. Therefore it is impossible for hackers to control your dreams, as the device is not connected to the Internet as you sleep.
Crackpot Theory #3: What about subliminal advertising?
Nebula doesn't actually control or induce dreams. Once again, it just displays pictures on the walls (and lets you have a little fun if there's someone in there with you.) Everyone interprets experiences, sights, and sounds in different ways during sleep, which means that the only way for subliminal advertising to work is if an image is displayed that is a) indiscernable enough to not be picked up at the conscious level and b) discernable enough to be unwaveringly interpreted in the same fashion at the subconscious level. This is both impractical and all but impossible. There are much easier ways of advertising to us, even at a subliminal level.
I'm not saying this is a bad device though - it sounds like it's seriously cool. I can't wait till it comes out, I'm going to be first in line to get one.
-Chardish
Here we go again, trying to find a way of living with our bad habits by reducing the harm they do to us rather than changing our habits. We see it all the time through weight loss pills, exercise in a bottle, etc. The result in this case is a complex bedroom wallpaper designed to smooth out the wrinkles of sleep difficulties. It ends up costing a lot and doing a questionable amount. My advice if you want to sleep better: skip the wallpaper, go to bed earlier, and DON'T eat the pizza and the ice cream! If we looked at eliminating sources of stress and other causes of poor sleeping habits we could better use our money and our effort: this idea could be the basis for a wicked entertainment system. Perhaps if we used a little less technology and a little more practicality we'd get a lot more accomplished in all areas.
What's in a Sig?
I'm told that many folks stop using these, so vivid are the dreams thereby created. I've not gotten together the ingredients to try it out yet, so cannot offer my own experiences.
An idea I've had is to brew up a batch of mead with the herbs as flavouring. It could then be distilled and another batch of herbs steeped in it to make a tincture. This tincture could then be used to fortify a second batch of the mead. One could then drink several glasses of the mead and go to sleep with the pillow at one's head. I can only imagine the dreams which might be produced thereby.
The recipe is from The Home Brewer's Companion, by Charlie Papazian. Excellent book.
Incidentally, I always considered BNW far, far scarier than 1984. Huxley's dystopia was more frightening and more bleak than was Orwell's. More realistic, too--I can see it happening. Rule them with pleasure, and they will not revolt.
Something that can tell when you're asleep would be marginally useful, for controlling lights, sound, video, and such. But "home control" has been a market fiasco so far; X10, Echelon, and Jini never took off. There's probably room for self-contained products in this space, but not total integration.
Yeah, then at 3 am the "content" databse will display a Coke ad, or a car commercial; all based on the position you are sleeping... Agh, this thing is giving me nightmares already.
--Manuel
"I hate quotations, tell me what you think"
I am not even sure what this device does, but from the description, it sounds like it would be an annoyance device, more than anything.
Already, I fall asleep (or attempt to) to the TV going, because my SO needs it on to fall asleep to. At first, slight noises on the TV (even when the volume was turned waaay down) would cause me to wake up - but since that time I have gotten used to it. Still, it isn't the best thing, but I tolerate it (earplugs and one of those eye pillow things help).
Anyhow, what would be better than this, if you wanted to "mess" with your dreams, would be something I have thought about playing with, but right now it is a back burner project.
How about messing with the REM stage? We have all seen those alpha brainwave machines (there are tons of plans on the internet as well - some even on my site) - what if you made a similar system, with the lights and sounds (using headphones, etc) to be triggered during REM sleep (using some kind of sensors on the eyelids to sense the REM stage) - see what can happen.
I have also wondered about using one of those devices (or just headphones) to have a computer monitor REM sleep, then speak a keyword (or story) to trigger lucid dreaming (now there is fun dreaming). Perhaps even give cues to control the lucid dream. If there could be feedback to the computer from the dreamer - dream games might be a possibility (maybe via brainwave monitoring, or other monitoring systems?)...
The possibilities for such a system - wow...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Be very, very careful. This ride is not for the weak.
(if this doesn't make a lot of sense, you probably haven't read Vurt by Jeff Noon, in which case you probably should)..