Slashdot Mirror
Manufacturing Dreams
New submitter geekgirl09 sends in a story from Wired about the U.S. Army's efforts to develop methods for digitally manufacturing dreams to soothe combat vets who suffer from PTSD. From the article:
"Fifty-two percent of combat veterans with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) reported having nightmares fairly often, according to the National Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustment Study. ... So the researchers will ask troops to take control of the 'creation of the customized healing imagery (therapeutic dreams) to counter the impact of nightmares,' according to a military contracting document. The hope is that these 'power dreams' can be watched from laptops and 'home training and 3-D goggles work to gradually enhance the strength of these new neurological images.'"
Inception Reference
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Your brain is dirty. Let me wash that for you.
There, isn't that better now?
And don't ask where the mud came from.
John
muslins? Oh sheet!
perhaps GP was referring to the KKK?
"Soldier, I'm recommending six-weeks of dreams about puppies."
. . . if the dreams have product placements.
"Hey, can you stop at that Walgreen's? Gotta pick up some Always Infinity(tm) pads, a Snuggie now-with-improved-fit, and case of refreshing Moxie."
"AGAIN?"
What about lucid dreaming? Is it a viable (and/or cheaper) option compared to these "therapeutic dreams"?
It seems to me that the best dreams would be those which can be experienced and directed as one wishes.
Can they make dreams for the downtrodden out there who will be locked out college - http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/10/24/1316228/ron-paul-wants-to-end-the-federal-student-loan-program - or those who will become the indentured servants to the rising upper elite class when their own dreams are crushed?
They can, but you can't afford them. Maybe if you didn't get yourself $100,000 in debt pursuing a useless degree, you'd be better off.
But hey - if you were smart enough to figure that out you wouldn't have needed college.
while they are asleep?
No, they should make dreams for the suckers who rack up massive debts getting a college education they can't really afford, then spend the rest of their life working at mcdonald's trying to pay it off.
Why is it I suddenly want to buy a 3-pack?
Some of the most successful technologies are the ones adopted by the pornography industry.
I'd say that this one has real potential!
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
This reminds me of the Isaac Asimov story Dreaming is a Private Thing where dreams are manufactured and sold as one of the ultimate forms of entertainment. Instead of looking at some of the obvious implications that might spring to mind, Asimov (as he often did) looks instead at the lives of the people who produce the dreams that are then recorded for others to view, and what life might be like for such a person.
What the article talks about is, of course, very different then the story, but with advances in brain imaging and research it may one day be a possibility.
or perhaps it was just a simple typo.
I say that, even though I really hate fruit based cereals...
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
“During our conscious hours, most can hide what they have become,” according to a presentation delivered to the Uniformed Services Academy of Family Physicians, a nonprofit group.
What they've become?!? Shouldn't we address that instead? What do they mean, "what they've become?"
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Suddenly, I'm at peace with all that shooting and ass-kicking violence.
Have gnu, will travel.
the entire project feels like a power dream.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How about we don't send people to war in the first place?
robo soldiers are not ready yet
Why see shades of gray,
why be a loner?
Try another Soma. SOMA!
Life's good,
shut up!
You can't handle the truth.
Sounds like this would technically be an AVE (Audio-visual entrainment) device.
Life is not for the lazy.
"AI today is about as smart as a cockroach - a stupid cockroach" - Michio Kaku
Paprika reference.
Dr Chiba was a therapist, so it's relevant too!
They claim this isn't the sequel of Inception. But that movie wasn't at all what came to me. Source Code actually is. Though reading dreams was posted on Slashdot recently the whole interaction with the brain seems to be a terrain that is finally being discovered. Although I wonder, why the target isn't about removing bad dreams, by inducing the patient with beta blockers so while living the dream, the dream cannot be stored again.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
Maybe it would be a better idea to leverage the bad dreams...which are, among other things, ways that we cope with the real world or things in it that we're "afraid" of. I would think that simply denying/blocking someone's ability to have the bad dreams could be worse. We need to learn how to work with how things work, rather than assume they're wrong and try to change them.
Sometimes we're able to process the bad dreams and move forward, sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds...especially for those with PTSD. Forcing someone to have good dreams sounds like giving them a kind-of Advil...it blocks the pain receptors (as I understand it) rather than fixing the actual problem.
Advil is OK for some things, but it won't fix a broken leg.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
They'll call the project "The New American Dream".
What about non-military PTSD sufferers? Rape victims for instance?
How about not making nightmares that cause nightmares in the first place. But I'm just talking crazy.... Adam
This the 21st century equivalent of the ghost story.
Your brain is not a computer.
Seems like we have come a long way. The nazis had the same issue with their soldiers being traumatised by their actions. Not having digital technology they tried to mitigate the amount of trauma experienced by the soldiers. This lead to mechanisation of the killing process, for example the use of gas chambers instead of firing squads. They tried to get other prisoners to bury the dead as well, or to shovel them into cremation ovens. This way those traumatised were in the next batch to be killed and the soldiers were spared. There may be a point where we want to say that the trauma is a sign that the soldiers are being pushed too far, and rather than seeking medicinal or mechanical solutions to the problem, perhaps we should look at wars we are engaged in and what our soldiers are being ordered to do.
Many citizens of western countries have had their brains covertly implanted with advanced neurotechnology. A large number are reporting that they are being tortured remotely. Symptoms included artificially-induced dreams in addition to involuntary limb movement, pain center stimulation, voices and images inserted into their consciousness, and other forms of "experimentation." For more information, please see Sweet Dreams (Electronically Forced Into Your Brain Wirelessly)
#1 choice would be authentic wet dreams with the choice of partner(s).
...until I saw this part:
So you wake up from a nightmare, stick your 3D glasses on and immediately get assaulted with flying penises?
I wish I would have been "locked out college", it would ahve saved me wasting over $100k to not learn a damn thing that I could apply at work, and not even have a degree since I ran out of money... After being lied to, classes cancelled, overbilled, changed $21k for six months of not being allowed to sign up for classes, and tuition hikes around $10k per year. Ron Paul is on the money, attack the problem at the source by cutting taxpayer funding for these schools, then they will have to bring prices back to reasonable levels.
I was in Iraq during the surge in an area called "the triangle of death." I thought it was hyperbole until I got there. I'm still being treated for PTSD and I would love to try the dreaming machine. Can you throw in flying? I haven't flown in my dreams since I was a kid.
If there is no God then free will is an illusion.