Slashdot Mirror


DARPA Funds Research Into a Network-Based Interpretation of Dreams

KentuckyFC writes "Despite the universal experience of dreaming, psychologists and neuroscientists have little understanding of its purpose and mechanisms, or how it varies from one culture to another. So new approaches to oneirology, or dream research, are always welcome. Now a DARPA-funded research team is using network science to analyse dreams for the first time. Dreams have become amenable to network studies because dream reports and their interpretations are now widely available on the web in repositories such as UC Santa Cruz's Dreambank. The DARPA team crawled these databases in English, Chinese and Arabic for symbols that appear in dreams and their descriptions. They then created a network for each language by treating symbols as nodes and linking them to other nodes with similar descriptions. They then searched the networks for regions of more densely connected nodes that form communities. For example, in English, symbols such as 'ladder,' 'hill' and 'goal" form just such a community, representing 'achievement after a struggle.' Finally, they compared the communities from different languages to look for similarities. The results show that dream symbols seem to be connected in similar ways regardless of the cultural background of the dreamers. That provides a new window into the cultural links between dreams experienced by people in different parts of the world."

54 comments

  1. 4/1 by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    April 1st coming early this year

    1. Re:4/1 by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      So My Little Pony was just a dream?

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    2. Re:4/1 by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 3, Funny

      So My Little Pony was just a dream?

      We could ask The Dream Police... if only we knew where they lived...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    3. Re:4/1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hoarding little ponies in a school locker is a serious health issue requiring multilevel dream therapy, to avoid the empty, scary dream space.

    4. Re:4/1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So My Little Pony was just a dream?

      We could ask The Dream Police... if only we knew where they lived...

      NSA Headquarters?

    5. Re:4/1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So My Little Pony was just a dream?

      We could ask The Dream Police... if only we knew where they lived...

      Thanks to the DMCA Police, the video now I was looking for now lives inside of my head. But the episode that would make the video work also goes great with Dokken. Dream Warriors!

      (And for you retro folks, some Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams!

  2. What is this really? by muhula · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This study doesn't have to do with dreams so much as word association. If you think that multiple cultures having similar dream interpretation reinforces anything about what the dreams actually mean, you'd be a bit misled

    1. Re:What is this really? by icebike · · Score: 1

      And if you think you see a rational reason why DARPA should be involved you would be further misled:

      Just how this work fits in to DARPA’s broader mission to create breakthrough technologies for national security is rather obscure. But a better understanding of the similarities and differences between cultures is surely in everyone’s interests.

      Maybe the Borg is closer than we think!

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:What is this really? by dcollins117 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if you think you see a rational reason why DARPA should be involved you would be further misled:

      They have an interest in keeping soldiers in good working order and that includes mental health. Whether dream reasearch can further that goal is an open question, but as long as they are willing to fund the research, I don't see a problem with it. Who knows? Maybe it will help, maybe it will be a dead end. Let's do the science and find out.

    3. Re:What is this really? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Classic work for anthropologists, linguistics and translators with deep internet searching and great gov funding :)
      The main aspect would be to get a first hint of any forum posts about political ideas - even via dreams and "who" is doing the interpretation.
      Basically the jargon needed to shape and infiltrate any new age or faith based or cult around the world or just mess with their forums if they become interesting..
      The wider public gets hints of such efforts e.g. The Human Terrain System (HTS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
      The other option is long term efforts to place a person into a group. A local willing to work for a foreign government for cash may not have the skills/background to move up in a faith based group.
      Over years the ability to fit in and hold discussions on varied topics may be helped with a database expected faith based material.
      Beyond that think about the need for sleep and what the lack of sleep can do.....

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. Oneirology Is Dream Research? by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    Damn. Smartest guy in the room.

    I will totally be using that one tomorrow.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  4. Fix the headline! by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fix the headline!

    "DARPA funds psychic friends network"

    !!!

    1. Re:Fix the headline! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fix the headline!

      "DARPA funds psychic friends network"

      !!!

      Dammit! I read that as "psychic fiends network", which filled me with hope for the destruction of humanity!

  5. Onward... by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 2

    Toward a digital Tarot. From Wikipedia : Tarot: "From the late 18th century until the present time the tarot has also found use by mystics and occultists in efforts at divination or as a map of mental and spiritual pathways...."

    What, exactly, is the difference between a digital map of "closely connected symbolic nodes" on a network and a "map of mental and spiritual pathways?

    1. Re:Onward... by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      It really depends on the funding, time in history and needed results.
      From psychological analysis of leaders to trying to shape their faith or change/out pace the mystics they use.
      Telling a leader that larger historical forces are at work might distract them from military reports or intelligence leaking reality.
      Start a coup too early, late based on faith based guidance and a friendly gov stays in power.
      Start a grass roots protest too late and a friendly dictator stays in power or can change the message.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. Regardless of what you're dreaming by msobkow · · Score: 1

    The boss is gonna be pissed if you don't wake up and get your ass back to work. :P

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  7. So that dream where I am flying... by Irick · · Score: 1

    And then suddenly fall like a rock tword a large uncaring abyss with the screams of a uncountable more poor souls filling my ears as we collectively rush onward to an inevitable shared oblivion:
    That's about packet loss?

    1. Re:So that dream where I am flying... by stoploss · · Score: 1

      And then suddenly fall like a rock tword a large uncaring abyss with the screams of a uncountable more poor souls filling my ears as we collectively rush onward to an inevitable shared oblivion:
      That's about packet loss?

      No. It's about Beta.

  8. Sometimes a cigar... by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

    ...is just a penis

  9. aside from deception what's killing us now today? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    at a 10% tipover rate & millions infected it's the so-called byrd flu, which does not seem to bother the byrds around here but some of the ordinary citizens are not making it. nothing to read about like when w. va & n. carolina went on thirst based lockdown blackout save for 'official' rhettorhea. by all spiritual aspects we remain bankrupted & searching for answers that match the lies.... better days ahead for sure

  10. Re:DARPA... has released another cover story. by jddeluxe · · Score: 1

    So the tinfoil hat isn't such a bad idea after all???

  11. Re:DARPA... has released another cover story. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope you didn't use cut'n'paste on all that.
    Because if you did now "they" know, and you will be in a lot of trouble.
    Dont you realise since windows95 everything you cut, even if you dont paste it, gets sent directly to the NSA.

  12. At some point... by egcagrac0 · · Score: 1

    Will they discover what electric sheep dream of?

  13. peer review in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    informal as all get out http://www.youtube.com/results...

    Slashdot only allows anonymous users to post stuff our advertisers like & it's not you

  14. dream of time before the WMD on credit cabals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    seems like around a 1000 years ago, here, before millions of natives were slaughtered for the lowest of motives..... there was no pollution, war, shysters, shyloks, clergy, hired goons etc... a genuine pristine utopical setting..... just a dream for sure?

  15. Darpa seeks to shield populace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    from the overt affects associated with the coming Case Nightmare Green. That should be obvious. The stars are almost right...

  16. OK DARPA, tell me what this means. by bistromath007 · · Score: 1

    I once had a dream where I was sleeping on the floor behind the couch in my dad's living room. A cat jumped over me, waking me up. Then an alpaca looked over the back of the couch and started bleating at me. More like screaming, really. It turned around and tried to climb backwards over the back of the couch, and I had to hold its foot to keep it on that side so it wouldn't step on me. Then I noticed that it was starting to shit. The extreme terror of being trapped underneath a shitting alpaca mercifully woke me up before any got on me.

    I'd really like to know what the hell that's all about.

    1. Re:OK DARPA, tell me what this means. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I once had a dream where I was sleeping on the floor behind the couch in my dad's living room. A cat jumped over me, waking me up. Then an alpaca looked over the back of the couch and started bleating at me. More like screaming, really. It turned around and tried to climb backwards over the back of the couch, and I had to hold its foot to keep it on that side so it wouldn't step on me. Then I noticed that it was starting to shit. The extreme terror of being trapped underneath a shitting alpaca mercifully woke me up before any got on me. I'd really like to know what the hell that's all about.

      Burma shave!

  17. I have this recurring dream... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ...about the second letter of the Greek alphabet and I always wake in a cold, cold sweat, screaming "oh my God, NO!" Can't figure out what it means.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  18. enhanced interrogation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    think about it.

  19. not 4/1, but 420 by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    Maybe someone at DARPA has been giving the bong a workout again.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  20. lucidity by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    Who knows what DARPA is really doing and how much of this is just part of the "4 D's", (Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, Deceive).

    https://firstlook.org/theinter...

    But forget DARPA for a moment. Since we're talking about dreams, if you have ever considered learning to have lucid dreams, you really ought to go ahead and do it. It's terrific.

    I started playing around with the idea in 2010, and it took me a few months but now I've learned to lucid dream at will. It's the most goddamn fun you can have asleep. Plus, it's really useful. I've done things like solve problems in dreams and have the solution at hand when I wake up (it's not always going to actually solve the problem, but it will always make you think about the problem difficulty) and I've even been able to learn to play pieces of music that I'd previously found very difficulty, by playing them in my dreams, even to the point of seeing the score (it's not exactly the same, but it seems to me that if you rehearse something in a lucid dream, it actually helps you in practice when you try it awake).

    Honestly. Give it a try. There are plenty of primers on how to do it available. It's easy, you just have to be patient and practice something called a "state test" at various times through the day. It can be as easy as looking at a street sign, and then looking away for a moment and then looking back to see if it says the same thing. The idea is, that you are testing to see if you are awake or in a dream. Then, when you have practiced this a while, you'll be dreaming and you'll do a state test and then WHOA! you'll realize your dreaming and then it's off to the races. There are other techniques too.

    Lucid dreaming can make your dream life a blast.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:lucidity by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      but it will always make you think about the problem difficulty

      Sorry, I meant to say, "...it will always make you think about the problem differently"

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:lucidity by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      idea in 2010, and it took me a few months but now I've learned to lucid dream at will. It's the most goddamn fun you can have asleep. Plus, it's really useful. I've done things like solve problems in dreams and have the solution at hand when I wake up (it's not always going to actually solve the problem, but it will always make you think about the problem difficulty)

      I've used dreaming to solve problems for years, long before what I knew what lucid dreaming was. It's really freaky, fun, and funny when it's a group project with a difficult problem, and I would wake having it solved. Almost always the last dream of the night. My better half usually knows when I've solved something also.

      Freaks the co-workers out, so I come up with another explanation if they don't know me well.

      And it isn't magic either. During the day, I am confronted with a lot of different problems, and the difficult ones of course require more thought, which is at a premium. So last thing I try to think of before nodding off is the problem, and so often, the brain churns it over while I'm sleeping, and reports back right before I wake up.

      And yes, when I hit an answer, it's wonderful fun.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:lucidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lucid dreaming can make your dream life a blast.

      I'm glad you are enjoying it. I have the contrary perspective: lucid dreaming is nothing but annoying for me. I have a subconscious grip on reality that disallows any "fun" during a lucid dream.

      For example, I will realize I'm dreaming and decide I want to soar up to the clouds. My damn mind says "not so fast!" and instead I end up hovering a foot off the ground for a second or two. Basically, anything that my mind knows is impossible to accomplish in real life is off limits. I eventually get so frustrated I wake myself up.

      Interestingly, this is the same effect I had the only time I tried hallucinogens: my mind spent the whole time rejecting the experience. That was less than pleasant since you simply have to wait for the drug to metabolize rather than waking up.

    4. Re:lucidity by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      I am really good at lucid dreaming. I can form my dreams into a movie and fast forward, reverse,and slow motion. When you slow them down you see that they are packed with information, about a million times the amount that you actually see. Dreaming is all about the mind trying to predict what is going to happen in the future. It is using past experiences to solve future events. The brain is a quantum computer. The only thing that stops you from using it to solve other equations is your own discrimination and prejudice.

    5. Re:lucidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to be like that, but the past few years I have gotten over it and made my brain realize that FUN and Fun are two different concepts and that both can be enjoyable. (see Dwarf Fortress, dying is FUN)

    6. Re:lucidity by coinreturn · · Score: 1

      My main problem with lucid dreaming is that once I know I'm dreaming, I tend to wake up. Also, my dream life is a blast without doing the lucid thing.

    7. Re:lucidity by Udom · · Score: 1

      Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Some people who lose their vision report florid visual hallucinations, and anyone who spends a day wearing a blindfold is likely to experience them as well. We assume that we see with our eyes, but the eyes are only the start point. The brain takes the raw information feed and constructs our visual reality for us. When you're dreaming that system is constructing a visual reality disconnected from the usual input from the eyes. The majority of theories we hear about the nature of dreams suffer from a profound ignorance about how visual information is processed.

    8. Re:lucidity by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Also, my dream life is a blast without doing the lucid thing.

      Sure, dreaming was always fun. But there is absolutely nothing like being able to regain agency in the dream state.

      Seriously, if you're a vivid dreamer, you're halfway there. Give it a try. You'll wake up upon gaining dream awareness for a while, and then you won't. And once you have that experience of not waking up when becoming aware of being in a dream, you'll wish you had learned the technique sooner.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    9. Re:lucidity by coinreturn · · Score: 1

      Also, my dream life is a blast without doing the lucid thing.

      Sure, dreaming was always fun. But there is absolutely nothing like being able to regain agency in the dream state.

      Seriously, if you're a vivid dreamer, you're halfway there. Give it a try. You'll wake up upon gaining dream awareness for a while, and then you won't. And once you have that experience of not waking up when becoming aware of being in a dream, you'll wish you had learned the technique sooner.

      Seriously, I have given it a try. It's just that I'm already such a light sleeper, that awareness of sleeping is enough to wake me, pretty much every time. Enough so that if I become aware I'm dreaming, I try to convince myself that I'm not.

  21. Dreamscape by AcesDnied · · Score: 0

    But DARPA instead of the CIA...

  22. Dumb as can be by dargaud · · Score: 0

    Dreams are just the garbage disposal of human memory after a day of accumulating cruft. If you do a memory dump _during_ the garbage disposal of a software, of course you'll end up with pieces that contain _some_ info, more or less connected to other pieces of info. It's not entirely random, but it's not interesting either. There was a lamba-calculus paper a decade ago that proved that any sufficiently advanced computation required a garbage collection, and the obvious conclusion was that dreams are just that. I'd like to find that paper again.

    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
  23. I think I know who the lead programmer is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    His name is Joesph and he wears a technicolor coat. His boss keeps on wanting to steal it. The wages suck, literally slave wages. Coworkers are annoying, they sing way too much which is unprofessional. He's looking to relocate some place up north.

  24. He told us so... by Consistent1 · · Score: 1

    To sum it up in 3 words:
    Carl Gustav Jung.

  25. I'm a Cyberneticist, Just give me the money. by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

    Please? I have a sleep disorder called Sleep Paralysis. In other words I have waking dreams. Before and after (and sometimes during) sleep my body will become paralyzed, and I hear the rushing sound of my brain waves shifting into a sleep pattern -- I stay conscious while my body (and brain) goes to sleep. During sleep random neurons fire in the brain. I experience a very wide range of stimulus (read "tiny hallucinations") which I can discern individually. When a neuron cascade happens in my visual cortex I'll see a white flash in the shape of the neuron group (a tree shape with roots and no leaves). When my auditory processing center is stimulated I'll hear something that sounds a crash with increasingly heavy compression artifacts over a second or so. Deeper auditory stimulus can yield short phrases or sounds. Visual stimulus further in from my visual cortex yields geometric patterns and shapes (the object recognition part of my brain, I suppose). Stimulus deeper in may trigger both visual and auditory stimulus, which usually takes up only a part of my visual field -- It's overlain upon what I see, and occurs deeper into sleep.

    Sometimes my hearing will cut out as I go deeper into sleep, vision will also 'cut out'. During a "nod-off" where one's head typically droops I've noticed this is almost always accompanied by a hypnogogic hallucination. The random synapse firing can trigger just about any kind of impulse. There are sensations of moving, falling, rising, etc. In both pre-sleep and hypnapompic (post sleep) hallucinations I've experienced ideas or conceptual hallucinations -- These are VERY hard to distinguish from the random thoughts that bubble up from one's subconscious, however being practiced in meditation I can normalize and mitigate my thoughts, but theses conceptual hallucinations I can not control. For example: "Syntax exists orthogonal to meaning", "subdimensions are indistinguishable from hyperdimensions", "Sub cell particles supply accumulated attributes each pass", were some I had last night; Sometimes they are very meaningless, the last one is a solution to a problem in my thermodynamics simulation, I probably would have got that idea later, it just got sparked while going to bed. I also have "mood" hallucinations: Anger, arousal, fear, joy, etc. will briefly be triggered. I once hallucinated a church bell and a stucco wall up close, and became afraid... I tried and failed to find any scary faces in the wall pattern, it was just a mood stimulus.

    After waking (and during sleep) the hypnapompic hallucinations become longer in duration -- The cascades of neurons seem to go on longer. Eg: Instead of flashing a visual "tree" the pattern will branch out and become larger. The auditory hallucinations grow in length too. The "Episodic" hallucinations of dreams seem to be stitching together of these longer random stimuli.

    Beyond lucid dreaming, I have transitioned into full consciousness very slowly while dreaming -- The dream "comes apart" at the seams of the hallucinations. While dreaming that I had ordered one of everything on the menu at a restaurant and panicking because I didn't have my wallet, I realized I couldn't have eaten that much food, and that I was dreaming. I walked out of the restaurant without paying, and the clerk was fine with my statement, "This is my dream, I don't have to pay if I don't want to." I thought I saw a car coming down the road, perhaps to pick me up, but it was a giant scaly snake / worm (like something from Tremors or Dune), I heard it "call out" or "honk" but recognized the sound as a typical "overly compressed" sounding auditory cascade. When I turned my attention away from the visual hallucination I noticed the world surrounding it was blackness, I looked "back" but could not summon up the restaurant.

    Other random visual and auditory hallucinations occurred for another 5 minutes or so until I regained ability to move. I opened my eyes befor

  26. Red Dwarf. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So now I can finally record my dreams?!
    HELL YES.

    Video related.

  27. We obviously have to go deeper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    tssia!

  28. ladder, hill, goal? seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is this, Scientology? A teambuilding workshop? These sound like the worst clichés of motivational quackery. I've never dreamt of ladders and goals, and when I do, it probably relates to some experience I had with a ladder and doesn't "symbolize" achievement. I thought symbolist dream interpretation was disproven. Learn lucid dreaming and try to find out what dream content has to do with your individual experience, not some lie about collective archetypes. The kind of metaresearch they do is just a positive feedback loop. It reinforces clichés. It means nothing.

  29. Interesting and relevant to human evolution by 3seas · · Score: 1

    This is moving in the direction of transition we are currently going through but here science trying to understand it. Where in the process science will mostly just produce supporting research of the merging of our consciousness with our subconscious. Accessing the last link in the article a mention of the iliad caught my attention as I know Julian Jaynes uses the Iliad and the Odyssey to show difference between functioning in a subconscious state and of functioning in a conscious state. As such I updated a wiki page first paragraph to add this in. http://abstractionphysics.net/...

  30. Now all we need is a by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

    DARPA funded Horoscope research, and we can safely do anything we like with the masses.

  31. DARPA Almost Scoops Jung...Almost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Um...Jung did this a hundred years ago, didn't he? Even back before we had them fancy computer things and that internet. All he had were: patients, patience, listening, and thinking.

    Fuck you DARPA.

  32. Darpa Dreaming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Darpa = Bad Dreams. Read psyche warfare /.