Researchers Created A Machine That Can Record Your Dreams & Play Them Back For You To Watch Like A Movie
The accuracy of this recreation was confirmed by the participants to be around 60%.
Yuganov Konstantin, KaliAntye / Shutterstock Have you ever woken up after an intense dream, yet could not recall a single detail of it the moment you opened your eyes? You most likely spent the rest of the day torturing yourself, racking your brain for even the slightest memory.
Now, scientists claim that you will be able to replay your dreams, thanks to a new invention. The highly advanced technology will allow you to watch your previous dreams on screens as if you were watching a movie.
Some people are thrilled about this invention. Others, not so much.
Scientists in Japan have built a dream reading machine that can record one’s dreams and allow them to play them back to watch them like a movie.
The scientists in Kyoto, Japan tested their machine on three subjects, going into their experiment with the idea that the human brain follows predictable patterns as they react to different kinds of visual stimuli.
Over time, a learning algorithm can determine how to correlate each of these patterns with different visualizations, per Smithsonian Magazine.
Using a modified magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan machine coupled with an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine, the scientists gathered three participants who took turns sleeping in the MRI machine for a number of three-hour blocks over the course of 10 days.
The EEG machine picked up tiny electrical signals that occurred in the brain during sleep, while the MRI scanner was adjusted to provide functional MRI readings (fMRI) and pick up changes in blood flow by capturing images at different stages in the participant’s sleep.
The scientists mainly focused on the subjects’ early stages of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.
During REM sleep, we experience increased brain activity and vivid dreams. After entering the first stage of REM sleep, the test subjects were woken up and asked to describe what they saw in their dreams. This process was repeated around 200 times.
Throughout the process, the scientists gathered the most common items the participants described seeing, such as people or places, and later showed them similar images from the Internet of what they described while they were still in the MRI machine.
However, this time, they were awake.
In order to determine a clear pattern, the scientists compared the MRI machine’s scans to the subjects’ brains while they were awake and viewing the images versus when they were asleep and dreaming of the items they were describing.
After the data was collected and placed into an artificial intelligence program for a thorough analysis, the learning algorithm had the scientists able to form basic images of the subjects’ dreams.
Using this information, they grouped the images together in a move-like video.
After watching the video, the participants were able to confirm that the images they saw in their dreams matched up surprisingly accurately with the AI-generated video — 60% accuracy, to be exact!
Given that most people have up to several dreams a night, but cannot recall 95% of the details, this mind-blowing new technology can be extremely helpful at jogging their memory.
Some people expressed their excitement about the dream-reading machine.
“Oh my gosh I need this!!” one TikTok user commented. “I could’ve used this today when I dreamed that I was partying with Taylor Swift and I lost my iPhone because her double stole it,” another user shared.
However, others were terrified by the idea, believing that our dreams are best kept secret in our own heads.
“This is gonna ruin some relationships,” one TikTok user pointed out. “I don’t want to look back at my dreams, they are abstract ideas intertwined with horror,” another user wrote. “They’re gonna be reading our minds next,” another user added.
While some people are rightfully concerned about the advanced technology and how it may breach our privacy, who said that replaying your dreams requires an audience?
If you wish to have a private viewing party after waking up from an extraordinary dream, then so be it. For those who often have vivid nightmares and do not wish to relive their dreams, you might wanna pass on giving this new machine a whirl.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.