Researchers Manipulate the Dreams of Rats, Opening the Door to 'Dream Engineering'
22 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Never mind the Jose Canseco method for dream control. MIT researchers have successfully reached inside the brains of rats and manipulated their dreams using an audio cue conditioned into them during the previous day. It’s a development that lends insight into the whole sleep/memory consolidation relationship. But it’s also worth reiterating that this is dream control, external manipulation of the mind during sleep. And it could one day lead to the controlled engineering of dreams.
The researchers accomplished their dream manipulation by training rats to run through a maze during the day, using audio tones to guide them. One tone indicated that a left turn would lead the rats to food, with the other tone indicating a right turn would be met with reward. While the rats did this, the researchers logged all their neural activity. Then, exhausted from a full day of left- and right-turning, the rats went to sleep.
Scientists have long known that while we sleep, our hippocampus replays many of the day’s events and consolidates what happened into memories. It works the same way for rats, and the researchers wanted to know if they could use the audio cues embedded in the day’s memories to influence the progression of a dream. It turns out they can. Analysis showed that when lab rats dream (at least these lab rats), they dream of mazes. And if the researchers played the audio chimes to the rats while they were dreaming, they would immediately begin dreaming of the section of the maze associated with that particular chime.
So the content of the rats’ dreams was altered, essentially by cuing specific memories from the previous day using a trigger--in this case the audio chime. They think this finding could lead to new kinds of dream manipulation that could also be used to edit the memory consolidation process--basically enhancing, numbing, or blocking out memories--which in turn could aid in the treatment of things like PTSD. Crazy stuff. Abstract and such are over at Nature Neuroscience.[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/researchers-manipulate-dreams-rats-opening-door-dream-engineering[/url]
We need to go deeper
Thought this meant we could create dreams from scratch, but it's more akin to influencing which events people dream about from the past.
Still, I imagine being able to numb or alter dreams will be very useful for people with recurring nightmares or PTSD.
[img]http://www.numskullery.com/static_images/lightspeed1.jpg[/img]
Getting there
[QUOTE=deltasquid;37550020]Thought this meant we could create dreams from scratch, but it's more akin to influencing which events people dream about from the past.
Still, I imagine being able to numb or alter dreams will be very useful for people with recurring nightmares or PTSD.[/QUOTE]
We already can create dreams from scratch.
soon enough we will have advertisements in our dreams
This is pretty cool, although i'm wondering when the day will come when we can use technology to alter the dream whilst still inside the dream, like a sort of lucid-dreaming Inception Helmet.
Time to invest in tinfoil hat manufacturing.
[QUOTE=Death_God;37550048]soon enough we will have advertisements in our dreams[/QUOTE]
Very Transmetropolitanesque!
I don't like this. We can already create whatever we want in dreams. And it is our sanctum. Stay the fuck out science.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;37551151]I don't like this. We can already create whatever we want in dreams. And it is our sanctum. Stay the fuck out science.[/QUOTE]
Dreams aren't everyone's sanctum -- they can be an eternal reminder of bad experiences.
This could help those suffering PTSD or depression, or an array of other psychological conditions.
Get over your "Me! Me! Me!" syndrome.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;37551151]I don't like this. We can already create whatever we want in dreams. And it is our sanctum. Stay the fuck out science.[/QUOTE]
Say that into face of somebody who's closed in that sanctum with a rapist.
It seems like it would be hard to actively engineer your own dream while you're in it without being somewhat conscious. That's how lucid dreaming works, you have to set a routine where you're partially conscious and not just "asleep" to be able to alter the dream. So your dreams would have to be edited prior to actually having them.
I don't buy it, it's a freud
I just want a device to record and replay my dreams. That would be cool.
[QUOTE=Kljunas;37551780]I just want a device to record and replay my dreams. That would be cool.[/QUOTE]
and share them with others.
now your porn addict can become rich by selling his wet dreams :zoid:
[QUOTE=rosthouse;37550044][img]http://www.numskullery.com/static_images/lightspeed1.jpg[/img]
Getting there[/QUOTE]
God, that would be SUCH a pain if it were real.
This has
[t]http://niggaupload.com/images/5TWV.jpg[/t]
written all over it.
If dream engineer actually becomes a job title or science I want in now.
I'm not sure how a rat's psyche compares to a human's, but to me it seems that if you did this with reality checks you could easily trigger lucid dreams.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;37551151]I don't like this. We can already create whatever we want in dreams. And it is our sanctum. Stay the fuck out science.[/QUOTE]
I can't get lucid dreaming under control and most of the times I can't remember my dreams.
So, science, get the fuck in my dreams.
If we ever reach a point where there IS manual dream creating, viruses will become much, much scarier.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
