Is a virtual dream machine possible?

Is a virtual dream machine possible?

The movie, Inception, had one. And the way I see it, the writers were accurate in their depiction. It would be used by many elderly people as a way to live young again. The promise of the fountain of youth has always been a money maker. Just watch any 'anti-wrinkle-cream' commercial and you can see how prevalent it is.

Avatar was very similar and would give a chance for anyone with paralysis or the loss of limbs to be 'whole-again'. (There is great potential there).

I've seen dream machines in some Japanese Anime as well, such as, Paprika, and an episode of Cowboy Bebop. (In Japan they tend to take it a step further and show the dark side of such a device, like mind control.)

deschainXIX, mentioned a device called the Oculus Rift. We are already heading in that direction. I looked it up briefly, but it appears to be visual and audio only. Does it connect to your brain with electrodes? That is the next step. (But questionable....)

If a device could fully integrate with our minds and provide all sensations, not just the 5 senses, but perspiration, hunger, even salivation, proprioception, balance and many more...... how is that different from how we define reality as we perceive it?

SO HERE'S THE DISCUSSION.

• Do you think it is possible? When? In our lifetime?
• Would it be like a lucid dream, or is it lacking? Are lucid dreams more that just that?
• What are the benefits? What are the dangers?
• Would the knew technology follow the same path as the internet and be used predominantly for porn? (This is my belief and most movies won't depict that, but let's be honest! That's where I disagree with Inception and how they portrayed their main marketplace in that movie. I hate to admit it, but I have to be honest. And you could make a killing with such a technology!)

The concept Virtual Reality in general is no longer science fiction so as far I can see, it's just a matter of time before the technology is perfected. What exists today are devices that create the experience of reality by stimulation of the senses externally, but eventually the brain could stimulated directly to produce the same results. There have already been experiments done with stimulating different parts of the brain and doing very basic things.

If you look at things on a purely experiential level and remove the concept of an objective physical reality, the difference you have is only a matter of the quality of the simulation which is purely subjective anyway. Take a look at some of the holographic images that have been produced on stages and I would say anyone on the audience would be hard pressed to tell they weren't real people standing there or walking around on stage.

I think eventually when the technology is better and becomes affordable, people will replace a lot of the things they do in life with virtual experiences because it would be faster and less expensive than doing them in real life. And if you can't tell the difference, who would mind? People will become more interested in having the experience and less interested in whether it's actually real. The only thing that would matter is the quality of the experience. Just consider watching the Olympics on TV vs. being there. You could of course argue that being there is better, just because. If actually being there is important you, O.K. that's valid. But in terms of seeing more of the details of the events going on, the virtual reality of the camera is much better than the true reality you can see from your seat. So who has the better experience? We certainly know which one costs less.

Can't wait to use the Holodeck! :D

Oh, it is certainly possible. Soon enough, we will use the word "impossible" less and less when it comes to technology. And yes, I think it will be in our lifetime as well. It still will be lacking from lucid dreaming, though. Because in lucid dreaming, you have ALL your senses, more than the main stream "5." Dreams are full of meaning and have infinite possibilities. The benefits will be generally happier people. Imagine not having to go on vacation and spending all that money! Imagine immediately hooking up to a machine that can take you into SPACE and beyond! The dangers will be that society will continue to become less and less physiologically healthy. People will stop caring about reality and get lost in the machine. People won't ever want to leave their world. I disagree entirely that this technology would be used predominantly for pornography. I think that a VR with this level of realism will open doors to possibilities never even imagined by people beforehand. I think things like that (while they will be popular) will be lesser.

Before I read the replies I was thinking about what I wrote and want to clarify a few things.

HAGART wrote: (In Japan they tend to take it a step further and show the dark side of such a device, like mind control.)

I'm going to correct myself. Inception WAS about that wasn't it? Mind control and dream machines tend to go hand in hand.

I also realized that each of the 4 examples from movies that I mentioned are different:

• Inception is like a lucid dream.

• Avatar is your mind hooked up to an actual surrogate body that exists physically and can manipulate physical matter.

• Paprika was a device that recorded your dreams and saved them to be viewed on a computer.

• The episode of Cowboy Bebop was a game console that you hook your brain up to.

So each of those types of machines are very similar in that they hook up to the mind and fool its sensory input to place you in a very convincing, virtual, reality, but each is also very different. (Well Paprika was just a dream recall device, but it goes off the deep end later in the movie...)

deschainXIX wrote: I disagree entirely that this technology would be used predominantly for pornography.

Maybe the amount of porn on the internet is a stereotype and is actually less than comedians and pop culture portray it to be. You might be right. I have no evidence that it is. I only get my facts from Conan O'Brien's opening monologues! :lol:

deschainXIX wrote: It still will be lacking from lucid dreaming, though. Because in lucid dreaming, you have ALL your senses, more than the main stream "5." Dreams are full of meaning and have infinite possibilities. The benefits will be generally happier people. Imagine not having to go on vacation and spending all that money!

Yeah, I agree with that. The ultimate virtual reality machine is the human brain which is what produces dreams, lucid or not. We consciously create the reality we experience in dreams with no sensory inputs. As far as I can see, these dream realities are very close to perfect representations, you can even touch them.

So then we already have a virtual reality machine built in, and it's really just a matter of learning to use it and having the right information available to create what ever it is that we are trying to create.

I think what lucid dreams have, that all the possible devices wouldn't have, is that sense of knowing something is there even before you see it. Sometimes you can sense something is going to happen just before it does. Perhaps a person standing behind you, you sense them, you turn around and there they are!

Or if something looks different than what it should normally look like, I still somehow know what it is. I once had a short lucid dream and saw a Ritz cracker on the floor and raised it and made it shatter as a reality check. When I left the room, I woke up sadly, but it got me thinking. The 'cracker' was vibrant orange, and was across the room, too far away to discern what it is with my waking eyes. But in the dream, I just knew and felt that it was a Ritz cracker. (It's all an illusion really, but for some reason I recognized it as an object I know of, even though it looked nothing like it.)

In a lucid dream, our state of mind is different. I don't know if that is good or bad, but just an observation.

Exactly my point, HAGART! I lot of people don't know this, but we, as humans, have WAY more senses than the popular and well-known 5. Here's an article if you're interested! :) http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/07/humans-have-a-lot-more-than-five-senses/

Jacob46719 wrote: Can't wait to use the Holodeck! :D

Had an interesting dream about that last night. I'm in the basement of my dad's house with a flashlight and find this guy hiding behind some clothes that were hanging up. He was dressed in strange clothes and had on a small mask, mainly just around his eyes. I told him he shouldn't just show up in people's houses like that. Then he explained he was a time traveler, and when I asked about the year, he wrote down the year 8900 with some difficulty. I proceeded to start asking all kinds of questions regarding the existing technology they had. I can't remember a lot of it, but I did ask him how they communicated, comparing to our cell phones. He said everyone carries one of these and pulled out something that looked like an analog clock. Then he said "this does everything". It had lots of functions including communication. He started using it to make music which sounded like we were in concert hall, then lit up the entire room with really interesting holograms in green and yellow tones. Hope he shows up again, I have so many more questions to ask.

deschainXIX wrote: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/07/humans-have-a-lot-more-than-five-senses/

I read that and it is very informative and well written. (I browsed a few more articles and the most hilarious one was 'people who look EXACTLY the same in every photo) :lol:

But back to senses. In my layman's terms I noted to myself that we have external and internal senses. So I am right about that. And any device that would simulate a virtual reality as real as this one would need to trigger all those.

In most of my lucid dreams I don't have a sense of body as I put it. They are mostly visual and audio only, with perhaps a little taste and touch and that is it. However, I did have a very vivid dream once, in which I had propioception and had a full sense of a body, a dream body if you will. When I moved my arms, I knew where they were relative to the rest of my body and even felt like I was straining my muscles with physical effort and things had weight to them when I held them in my hand. Even in the dream I thought to myself, if someone took a brain scan of me right now, it would show the exact same centers of the brain firing and illuminating as if I were doing it in real life. The illusion of the dream was real. (It really makes you think....)

And as for the sense of taste. I've heard other say that dream-food is not the same are real food. You seldom chew it and feel it go down your esophagus. Taste is actually very complex and I am a bit of a foodie and amateur chef. What people forget is that our tongues act like a giant thumb. They detect texture and temperature, and even pain when it comes to spicy food. You can even detect the ph level of food, (acidity). Taste is very complex and the best foods tantalize ALL our senses! (even the internal ones after you eat it). I guess it's no surprise that our bodies would be so focused on food, since it is most basic to our survival.

I was thinking about the pros and cons of such inventions and one in particular intrigues me: It's the surrogate body suit that you can control with your mind. The more senses the better, and of course I am talking about more than the familiar 5.

This would be beneficial for firefights and the bomb squad. However, with all new technology, the military will get involved and use it to kill each other for political gain. (so there's the first pros and cons)

But the greatest use for such a device would be Space Exploration. Imagine that.

Perhaps the mars rover is the first rudimentary design, but imagine if you could hook up your brain to a machine and not just see Mars, but truly experience it with all your senses as though you were actually there.

Once you get a few of these surrogate robots up there you can do repairs on each of them and they should last forever as long as people maintain them. And why stop there? You could go anywhere in the universe. Jump in a black whole just to see what happens. Not only would this be a huge breakthrough for our exploration of the universe, but it would be huge for the tourism industry. "Where are you going this weekend?" "Mars." "Me too, I'll see you there!"

It's the ultimate in 'remote viewing'. And it's not a question of IF, it is a question of WHEN. Just like simple organisms sense their environment, the super-organism we have created (society), too has a desire to sense the environment beyond Earth. It's inevitable.

(And I hope the military doesn't ruin it for everybody.....) (Like Avatar)

Wow, I've never thought of that. But, then again it would be so fricking expensive to get your surrogate to mars that barely anyone would be able to do it :( . :lol: Cynical deschain strikes again.

Once they are up there, the maintenance shouldn't cost too much. (Then again, I just realized they would need a power supply, but solar should be adequate and inexpensive). And no need for huge spacecraft that need supplies, food, toilets ect. that take a heck of a lot of energy to escape the Earth's atmosphere. So it should be cheaper to send them there in the first place too. (Way less than sending humans).

It would be expensive for customers at first, like any technology, but would become affordable once there are thousands of them and there is competition in the free market that brings the price down.

EDIT: I wanted to add something, but don't want to take up more space going off tangent with another post, so I'll just write it here: There would be a time delay with the transmissions, just like it takes about 7 minutes for light to reach Earth, the signals from Mars or even further would take time to reach Earth. So what you experience would be in the past, but if you are interacting with others on Mars, you would all be in the past together and it would work smoothly as though it was perceived as present. If you go extremely far away there could be some time issues, especially if the surrogate is traveling close to the speed of light or near a black hole it could get really wonky. :o

Yeah, true.... and also, spaceflight is getting cheaper these days.

So what if after the first time someone experienced Mars with the surrogate robots,they dream shared with other people that have experienced it. That way they get all of the experience with no risk of the military messing it up.

That may be closer to reality than you think. It's actually very possible.

Not dream sharing yet, but scientists, according to a quick search on the internet, have implanted false memories into mice. You may be able to implant the Mars experience, or any other, directly into someone's brain.

But there are still ways for the military to use that technology for evil. :evil:

You can deep too, and wonder if it's already happened, and your whole life is a false memory, like Total Recall. :ugeek:

HAGART wrote: That may be closer to reality than you think. It's actually very possible.

Not dream sharing yet, but scientists, according to a quick search on the internet, have implanted false memories into mice. You may be able to implant the Mars experience, or any other, directly into someone's brain.

But there are still ways for the military to use that technology for evil. :evil:

You can deep too, and wonder if it's already happened, and your whole life is a false memory, like Total Recall. :ugeek:

:shock: That is pretty trippy

I have a Newscientist article somewhere about memory and the brain. It does assert that the Total Recall scenario is possible, although we are still a long stretch from it.

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In the 1990's, I read in Weekly World News, that a man named Dr. Kurt Aubert from Berne, Switzerland had invented something called a Dreamcorder. I thought that was pretty neat until I learned that it was a hoax! :o

That would be great to record your dreams during the night and watch them the next morning. I saw that on an episode of Freddy's Nightmares called, Freddy's Tricks or Treats; it had Mariska Hargitay in it. The guy ended up getting trapped inside his TV/VCR. Freddy: Stick that in your VCR and suck on it! :lol: I've had some pretty interesting dreams I'd like record, but I couldn't put them on YouTube; it would embarrass certain celebrities.

Have any of you tried the CDs that Dr. Fred Alan Wolfe has out? He says you can make stuff appear out of nowhere, and time travel physically. I've heard that it is much safer to go quantumly, though.

Ponder this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6EF0AjPzOw

Science needs to stay out of my head. It is my private space. My Multimedia design ideas are all hidden in there, and I hide them in there to avoid design theft, which is why I and many designers disapprove of them doing this. You may not know this, but Multimedia design and idea theft is much too common these days just because some are greedy @#$#@ and don't care squat that we just want to escape and be in our own reality, all they want is money.

Actually Multimedia Designers and programmers have plans in the distant future of creating a virtual reality, which would work similar to a Dream Machine (learned all about their plans). The idea is that you would move your body in the simulated virtual reality to interact with it. The simulated virtual reality would also have features that would activate temperature change, humidity level change, aroma exposure, and even online connectivity (seeing someone else's DC). While some video games would have a restriction based on what the programmer wants (mission mode), there may be some video games that have more of a sandbox mode that are more freedom exploration. Despite the fact that a virtual reality is in the works in the future and we can all retreat there in the future, I personally prefer being a Multimedia designer and a Lucid Dreamer. Because although having a programmed reality to go to is nice and video game design is nice, I rather have a reality I can program myself than be in a reality programmed by someone else. And unfortunately, you can't exactly auto-program any virtual reality to suit your needs. You have to be a Multimedia Designer and programmer laying out things yourself to be able to do that. In a Lucid Dream, you can auto-program, since there isn't a required code or design method necessary to program it (though that doesn't exactly bug me in Multimedia Design).

The problem I see is not inducing a lucid dream thru electronic stimulation or even EM stimulation. The real issue is who will be controlling the dream? How better to elicit information from a subject than to input stimulus to make them think they are talking to a friend or loved one? Wanna reprogram someone to do what you want, program their dreams. But like most things the unintended consequences may be worse than the cost.

As a conspiracy theorist, and a 'glass-is-half-empty-guy', I see some dark, sinister implications. The N.S.A. would love this, and use it for mind-reading and mind-control for their interests. Or maybe I'm just a realist. They would absolutely LOVE to become thought police by any means necessary and control the planet like the story, "1984". They are already tapping into your phones and Facebook accounts and are probably reading this right now! If dreams were captured on a machine, I assure you, they'd be watching those too, and finding ways to manipulate it for their best interests.

But apart from that, let's think about the actual logistics.

If a virtual dream machine was possible, who's the architect? (Just like 'Inception'.) If there is one, then it's no longer a lucid dream. It's just a virtual 'game' experience, without control.

I've seen people use an Oculus Rift, but that is only half the story. Sure you can see in 3D, hear sound, but it can never equate to a lucid dream when EMOTIONS are paramount. That is the one thing people who don't lucid dream can't understand just yet. When I share a lucid dream I don't capture my emotions well and just state: This happend and then this....

If seeing is believing, a lucid dream in the inverse: believing is seeing. ;) Hope that makes sense. It does to me.

But I assure you, emotions are strong. Stronger than what you see, touch, smell, taste or hear. For a dream machine to work it would have to fool us completely with emotions and all. Who can say we aren't in The Matrix right now as we speak! ;)

HAGART wrote: As a conspiracy theorist, and a 'glass-is-half-empty-guy', I see some dark, sinister implications. The N.S.A. would love this, and use it for mind-reading and mind-control for their interests. Or maybe I'm just a realist.

You read my mind.... STOP IT. :lol:

seams unlikely, but who knows :)