Prophetic is developing technology to induce lucid dreams, in which CEOs can practice for board meetings and architects can design buildings while asleep.
You ever have a crazy intense epic dream and come up with this awesome new idea that you think will change the world, and after a minute or two of being awake and coming to your senses, you realize how utterly idiotic you sound? There's going to be a lot of that.
When I was twelve, I woke up convinced that the color yellow was called yellow, because humans had figured out that word was intrinsically linked to that color.
I was devastated my "epiphany" stopped making sense after I fully woke up.
Have you ever had a dream that you, you had, your, you could, you’ll do, you wants, you could do so, you’ll do, you could, you want, you want him to do you so much you could do anything?
Probably. I have been able to lucid dream since I was a kid, if we're talking about knowing you are dreaming and controlling aspects of the dream.
It's still just your own brain, and if you're controlling it you're actually being less outside-the-box creative than in the dreams where you're not.
If you're so in control you're able to force it to do work tasks then what's going to be generated will probably be lower quality than waking tasks, not higher.
And no tooling will certainly improve the coding abilities. Especially since I remember all the code, including the changes others made in the time since I last looked at it.
I sometimes lucid dream, something tips me off that it's not real, and then I can take some control. Mostly I like flying, but sometimes I go full crimefighting superhero.
Realizing you are in a dream world and deciding to work, is like winning a billion dollars and deciding to spend it all on a nice car somehow. What a boring waste.
I posted this in another comment, but during uni I did in fact write code in lucid dreams. A friend can vouch for a specific time when I woke up from sleep during an all nighter, to fix a very specific bug (which I just remembered, we didn't even know it existed), then went back to sleep. On another occasion, I designed a recursive path-finding algorithm to replace djikstra's algorithm, all in my sleep.
It definitely can be done (though I doubt it could be done consistently and without actually imagining shit up), but it really shouldn't be done, I really doubt I was really resting while doing that.
I was sitting here thinking how useful a loop to count bananas before running out of time and losing my shoes and or pants before realizing I'm in a large college auditorium and everyone is laughing at me would be!
I have a lot of lucid dreams, and they're often in a specific city, and sometimes I even go to work in these dreams. I haven't lived in a city and worked in an office in over 10 years, so it's some kind of reverse escapism. I can always leave, and weird stuff happens anyway. I wouldn't trust any of my work output there.
But to let a company try to take over your dreams and never let you escape, you need to stand up and fight that shit. Put them in a never-ending nightmare where nobody gives them money.
This is stupid for a wide variety of reasons, but one of the more interesting ones is that text is notoriously inconsistent in dreams.
A very common "reality check" to see if you're dreaming is to look at a clock or text, look away, and look back. The time/text will nearly always change.
So explain to me how they expect COMPUTER CODE to work?
I became obsessed with lucid dreaming after seeing the Waking Life movie, around when I started high school, and yeah that's one of the things I used to induce them. Kept a dream journal and had a digital watch that I would always look at, light switches etc. I did have lucid dreams but never got really good at it and eventually just neglected the practice... about when I started having real life sex LOL
I never got into dream journaling but frequent reality checks and practicing meditation was pretty effective for me. 100% of the time when I wake up from a lucid dream I get bad sleep paralysis where I feel like I'm suffocating, so I kinda fell out of the habit.
If this is the same startup I read about a while ago... Well the technology doesn't actually exist. There's a vague suggestion that maybe lucid dreams could be induced through techniques that are not properly understood yet, and that's about it.
Well FWIW there are somewhat reproducible techniques, I've used them, but I couldn't tell you how I've used them if my life depended on it (honestly, brain chemical imbalances or fatigue might be a prerequisite). I actually got tired of lucid dreaming and started avoiding certain positions in bed, and started shifting around if I felt myself getting close to jumping into a lucid dream during hypnagogia.
I also worked on university assignments during lucid dreams, solved countless bugs in my code while asleep, a friend can even attest to it since one time I instantly woke up to solve a specific bug and then went back to sleep, with him right next to me (all nighters woo hoo).
It can be done. It really shouldn't be done. The reason why I grew tired of lucid dreaming is because I didn't feel like I was actually resting at all. That disconnect and peace that falling asleep gives you, it's not there for me while lucid dreaming (at least not if I jumped in through hypnagogia).
Lucid dreaming is such a cool concept. The ability to mentally experience things in a truly boundless environment, untethered by laws of physics or standards of reality.
Why the fuck would you want to waste that experience on work?
I feel also the concept of "work" is viewed from employer/employee perspective, but I'd argue it should be viewed more from "useful” development one. Like reading a fiction book vs a non-fiction.
I'm probably not a lucid dreamer, but at times when I write code all day long I may also dream about it at night. Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night and write an "amazing solution" down so I can implement it the next day. Not surprisingly, most of the "amazing solutions" are total nonsense.
Edit: If this happens to you, it's probably a sign that you code way too much. I know it might be difficult, but try to relax more please.
I've had it for doing too much of coding, math (can't speak for meth), and playing online fps. But yes, I don't know if these experiences count as lucid dreams.
Imagine if you could study in your sleep...
Or "watch" a book and be acually there...
Hmm that wouldn't really work for innner dialogue of other characters...
Are you really sleeping then? I thought the point of sleeping was to wash away the buildup of plaque (amyloid?) in your brain. IINM the inability to get rid of it is one of the reasons for Alzheimers and dementia.
I would really like to know what they measure and how it compares between users and non-users of this ultrasonic tech. Disrupting brain functionality to be quasi awake might not be the smartest thing to do.
The technique I've used to trigger lucid dreaming is noticing when "static" text changes or is otherwise nonsense... so I have my doubts. And zero desire to learn more because I'm full up on dystopias right now.
One of the best indicators that you are in a dream is if you can't read something that you are trying to read. For whatever reason, reading is impossible while dreaming and most people don't even have writing in their dreams to read. I do have writing in my dreams, but only rarely and am not able to read it. I've definitely used it to trigger lucid dreaming. I also use stuff like, "wait, how am I breathing under water?"
That's a common method people use to lucid dream. One thing I've read about is people making it a consistent habit to check their watch regularly while awake, so they eventually do it while asleep. Apparently clocks always look fucked up in dreams, so that's when they're able to figure out they're dreaming I guess?
But yeah, something about not being able to read text or a clock in a dream. Gets all weird.
I usually didn't either, but the (tedious) technique I used led to a lot more text in my dreams. I think because my subconscious was looking for them.
You have to spend a few weeks making this a habit: Every time you see a sign read it, look away, look back, and read it again. Once you've done that awake long enough it'll become a proper habit and it will carry through in to dreams. And in a dream when you look back the sign will be different - which will make you realize you're in a dream.
But there’s still an appetite for new technologies, since the potential for creativity and problem-solving is so great and since many on the market don’t work to the extent they promise, a dreaming expert told Fortune.
The potential of lucid dreaming is less about conquering specific problems and more about finding new, creative ways to approach topics that a sleeper couldn’t previously fathom.
For example, a mathematician might not reach a specific, numerical answer to a math problem while asleep, but the lucid dream allows them to explore new strategies to tackle the equation while awake.
To create the Halo, Prophetic is working with Card79 founder Afshin Mehin, who designed the Neuralink N1 device for Elon Musk’s brain implant company.
Wollberg founded Prophetic in March alongside chief technology officer Wesley Louis Berry III, who was previously creating augmented reality art.
In response to this claim, Wollberg cited a series of studies that link the level of prefrontal cortex activation with the ability to control a dream.
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Someone somewhere is already planning how they will get people to work around the clock this way, and someone else somewhere is probably desperate enough to feed themselves or their family that they'll take it when offered.
yes, complaining about everything gives upvotes even when it's an obvious clickbait, but:
what people are afraid of: extended work hours
what's more likely to happen and I'm excited for: typing effortlessly at the speed of thought, writing code while working out, having more creative ideas while resting