If our dreams could be recorded…

…what would you use them for? It could be for your own personal Dreams diary. Can you image if you could store all the dreams you’ve had in your life? They could tell you so much about your deepest emotions, worries and feelings on every stage of your existance. Well, it seems we are getting closer to make this possible.

A team of scientists in USA have run an experiment on 12 epilepsy patients, where electrodes recorded the activity of neurones in a part of the brain called the medial temporal lobe, which plays a major role in human memory and retention. The volunteers were shown more than 100 familiar images, such as Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson, on a screen. From these, pictures that had triggered responsive neurons in different parts of the subjects’ MTLs were selected. The patients were then shown two of these images superimposed and told to think about one of them, while the scientists ran the neuron patterns through a decoder.

When the decoded information was fed back on to the superimposed images, the one whose neuron was firing more quickly was enhanced, while the other faded.

By watching this online feedback, more than two-thirds of subjects were able to make their targeted image completely visible and entirely eliminate the other picture. By observing which brain cells lit up and when, Dr Cerf and his US colleagues, Christof Koch and Itzhak Fried, said they were in effect able ‘read the subjects’ minds’.

In many occassions, great ideas for some of my work have come to me through dreams. It would be great to keep records of them as an useful source of material for my projects. On the other hand, I can’t help but wondering that if recording dreams becomes a reality, a new threat will come with it just straight away. Like the recent movie “Inception” portrayed in the cinema screens recently, our dreams could be invaded, recorded, distributed and published for sinister and interested porpuses.

We thought that paparazzi and internet had made a great breakthrough in the last two decades when it comes to expose people’s private lives? We’ll just have to wait and see what Science brings in the near future. Who knows if Internet is replaced by a brainwave network of thoughts and dreams floating in the air! Just dreaming…awake.

The experiment is explained in the latest issue of Nature Magazine:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101027/full/news.2010.568.html

2 Comments

1. 

   Kristin

   2010/10/31 at 08:54

   Interesting concept, I’ve always wanted to do that because I have the most wild and memorable dreams all the time. They truly are little movies in my head.
   Have you seen Until the End of the World with William Hurt?
   It asks those questions, directed by Wim Wenders, 1991 and it doesn’t have the happiest ending…

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   • 

     Laura Salesa

     2010/11/01 at 10:19

     Hi Kristin,
     Thanks for your comments. Sometimes things escape to our reason, specially when it comes to future science. The human brain is still a great source for investigation, who knows what we will be able to do with it in 10 years time! Thanks for reading.

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