DreamThrower: Creating, throwing and catching dreams for collaborative dream sharing

Abstract

The DreamThrower is a novel technology that explores virtually creating, throwing and catching dreams. It detects users' dream state by measuring rapid eye movement (REM). Once the dream state is detected, sound and light stimuli is played to alter the dream. Users report on their dream, and they can send the stimuli that they have used to another person via an on-line website. A working prototype accurately detects REM sleep. Based on preliminary results, the sound and light stimuli were found to have little influence on their dreams. Our prototype's ability to detect REM effectively coupled to a social network to share dream stimuli opens up a fun game environment even if the stimuli itself does not have a significant impact. Instead, user engagement with the social network may be sufficient to alter dreams. Further studies are needed to determine whether stimulus during REM can be created to alter dreams significantly. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.