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Tech firm makes 'dream mask' it claims can control your dreams

But sleep experts are yet to be convinced by the product

Harry Cockburn
Sunday 15 May 2016 19:06 BST
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Can technology allow us to control our dreams?
Can technology allow us to control our dreams? (Bitbanger Labs/Vimeo)

Since the dawn of time, going to sleep and dreaming has been the most dependable way of enjoying a magical virtual reality experience. The main problem has been having no control over the various senseless scenarios in which you may find yourself.

But new technology may provide the solution to this age-old problem, with one firm claiming they have made a product that allows users to become the masters of their own dreams.

A US tech firm named Bitbanger Labs, has created what it calls a “lucid dreaming facemask”, that apparently allows people to control any aspect of their dreams.

“You think of a purple cow, you turn a corner, and there’s a purple cow,” “dream expert” Thomas Piesel told CBS New York.

“You can walk through walls, you can even talk to the dream itself,” he said. “Anything we can imagine we experience directly.”

The mask, named Remee, uses “low profile electronics” and “customizable light patterns that your dreaming mind can recognize, allowing you to take control”, the website says.

Remee’s co-developer Duncan Frazier said: “It’s a sleep mask designed to allow people to enhance their dreams to have better dream recall, have more vivid dreams.

“We’re kind of pinging your waking mind with these patterns so at the very least you’re getting a little more attention to your dreams,” Frazier added.

But sleep experts are sceptical. Speaking to CBS, Dr Daniel Erichsen said: “Lucid dreams are an overlapping state between sleep and wakefulness. Dream sleep which you see here is very similar to wakefulness.”

Erichsen is yet to be completely convinced by the mask. “There’s no harm in it, but there’s no evidence that it works,” he said.

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