THE DREAM HARVESTER JOSEPH RYAN

Scientists are not 100% certain about what goes on in the brain while it sleeps.

The body and the mind go through a series of sleep stages, at some points deeply resting, at others, dreaming. Throughout the span of our species’ history we have wondered over these nightly visions. Ancient civilizations once looked at them as messages from their gods and their oracles saw them as sights of the future, a telling of things to come. We have wondered over their significance and their purpose, applying to them symbols and meanings that somehow tell us something about the waking world, or perhaps our place within it.

It hasn’t been until modern times, in the rise of new, sophisticated technologies that we have seen the potential of further studying and understanding this phenomenon.

The definition of a dream is disputed. Its can be so realistic that we cannot differentiate between where the dream ends and reality begins. This phenomenon is strongly associated with Rapid eye movement; a stage where the sleeper’s eyes flutter under the eyelids and brain activity is closest to the waking world. Like some foggy, lofty realm existing somehow between here and there.

A human will spend six years dreaming during their lifetime.

When completely relaxed and the body goes to sleep, neurons near the eyes begin to send signals throughout the body. The eyelids grow heavy; glands begin to secrete a hormone that induces sleep. The body and mind pass through four sleep stages, dreaming accounts for usually two hours each night. While in the state of rapid eye movement, a stream of data is opened up within different lobes of the brain. There is an exchange.

What if this data could be collected?

What if a dream could be captured?

A viewable sequence of sounds, visions, ideas and emotions.

No longer unexplainable or just beyond articulation.

This machine would be intended to capture these mysterious sequences.

When the brain dreams, the transfer is usually compared to a sort of data exchange. Different lobes of the brain are doing different things at different times while the sleeper is preoccupied with the dream. Though the body and mind are asleep, they are hardly inactive; in fact there is a surge of unique neural activity. PET scans that are usually used to detect diseases and cancers are being employed on sleeping subjects. After being injected with a line of glucose, the subject’s brain can be mapped during these cerebral surges, giving further light into the nature and origins of dreams. Using these techniques, scientists have traced the source of these visions to the limbic system, a part of the brain that governs emotions, sight, and smell and the formation of memories. When we dream this system explodes with activity.

The machine taps into this burst of data, gathering the nectar, the very essence of the dream and then translating it into something viewable, letting us see through the inner eye of the dreamer, to view the inner most workings of the mind of man.

This tool would break down the mysterious barriers of our dreams in the way that the dreamer is no longer the only one to experience the dream.

The potential of such a machine soars in all directions.

To incredible heights, to unforeseen lows.

If a criminals dreams could be monitored and recorded, would it reveal clues to his crimes, a view into bits and pieces of the criminals mind? Perhaps steps closer to clearer justice?

Would the government find a way to put surveillance in our dreams?

Keeping possible records of what goes on in our subconscious.

Would people become so obsessed with their inner dreams they let the world fall apart around them? Like the risk of some new end addiction?

What is it that we might find in there?

And what could that have in store for us while we are awake?

Would libraries fill with volumes upon volumes of people’s dreams?

Would we be able to use it on animals? Gain precious new insight into animals, getting us closer to their thought process and inner workings?

Would there be a genre of dream video in the movie store, perhaps the theatre?

Or would it just be something private?

Something you hid and held all to yourself?

Bits of disjointed memories kept together like pieces in a scrapbook?

How would this technology impact a culture?

It has been seen, how quickly technology is leaping forward, and perhaps we are not far from something that could in fact do what is suggested here. The benefits have been explored of this advancing power and we know the consequences. What new and curious circumstances will we be forced to adapt to as technology brings new beneficial solutions and creates never before seen problems?