On the matter of "lucid dreaming with technology," I was too young to get 1984's Dreamscape fresh but too old for the newer stuff (Nolan's Inception) to golden age me. That end-century drought of material at the threshold of paranormality and hardware—I'm sure, in some way, that neoliberalism must be the cause. The timing is perfect, then, for lucid dreaming to be scienced-out for real. Michelle Carr: "In the past few years scientists have discovered that while someone is having a lucid dream, they can communicate with an experimenter in a control room, and that person can communicate with the dreamer, giving them instructions to do something within the dream"
Once I was awake, the scientists at the Dream Engineering Lab I direct at the University of Montreal asked me, through the intercom, about my perception of characters, any interactions with them and how they affected my mood on awakening. Even in her unusual forms, my grandmother had felt real, as if she had her own thoughts, feelings and agency. Reports from other dreamers often reflect similar sensations—the result of the brain's striking ability in sleep to create realistic avatars we can interact with. Researchers suspect that these dreamy social scenarios help us learn how to interact with people in waking life.
The trailer for Dreamscape is below. This is science now, dear reader!
