May 28, 2025 • 67 mins
Multiple animals dream -- and, even now, people have little understanding of why dreaming occurs. In tonight's episode, Ben and Matt explore the newest research in dream states... and, spoiler: they end up with more questions than answers.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Gol is on an adventure, but will return shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Shout out to everyone
who has this plane on some kind of automatic shuffle
(00:53):
or playlist as they are slumbering sleeping listeners. We welcome
you to tonight's episode, which is all about dreams. Dreams, dreams.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right. You may even be aware and awake at
this point in the show, but very soon you will
drift off. What you dream will be directly influenced by what.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You hear eight minus six. We've had some fascinating explorations
of dreams in the past. We're talking about this and
related cognitive science off air. While back, we did a
two part episode on the concept of precognitive or clairvoyant dreams.
(01:34):
Dreams that, from the perspective of their supporters, dreams that
appear to predict the future, violating what we understand is
the laws of linear time and what we learned in
those episodes, it's weird. I went back and listened to
the matt and reread the research too. We went back
(01:55):
and listened to those episodes and reread the research, and
we found that the basic physiological or neurological phenomenon that
we call the dream is understood in that we know
it happens. We also know the other non human animals dream.
(02:19):
Do check out many video clips of octopuses that appear
to be dreaming. And Dylan and you and I were
having a little family time before we rolled, talking about
how much we enjoy our animals dreaming, like our pets are,
(02:39):
our dogs and cats and so on.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's pretty adorable, especially watching my dog dream, just watching
how animated her body is, where she will physically be running.
You can see her arms moving while she's laying on
her side as though she's chasing something, and then making
verbal sounds as though she's barking at something or up
said about something. Even it's fascinating. What makes you wonder
(03:04):
what we really do when we're asleep. And if you
sleep next to someone on the regular, maybe you've got
some reports of what your sleeping life is like. But
even they might be sleeping too in the times when
we're doing really wacky stuff, jogging in place, doing ninja stuff.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, and I've seen this. I've seen birds dream I've
seen an octopus stream. I've seen one of my cats
actually doesn't make a lot of appearances on here, the
cat with a thousand names. I've seen that guy went
a wall a few years back and then returned to
his own volition, and ever since then he's been having
(03:46):
dreams where he's obviously back outside hunting things. And he
also snores, And one time he snored so loudly that
he woke himself up and then turned and shot a
poison glance my way, screamed at me, and instantly went
back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
What did you do? Me? Up? Right?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right right? Another phenomenon that's a good entry point, because
we know that dreams can Dreams are functionally another version
of reality that you experience in a specific series of
brain activity stages, and that vividness, the appearance of concrete
(04:29):
experienced reality is why again, if you sleep next to
someone all the time, it is why your girlfriend might
wake up mad at something you did in her dream.
Classic trope.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yep. I would just say that kind of thing occurs
a lot. I think that's probably universally and just your
significant other. Yeah, look at you a little different. When
you wake up in the morning. You're like, what's going on? Everything? Okay,
You're just a jerk.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right right? You're like, what, I just woke up too?
And then they're like, yeah, well, I guess I'll see
you on the lush, exotic coast of Belgium, asshole. And
you know what do you do but respond politely and
wait for people to get back and sync with the
waking world. We know more and more about brain activity
during dream states, but get this, even on May sixteenth, Friday,
(05:26):
twenty twenty five, human civilization still isn't sure why dreams
are a thing. No, Matt, you'll remember in our previous explorations,
I think we landed on the on a loose agreement
that the most plausible answer for dreams as and why
they're a thing. It goes down to the concept of
(05:48):
like defragging a hard drive and encoding memory, and that's
the most widely scientifically accepted explanation, but the debate continues.
And back in twenty twenty one, we had a interesting
conversation about a controversial ad campaign, and that is what
(06:11):
led to tonight's episode. You see, despite the fact that
people don't fully understand dreams and what this bizarre mental
activity is, civilization in the past few decades has made
stunning and we would posit somewhat disturbing progress toward manipulating dreams.
(06:32):
And that's where our story begins.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, it begins right after these words from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Here are the facts. What are dreams? All right? We're
not going to belabor our earlier complaints about how cartoonish
the idea of sleep is. To begin with. Dreaming is
literally and simply put, a hallucinatory experience that occurs to
some living organisms during sleep. Yep, it's hallucinating.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, it's extremely vivid images, sounds, all of your other
sensory equipment. It gets activated via that old brain you
got up in that head of yours, and it's pretty cool.
It's awesome. Actually, dreams can be fulfilling, dreams can be terrifying,
dreams can make you go out and try and fulfill
(07:31):
some vision that you saw while you were sleeping.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, and unless we sound like we're casting aspersions on
our much beloved pets, we've all been in a situation
where your nervous system gets confused about which reality you're in.
Because dreams are truly the first virtual reality. That is
(07:56):
what the series of hallucinations can be defined at. So
everybody's had that moment where you just sort of feel
like you're falling and who right, yeah, or you need
to move and you can't that sleep paralysis. Check out
our episodes on that. Please do do do do keep it.
Please check out our two part episode on whether dreams
(08:17):
have really predicted the future. For now, for us, the
most important thing to remember about this mental state is
the following. Like you alluded to, Matt, dreams have always
mystified humanity, and they've created a great deal of religious thought,
and they've also determined many real world events. The wars
(08:40):
have been inspired, right because somebody woke up having a
vivid dream that stayed with them upon waking. Religions have
been founded upon this civilization has hinged on these images
from the dark.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And you know, I've written multiple songs because I woke
up and I just couldn't get a thought out of
my head that was somehow conjured in those moments when
I was asleep. And I've done that with drawing as well,
where you just wake up here, what is this thing?
I have to get it down, whatever message was trying
(09:14):
to be conveyed to me by myself. I gotta put
this down.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah. Actually, I think I told you a few years back.
I do most of my best writing in the few
hours when I'm asleep, and then I wake up and go,
oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, just pour it out. Or
that old Mitch Hebberg joke, you know he has to
keep a notepad by his night stand because otherwise he
wakes up in the middle of the night, doesn't have
(09:40):
a way to write it down, and has to tell
himself the joke wasn't that good?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Well, because then it'll be gone. That is the thing,
dream journaling and all that stuff. If you don't get
it down immediately, your brain is going to start filling
in gaps and just make up other things, which could
be great if you're in a creative process.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Right sure, yeah, we And also, what, well, how about
this later on in tonight's episode, will teach you a
little pen and pad free mnemonic encoding device to help
you remember your dreams when you wake up, and it
does work. It's weird, but it's worth trying. So, like Matt,
(10:18):
you and I have a lot in common with countless
authors and musicians. Mary Shelley right, Frankenstein. Paul McCartney credits
a lot of his musical endeavors to experiences in his
dream state. We also know this is not restricted to
what we would call quote unquote creative pursuits, even though
(10:41):
I think science is inherently a creative pursuit. Scientists like
Neils Bohr have made some of their greatest discoveries while
literally asleep. As we all know, Borr, who is considered
the father of quantum mechanics, He repeatedly throughout his later
life credited his discovery of the structure of the atom
(11:04):
to a dream. He said, look, I was just having
a regular day, regular night.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
He ate his soup and rude of begas or his
case idella whatever Niels Porn was eating, and he goes
to sleep, regular guy. He starts dreaming about atoms, and
he vividly sees it is burned into his brain. The
nucleus of the atom, the electrons and the passages they
(11:31):
spin in orbit around it, the way the planets spin
around the Sun. And he wakes up and he goes,
holy shit.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly what he said. Well, if we
think about dreams as specifically defragging the hard drive that
is your mind and your neural connections, and then we
imagine that every thought and every reference, every word, all
of the things that you have to be able to
produce as language and to have thoughts are connections between
(12:01):
different neurons. Right sure, yep. And if we are defragging,
we've maybe learned about seventeen different things in one day,
and then we've got some older memories packed in there
that we defrag the right way in our dreaming state,
and that connection gets made without us being consciously aware
of it, and then you wake up and now it's there.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And riddle me this, because this verge is onto something
fascinating that has still yet to be explained. Let's walk
through it. So we know that different avenues of receiving
external stimuli process memory in different ways. Smell and taste
(12:43):
are extremely powerful. That's right. That's why, right now, if
we ask you friends and neighbors to recall your favorite smell,
it's gonna pop in your head. It's not just gonna
pop in your head. A series of favorite smells are
gonna pop in your head, along with associate images and
maybe the sense of time and what you experienced it.
(13:04):
So this is what mystifies me. Folks. Why why are
dreams often not reported in terms of smell or olfactory stimuli?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't have that thing. I can't think about a smell.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Most people don't dream, don't encounter smells when they're dreaming.
And if you do, please let us know, because you
would be a fascinating outlier. Right, this is something I
think it. I think it goes down to the way
smell and taste in code into the brain. I really
(13:42):
think that's it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sorry, I was gonna be I was gonna make a
joke about you know, if you're if you're getting actively
Dutch ovens while asleep and you're unaware of it, then
you could probably sense smell while you're dreaming.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, don't call us, call call the pot police. Yeah,
law in order, poop police. Boom boom, Oh wow, you're
gonna get sued, no joke left behind anyway. So I
(14:15):
love that man in these and other cases, though, we
do see the science and dreaming at play, right, And
you and I have known each other for quite some time,
and we've talked consistently over the years about the nature
of lucid dreaming. Don't make fun of us. Matt and
I do share our dreams with each other. We have
(14:36):
also encountered lectures and courses and even technology that's designed
to inculcate lucid dreaming to help you understand the symbols
or interpretations of what you see, journaling exercises like you mentioned.
This is valuable stuff. And the thing that I'm not
(14:57):
going to speak for you, But the thing that bugs
me often about skepticism in this regard is that a
lot of the more skeptical of us will dismiss dreams
as little bore than, like a knock on cool side
effect of evolution. Right, But then we have to ask
what happened if Matt forgot the song that he learned
(15:21):
in his dream. What happens if Neil's Boorr just forgets
the structure of atoms? What happens if that legendary sleepy
little patent cleric Albert Einstein ignores his own slumbering visions
on the principle of relativity and the nature of the
observable universe.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, then all of our sleep just becomes blackness, nothingness,
the void itself.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I'd be fine with that, man. There's a reason I
don't sleep often. It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Oh no, I get it. Dream that is something we
should talk about. Dreams can also be the worst thing ever,
especially if you've got traumatic experiences in the waking world.
By I've been there, I think maybe a lot of
us have, where the moment you fall asleep, it is
feels like torture almost, because you're just back there.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I also, you know what I hate. This may be
symptomatic of a larger mental issue, but I can't remember
if I told you this. The majority of my dreams
exist in an interconnected universe. They're aware of each other.
They reference earlier stuff. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well, you're actually fine. An ancient vampire, right, and what else?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Is the spirits of the dead. No, it's seriously, it's
weird stuff. Man, Like that is cool.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That's like a superpower though, because you could build that
universe like here if you wanted.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To, Man, I don't know, Like I haven't told you
all the stuff. It's the lore is deep and it's
like I want to reboot oh Ya again. But anyway,
it doesn't matter. We're not here to talking about me.
We're here to talk about the fact that people have
been interpreting dreams. We've been human civilization has been trying
(17:16):
to understand what the heck this is and why it
exists since before humans figured out how to write things down.
And it's a thriving industry today. I don't want to
put you too far on the spot, but do you
ever do you ever have a dream that sent you
to the Internet? Do you ever just do a quick
google on dream symbolism?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Generally no, But I have weird stuff Like the other night,
Jimmy Fallon and Chloe Feinman and I were hanging out
and for some reason drinking absence Like, but that was cool.
It wasn't haunting, it wasn't scary, it was just great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, it's just a moment that happens, you know what
I mean. Also, also, folks, from just a production perspective,
please respect your brain. It is doing new shows every
single time you fall asleep, you know what I mean. Yeah,
not all of them are going to be terrible. Some
will be great, and then some will be Like I
(18:13):
had one where I had to drive from one dream
to another, and time is tricky in this virtual reality,
but it was literally two and a half hours that
I remember where I'm just driving and listening to light
instrumental music.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's beautiful, man. I don't know, man, Well, it's a
weird thing because time doesn't work the same in dreams.
I don't know if anybody has experienced this, but I
took a nap. In total, it was fifteen minutes, just
like lay your head down. For me, it was literally
in between two meetings because I just couldn't keep my
eyes open laid down. I thought it was days in
(18:58):
a dream like I thought so much time had passed,
but it was, no, it was It was less than
fifteen minutes. So it is a weird thing that we
can perceive that stuff even when in this space, this reality,
it's only been a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, I remember similar experiences. I think we've all had
some time or linear time parkour in dreams, which is
one of the one of the coolest branches of the
concept of dreaming, and there is a modern scientifically respected
(19:36):
version of dream study owneurology O N E I R
O L O G. Why it's branch of psychology, and
they're not really trying to do the Freudian Youngian interpretation
of you know, what does this blue tiger mean? Right?
(19:56):
Why does it pursue you? Or things like that. What
they're doing instead is exploring the process of dreaming and
further attempting to correlate the nature of the lived experience
of the dream to the activity in the human brain
on a physical neurological level, and then also to understand
(20:18):
how it relates to memory formation, how it may relate
to mental disorders and other I don't love the term,
but other divergent conditions. That's how it's often put in literature.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That word reminds me of oni. The concept of oni.
Isn't that a specific type of yokai like a yes demon, right,
which makes you think of nightmares, which makes me think
of like the when we looked up the origins of
that concept, Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Okay, nightmares that's sleep paralysis episode was a banger and
also interesting. If we want to go YOUNGI in just
for a moment, I believe Eve, and I'm not gonna
I'm not going to google it. Let's see if I'm right.
I believe that an one is subterranean trogoladitic. I believe
(21:11):
they're found in caves, in deep places, which Young would
just love.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Deep within the recesses of the folds of your mind.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Dude, Young would be Okay. If you had to pick
between hanging out with Freud or hanging out with Carl Young,
I'm gonna say it, I would probably go Young. Freud
feels like a very smart dude who could be a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I'm going with Freud so I can get to Berne's.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He'll say, why do you keep asking about my nephew.
We're supposed to sit over here, lick these cigars and
not think of penises. Freud was crazy, dude. I feel
like enough time has passed right that I can say
that he was He was, Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
He was protecting. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
He proposed and projected a lot of interesting concepts. But
and look, a lot of people struggle with substance abuse.
But that guy apparently loved cocaine.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Who doesn't. I'm just joding me. I don't know. Yeah,
I don't know what that's.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Like me neither. I think I'll leave that experience unexperienced.
I'll just read Freud, I guess anyway. So, fellow oeneurologist
in the crowd, awake and asleep. We know this sounds
a little dry, maybe disappointing, but please trust us. There
is bizarre stuff ahead. We have been fascinated by the
(22:39):
concept of well you'll see. We'll pause for a word
from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,
there turns out right it's an ancient science interpreting dreams,
(23:01):
figuring out what dreams mean. There are in recent decades fascinating,
fascinating experiments into the nature of dreams. The more passive
stuff is observing what happens in a brain when a
dream occurs. And then you get to the idea of
(23:21):
enabling that dream world or the dreamer to communicate with
the waking world. And then you get into Flutson with
a dream, you know what I mean, touching it just
a little. What dreams may come rated.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Film dreams.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Got to and everybody knows how we spelled that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Oh yeah, okay, Well, the thing that I think fascinated
us pretty recently. Back in January, we found this story
about a company that was trying to do this kind
of stuff. How do we unli the power of dreams? Right?
And how do we even potentially connect people via dreams
(24:08):
the way we would connect people in an alternate reality
space or a virtual reality space by making their senses
via you know, Wi Fi signaling see each other, hear
each other, and potentially even feel each other.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Right. Which avenue of sensory stimuli can we hack? You know?
What I mean? Is where we get down to it.
This is a response to an ancient thing that is
problematic for a lot of scientists, and I will confess
(24:46):
in my various misadventures it has been problematic and difficult
for me to explain as well. Folks, you have perhaps
felt that you have communicated with a loved one or
a quaint since what's that old trope? There are no
strangers in dreams. Someone reached out to you. And this
(25:06):
idea is ubiquitous. It exists across time and cultures, and
modern science overwhelmingly says, you know, clap trap, hogwash they do.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Until again, this group came along and said, well, let's
at least give it a try. Let's see if we
can make it happen. And by the way, the person
acquaintance unknown, whoever it is that we feel is communicating
to us in our dream, that can be a living person,
that can be a like again, like for some reason,
Jimmy Fallon was all about like encouragement and stuff in
(25:44):
my dream. I don't know why. I don't know the dude,
but he was. But he could also be somebody who's
passed on already, right, or maybe somebody from history that
we that we know and love, or somebody we have
we've never met before, right or could never have met.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Right or because we're also immediately you the observer and
the dream you are gifted with dream logic, which means
when you meet someone. That's why we say you no strangers. Really,
when you meet someone, you immediately know key things about them,
key visceral things.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yep, and they you because they are you. You are you,
and they are you. We are us. What's happening? Okay,
So let's get to this company. Yes, it is in California.
It's called rem Space r E M space. That's one word. Uh.
They put out several studies and some a bunch of
(26:43):
PR stuff, to be fair, like a lot of this
is prs, a.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Lot of a lot of PR.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Including like diagrams and videos, and.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
So much so that I believe both of your faithful
correspondence folks struggle to find the actual you know what
I mean. But it sounds awesome, So let's just it
sounds cool, dream with us, Okay, Matt, what's happening.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, they're able to connect two people who are experiencing
some form or level of lucid dreaming to then be
able to send one signal from one dreamer via Wi
Fi through their system out to the other side to
another human being sleeping far far away, also lucid dreaming.
Then then that person received a signal from the other
(27:36):
person and was able to then repeat it.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, exactly. So they're using and again this is a
startup and it is hoping to monetize what we're exploring.
That's an important thing for later. This experiment uses, as
you said, Matt, just your average brain monitoring equipment, the
server and the Wi Fi or key. The researchers use
(28:03):
the brain monitoring equipment to watch in real time the
action and activity of the brain and then when they
receive the signal that indicates the participant has entered a
hypnogogic or lucid dream state. Then the server, not the researchers,
(28:24):
the server creates a word in such like some sort
of specific quote unquote unique language word, which is how
we know this A is pr and not science. And
so it said, the server creates this thing, and it
sends it to now our hypnogogic or lucid sleeper via
(28:44):
earbuds that they're wearing as they enter that state, and
they are still dreaming, but they can still hear the
outside world. So they repeat the word in whatever the
hell a unique language means.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And these are sitting there sleeping, and then they say
it out loud in their body. They dream it somehow.
Then the clock it. The researchers understand that that's.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
What happens, because they measure they can see according to
what we understand. The the brain monitoring equipment indicates a
change such that you would know someone that has received
and repeated to themselves internally information. And now, of course
(29:31):
if we're at that state of lucid dreaming, or if
we're between full wake and full sleep, then yeah, it's
possible that someone just went someone went oh, I see
or whatever, but that's not what we're looking for, and
so small window of time passes in the real world, right,
(29:52):
I know, we're getting very inception with this. The second
sleeper has entered their lucid dream state, they receive that
saved message from the server, and then they wake up
and they repeat the word that they learned communicated in
(30:13):
a dream state to a dream state, yet still created
and entirely dependent upon the server and the Wi Fi.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, that's where it's a little weird. I think when
you look at some of the materials that rem Space
is put forward, it feels as though it sounds as though,
if you don't get dived too deep into it, as
though the Lucid dreamer created a message and sent it
to the second Lucid dreamer and they were lucid dreaming simultaneously.
(30:44):
And it feels as though, at least to some of
their materials, that it's happening in real time, like the
sleepers are just communicating with each other. But that is
not at least what we understand to be happening. It
is all their their tech basically that is doing all
of this stuff. But potentially cool if you had two
(31:05):
eight comms in dream states. I don't know, man, no,
I think. In the episode when we first brought up,
we talked about long distance relationships and how interesting it
would be to actually connect. You know, there's a saying
if I don't know if anybody else has this experience,
but like saying good night going to Ben's sing, I'll
see in the dreams, Cabra, I'll see out there in
(31:26):
the dreams, And you say it as a hopeful thing,
a sweet thing. Sure, what if you could actually flick
on a machine, put a little something on your head
and nay, now we're out there in dream world together.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Interesting? That interesting that you would bring up that part specifically,
because that aspect of our conversation stayed with me as well.
We know for this right, like what we're describing, according
to the PR is the ideal next step for r
EM space. But what we see, even with this tech
(32:02):
reliant proof of concept, is the first known instance of
communication between people whom are both in a dream state
a sender and a receiver exists. Right. This also follows
up on an earlier experiment from twenty twenty one, which
was a big year actually for dream science researchers. Well,
(32:29):
there was this sort of justice League or Avengers or
x men of researchers from multiple countries who collaborated. And
this is led by a guy named Ken pallor cognitive
neuroscientist over in Illinois at Northwestern, and they are able
(32:49):
to create dialogue between a person in a dream state
and a fully awake scientist. It's not a very long
conversation at all, but it is interesting. I don't know
if it's long enough for us to do a classic
like stuff. They don't want you to know reenactment, but
(33:13):
maybe we just do the lines together.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh no, let's tell you this. Okay, I will play
the scientist. If you don't mind, Ben, please play the sleeper.
Here we go. Scientist says eight minus six.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Eight two.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Eureka, guys, what happened?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was so asleep? Man, I was sleeping, definitely, man.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Shout out to all of us who are so impressed
that somewhat did math while asleep.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah. I don't even know if you're supposed to be
able to do that, man.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, we have to check with sleep police.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love how we're just inventing police departments. Now we
got poop police. We got sleep police.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Uh huh, we got Java police. They said that you've
had enough coffee, as he drinks a monster coffee.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Job police arrest this.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That's a good one too.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh yeah, guys, we are drinking canned coffee because.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's just not the same when it's in a cup,
but if it's in a can, and he goes.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I dreamed that you said that, So so okay, look
eight minus six. Our scientist, Frederick, Doctor Frederick says eight
minus six to a sleeping person, and our patient says,
I essentially I hear you, and here is the answer.
(34:57):
So I know this is not in this barely freezed
as an interrogative. It's just the three words eight minus six,
and the sleeper, despite not being awake, immediately recognizes, interprets,
analyzes this as a math conversation, and then produces the result.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, well amazing. So it's not the same as what
rem Space claims to have done, but it is pretty
cool to be able to send a message out into
that dream world and then get a response. It kind
of reminds me of some of the sci fi tropes
where you've got somebody going through like a portal or something,
or even someone going down into the depths of the ocean,
(35:43):
and there's still communication between the surface world and then
the depths of the ocean where just someone else is
exploring out in an unknown, unseen place, and then people
back in you know, the waking real, you know, whatever
we call real world, can then talk to that person
and see what they're discovering. I don't know, I'm sorry,
(36:06):
I'm having a hard time even like phrasing these things correctly.
But I'm imagining the dreamscape as another world to be explored,
another reality to be explored.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
One hundred percent. Yes, like the high heavens, the deep
ink of space, and the ocean and the seas. It
also reminds me of I don't know if there are
any fans of the television series Fringe.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
In the crowd.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yes, but remember, dude, yeah, I know we are. But
remember the entangled typewriters. This is a slight spoiler three
two one. These people and characters and entities are able
to communicate across various planes of existence through putting a
(36:56):
mirror next to a special kind of typewriter and typing
one thing in their reality and then seeing a message
typed out on the mirror.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Oh, it is so cool, so good that show gives
me frision.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Is excited to meadows on board. We also know that
depending on how further research works out REM Space and
other startups or initiatives like it, some of which, by
the way, are federally or militarily funded, they may pave
the way for brand new approaches to things like treating
(37:40):
PTSD or anxiety, along with some other stuff that we'll
talk about after the next ad break. We do have
to Matt, We've got to say it. Michael Riduga is
the founder and CEO of rem Space, and he is
pretty ambitious in his statements about it. He says the
follow in multiple PR communicats. Quote yesterday, communicating and dreams
(38:06):
seemed like science fiction. Tomorrow it will be so common
we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology. Ambitious,
you know, man's reach must exceed his grasp. Else what's
a heaven for? And however the old poem goes. But
also full disclosure, Reduga has made some controversial moves in
(38:28):
the past. He did put a chip in his own skull.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, he gave himself brain surgery with a home depot
drill and it wasn't from home depot, but you know,
a drill that you would use for wood and stuff.
And then he had to get it removed because you know,
he put a chip in his own brain at his
own house, which almost died. Like we admire.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Well officially he said personal reasons. Yeah, but I think
being alive as a personal reason ambitious. This man is ambitious.
This man is all to say. When you think about it,
it's an exciting time to be asleep.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Weird.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Exciting doesn't always mean good. What if we take a
break for a word from our sponsors here, and then,
as they say on the LA leaguers, we get to
the chicken. I think there's something you and I are
both excited slash terrified to explore.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Let's do it, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
This is the thing that stayed with us the most
and really informs our exploration tonight, Matt. As you and
I alluded to earlier, the same innovations that allow for
potential anxiety or trauma treatment, the same innovations that allow
(39:59):
for or potentially better communication between people, also, inevitably, just
like nuclear research, lead us to the dark side, the
troubling stuff. What if by the same the same methods
used to observe and help people in a dream state.
(40:22):
What if we could manipulate it, put a thug on
the scale.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
What if that scientist instead of saying eight minus six
said drink core's light.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yes, yes, exactly. And I loved when we talked about
this back in twenty twenty one in our Strange News program.
The year before that, in twenty twenty researchers over at MIT,
which is a kind of good school. They are they're
(40:56):
gonna be so bad. All right, it's fine as school.
I'm kidding. Oh my gosh, they're gonna kill us anyway.
Media they have a thing called Media Lab Fluid Interfaces.
This is a group that created something called targeted dream
Incubation or TDI. The technology or the approach, the methodology
(41:20):
they deploy is new, but the concept isn't. You can
read some great, some great work by a journalist named
Sophia Motino about this, writing for Science and she just
describes the following. You know, dream incubation is, in my opinion,
something familiar to anybody who's played a video game too
(41:43):
long before bed. It's where images sounds, repetitive, sensory cues
shape the content of the hallucinations you have in your
sleeping state. And Sophia goes on to note this is
an ancient people throughout history had rituals techniques to try
(42:04):
to change the content of your dreams. That's why in
the Western world, that's why people pray before bedtime, you
know what I mean, Let God shepherd me through the
night and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, it's a cool it's one of the reasons people
do a lot of research before bed, meditate, often create art,
write songs. I mean, some of the things that you
do right before bed tend to find their way into
your dreams, at least most vividly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, And that makes sense because if we encounter a
sort of sedimentary accretion theory of stimulus before you leave
the waking world, then you could argue that the stuff
at the top, the soil at the top, is going
(42:58):
to be the things that the shovel hits first.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Right or last. It could be either right, and then
it just depends on we don't really know if the
brain goes from the bottom up like what we learned today, Okay,
going from the bottom up to the top of the thing.
The last thing you learn or does it start from
the top, as you're saying, go down.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And we don't know whether certain let's call them elements.
I'm loving this analogy, by the way, may have more weight, right,
and metaphorical weight because of the variables of previous holes
dug right, previous shovels, things that this is where we
enter recurrent content. Right. The nightmares that haunt you are
(43:38):
the We're just gonna let that one go.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It's just your brain going, oh crap. We really haven't
dealt with that yet. We're trying to, but we can't.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Yeah, so we know that people would, like you said, Matt,
people would meditate, People might do a creative act like journaling, writing, sculpting, painting, sketching, praying,
of course, And sorry, I got that wrong. I'm not
an expert on the Christianity stuff. It's now I lay
(44:10):
me down to sleep, not God shepherd me through the night.
I think that's a different religion. It's now I lay
me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul
to keep I.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Mean that's one of the Yeah, that's one of the prayers.
There's so many, dude.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
What's the cool one?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Uh me this night? No, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
To the glorious dead and also me falling asleep on
the couch watching Police Academy five.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
You hold the septa, we hold the key. You are
the devil, we are an e. I think that's how
it goes.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
That's amazing and that's a tribute. Yeah, So shout out
to the fellow nerds who enjoyed that. Oh, Noel would
have had chuckle at that too. So all right. People
would also use drugs, right, And this we see reflected
in things like the concept of sipping a nightcap or
(45:10):
the an alcoholic beverage before bed, or for instance, people
who ingest cannabis right, or take any number of pill medications,
et cetera. Yes, yes, exactly. Which what an amazing word, right.
(45:31):
It sounds like it does something. It does it does something,
but it sounds like it's a real word, and it's
very much not a real word.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Sleep drive to Kroger. That's what it does.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Right. Oh and then if you ever misbehave on social media,
blame it on the ambient anyway. So TDI targeted dream incubation.
It is the in this sense before the thing we're
about to get into. It is the combination of an
app and a wearable sleep tracking sensor device. Things that
(46:10):
you and I were I think both contemplating for a while.
Did you ever pull the trigger on that, like the
like the lucid dream goggle thing.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Oh no, I never, I never tried it. I would
love to, though, I would really really like to do that.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It'd be interesting. If you want to read more about this, folks,
check out the paper that the people at MIT. I'm laughing, Dylan,
so as a joke that the check out the paper
the people at MIT wrote called dormio a targeted dream
incubation device. So yes, we talked about the good stuff.
The technology in this paper can plausibly help address issues
(46:51):
by redirecting your dreaming mind, getting you to dwell on
something else. When it turns out, the world of dream
research it includes some potential nightmares all its own.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
All right.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
So in step with all of this related interesting inspirational
research we've been exploring, multiple organizations are looking into the
concept of engineering dreams not for mental health, but instead
to sell you stuff. And Matt, I don't know which
(47:25):
where do we start unpacking this. What's the one that
stood out the most to you?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
The stuff that's one of the most was the cores
light or the cores, mulsen, cores, whatever it is. The
companies that wanted it was, look, we have to put
this out there. It was part of a commercial campaign. Yesay,
so what we're telling you was kind of happening, but
it was also a tongue in cheek commercial thing. And
it's hard to know where the line is between what
(47:53):
the company actually wanted to do and then what they
wanted to do just to sell more of their product.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And of the eighteen people that we're going to reference
in the study, all consented to participate with advanced knowledge
of what was happening, and twelve were paid actors.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yes. Absolutely, So let's just get into what I This
is what I recall from our previous discussion. The hope
that at least Cores had was that if they played
sounds of nature of certain types of water, of a
chili landscape, the imagery of mountains and clouds and all
(48:33):
of these things, that it would it would make the user,
let's say, the experiencer in the dream state, think of cores,
tap the rockies, cores, ice cold, forged in ice. You know,
all of these concepts that have been a part of
the cores mythos thinking of these things would have them
(48:55):
want and desire cores.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Cours the beers so good, you can drink it with your.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Mouth, that's right, that's right. Yeah. But but yeah, that
was interesting to me. The concept of not directly stating
within somebody's dream and you know, pumping in audio that
says drink more, corese drink more. Course, it was let's
give them the experience of the things that they associate
positively with our product. Maybe they will then purchase.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
It right, right, And they had to be quite careful
with the idea of, as you're saying, explicitly telling people
to go buy something right. They wanted to avoid that
part that.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Would fall under subliminal messaging and a bunch of other
things that would probably get sticky legal wise. This is
a this is more fun science.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
This is more look at us, fellow humans. We're in corporation,
but we're cool. We're in fact, we're not cool. We're cores.
So TDI targeted dream incubation. Like you said, it's you
could call it. We could call it an ad campaign
or ad stunt. They might call it or an activation.
(50:07):
Heaven forfend it's the twenty twenty one Super Bowl, right,
one of the most pivotal moments in advertising year over year.
So there are one hundred almost one hundred million people
watching the super Bowl one way or another. Uh, And
they wanted to alter cores, wanted to alter dreams of
(50:29):
viewers the night before the game. They wanted them to
dream about cores and then buy corps while they're watching
the Super Bowl the next day. That's the idea, that's
what they're They're already selling the idea, right, And this
was I love that you pointed out. It's already kind
(50:50):
of a a story, right, it's a story we're telling.
And even you know. The interesting thing and I'm sure
they talked about this. The interesting thing is it increases
visibility enough just the reporting about this that people are
gonna be thinking, of course, even if they're not one
(51:11):
of the eighteen people who participated in this study.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, it's a little weird. It feels like a crambling production.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yeah, yes, Oh my gosh, it is a crambling production.
Detroiters is so good. Please check it out, bolts and
join us and pushing for a season three please? Yeah,
and then we have no we we have a lot
of examples from the world of gaming. Xbox U use
TDI in what you could arguably calls another ad stunt
(51:48):
to have pro gamers primed to dream of their favorite
video games, PlayStation latched onto something we've already known about, Tetris.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
They said, we can create a Tetris game based on
this sleep study. And the study shows that if you
play enough Tetris, you dream about Tetris. And I think
we've all been there at one point or another.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Well, Scientific American has talked about that, that Tetris study dreams. Yeah, like,
why are there test? Why do we all have Tetris dreams?
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Yeah, you can go to science dot org. The study
that launched one thousand ships comes out in October of
two thousand, replaying the game Hypnagogic Images in normals and amnesiacs. Okay,
the title is something we're going to move past, but
(52:48):
but it is. It is an experience, right, and it
shows us a lot about how dream incubation can work
because Tetris just has you know, a small set of
shapes that move in a predictable pattern, and you are
participating in that pattern. You are programming yourself to experience
(53:09):
a routine yet interactive series of stimuli.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
See. The next thing is, can we alter perception within
those Tetris dreams so that we become each individual piece
as we plunge faster and faster down towards whatever shape
we're becoming and making interesting.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
I like it the adult argument there, Yes, Tetris. We're
hanging out later if you guys want to kick it.
We know that the vice president of marketing at Mulson
Coors again is back a few years ago, praised this
beverage company's strategy and said, this is never before seeing
(53:55):
form of advertising. I don't know why. It sounds like
a British villain, but agreed with the VP at course,
and they also said, not only have we never seed
this before, we never want to see it again.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Oh yeah, no, Well, imagine imagine what happens if all
of us, at some point in the near future have
access to our dream world via some app, via some
device that was pretty ubiquitous, and it's just something that
becomes popular and now we're all doing it. Imagine if
(54:31):
those dreams can be invaded with ad space, right, yeah,
what happens?
Speaker 3 (54:38):
Right in twenty twenty one a group of around forty
real life honorologists dream researchers. They got so concerned about
this that they penned an open letter calling, most importantly
for regulation of what they see as an emergent industry.
You know, and as you were saying, Matt, They're concerns
(55:00):
are pretty valid. The idea is, Look, human civilization is
already monitored at a much more invasive level than at
any other point in history. So dreams and your inner
thoughts for now remain the last sacrisanct areas, the last
truly private places. And we know external stimuli like sound, smells, lights, speech,
(55:25):
that can affect what you're dreaming about, for example, falling
asleep while watching a movie or listening to your favorite podcast.
A lot of people are thoroughly creeped out by having
some external entity seek to not just infiltrate, but to
control your dream state, even if only briefly, even with
(55:47):
the best of intentions. This is my house, you know
what I mean. We don't take walk ins.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
We already know that trice a Lawrence can get in
there without us knowing. So you know, if we can
avoid them, probably not, but we could probably legislate out
of letting. I don't know, Microsoft hang out in our
brains and tell us to buy things right?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
Right? Right? Is there a world with no walls to face?
Just to keep going with that?
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Three?
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Okay, so we know we want to give a shout
out to a cognitive scientist, Adam Harr. Adam Harr points
out he was a participant in this open letter and
he speaks to some of our concerns. He points out
the second big issue with dream advertising is that quote
people are particularly vulnerable to suggestion when they are asleep.
(56:42):
He also, he's not some guy outside of a deli
that they asked about this. He might have been outside
of a deli. But before he did any of that,
he invented a glove that helps with dream targeting. It
helps to steer people towards specific subjects in certain stages
of the sleep cycle. And to your point, Matt, by
(57:04):
twenty twenty one, this guy had already been contacted over
a number of years by Microsoft, other giant corporations, and
oddly enough, to airlines, two separate airlines. They wanted him
to help them work on dream incubation. He was not
super opposed to this. It's fascinating research he's a brilliant person,
(57:28):
but he is a moral person such that he feels
uncomfortable monetizing this technology and his work for the purpose
of advertisements. I mean, let's think about it this way.
You know, you're listening if you're awake, and you and
Matt and Dylan and myself are waking brains have all
(57:51):
these tricks and barriers that allow for things like skepticism,
analysis and critical thought. You know, like Matt, when you
hear a commercial these days, do you immediately say, crap,
I have to buy this now?
Speaker 2 (58:08):
Yeah, I say Google, buy me that thing.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
That's why you have so many that things.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, they're everywhere.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
Thing one, thing, two. There are more boxes, boxes of
things and stuff. So this is a mission critical point
because those same processes are processes whatever you prefer. They
don't work the same way when you're asleep. So we
could hear you could hear us while you're awake saying
(58:39):
something like, behold the lush, exotic coast of Belgium, brought
to you by Illumination Global Unlimited. Buy a ticket today.
You could hear that over and over while you're awake,
and it's going to give you pause because you know, Belgium.
Great Belgium is a fantastic place. It is not known
for its lush, exotic coast That makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
But if you they're there, are people gonna wake up
and they're going to be thinking about that. I go
to Belgium, but I want to go to the beach.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Because it's your partner is going, why are we going
to Belgium? And you're like the lush, exotic coastline. But
I mean, that's that's the fear, right. This technology is
not meant to cause harm. But how could dream incubation
(59:32):
affect folks who have addictions to gambling or drugs or
you know whatever compulsive behavior. If they're asleep, they don't
have the ability to remove themselves from that core's advertisement,
and they don't have the ability to prevent exposure to
known triggers. You know, like all of a sudden, I'm
(59:52):
asleep and all of a sudden, I have an invasive
dream about Blackjack.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Oh, oh, casino.
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Right, This stake's native advertising to a new level. I
know we're running along, let's maybe not. What do you say,
can we walk a little further into the dark?
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Oh yeah, sure, let's go the darkness of your dreams
and our dreams. To be sure, what about other interfaces
that we haven't thought about, that haven't been invented yet.
Things Again, like we're talking about some device, some small
probably a teeny tiny little thing that's ergonomic for your
head when you wear it, and it's gonna be comfortable
(01:00:34):
at night, and you're gonna want to wear it because
it's gonna make you sleep better. It's gonna be nice.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
How can you sleep without it? Is what they're hoping,
you ask yourself after about four months?
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, well, then what happens when they come out with
a version that, oh, well, we can actually just implant this. Now,
you can just get this in your brain the way
our friend did with his drill, except it'll be in
a safe but it'll be in a safe surgical environment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yes, we're calling it trepanation. Plus. It's part of your
it's part of your US citizenship plus membership. Imagine a world.
I know it sounds like we're being weird, but imagine
a world where giant tech companies like Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon,
they create sleep technology that becomes normalized. And maybe what
(01:01:24):
if it to your point about everybody wearing one, what
if it becomes another aspect of social media. Like in
their heyday, everybody had to have a TikTok or a
Facebook account, so you are expected to do this, and
now you can pay extra to avoid some ads, and
now these corporations who own the platform have a gargantuan
(01:01:45):
new revenue stream. One of the dumbest examples. Okay, everybody
has their micro sleep or their metasoft or whatever, and
now they are telling advertisers, we can get into people's
dreams for you. If you are Mattel or Lago, how
much are you going to pay for literal dream ad
(01:02:08):
space across a given demographic right before Christmas?
Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Especially for kids? How young before you get an implant? Yeah,
listen to tomorrow's Monsters. That's a show created by Dan
Bush and it is about this very thing. It's an
exploration of this concept of like sleep and how can
we capture sleep.
Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Yes, I remember that I'm a fan of Dan on
a personal level, and Matt, you and he have worked
together for a while. We do have another this is
a tangent, but we have another new show by Dan
and team that we'd love to recommend.
Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Oh yeah, listen to a Live again right now. Alive again.
Check it out. It's all about, well, it's all about
a lot of things, but mostly it's near death experiences
and what consciousness does when it's outside of this reality
that we all.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Experience another brief hypnogogic experience right the line between life
and death. And just like dreams, emerging from an NDE
has also a tremendous effect on individual lives and on
the course of human history. Honestly, this all goes in
(01:03:25):
so many directions. We also know. Another concern for people
are against dream incubation is the idea that all of
this tech will inevitably create another revenue stream by harvesting
the user data sleep patterns, brain activity, behavior before, after,
(01:03:46):
and during sleep. And this sounds sci fi, but we
have to remember this occurs in step with previously established
technology like the breakthrough back in twenty thirteen where Japanese
researchers leveraged MRI scans to go into the minds of
sleeping people and generate like printouts of the images they
(01:04:11):
saw while they slumbered.
Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
That's a big note things.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Yeah that's past. Yeah for me that.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
I really don't I honestly don't even really want to know.
Sometimes where my jams go.
Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
I'll draw it myself. If it's that important, I will,
you know, and I respect the science. It is amazing.
These are brilliant, well intentioned people. But it might be
a rubicon too far. You know, dreams are baffling, they're inspiring,
they're joyous, they're terrifying, they're amazing. We are on the
cusp of a new paradigm where again, if you want
(01:04:48):
to be optimistic about it, the bleeding edge of science
is leading us to deeper nize spiritual questions about the
nature of consciousness and the thing called the soul and
how it experiences it health or you're gonna wake up
thinking I can't believe I could get fifteen percent off
a cheeseburger.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Today, zero percent down on that new Toyota.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Holy kra hon hon, wake up, you were talking in
your sleep again. Oh what was it about. It's about
the great deals for the Toyota Camry.
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Oh my god, you said. Honda Odyssey has their top
line models on sale this month.
Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
It's perfect for the lush, exotic coast of Belgium. We
have to go. Tell us, folks, would you trade off
your privacy and the secrets of your dream state. If so,
what would be your price? If not, tell us why not?
For a lot of us, We have to realize this
is the stuff we don't want them to know. So
(01:05:48):
let us know your thoughts so you can find us
online conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff, show any derivation thereof on
the social meat you might sip. You can also pop
by our email address or just give us a call
on our telephone number.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Our number is one eight three three st DWYTK. It's
a voicemail system. When you call in, give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know in the message if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you've got more to say, they can fit in
a three minute voicemail. Maybe you've got links, maybe you've
got attachments. Why don't you send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, So get hypnagogic. Join us in this liminal
state conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Gol is on an adventure, but will return shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Shout out to everyone
who has this plane on some kind of automatic shuffle
(00:53):
or playlist as they are slumbering sleeping listeners. We welcome
you to tonight's episode, which is all about dreams. Dreams, dreams.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right. You may even be aware and awake at
this point in the show, but very soon you will
drift off. What you dream will be directly influenced by what.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You hear eight minus six. We've had some fascinating explorations
of dreams in the past. We're talking about this and
related cognitive science off air. While back, we did a
two part episode on the concept of precognitive or clairvoyant dreams.
(01:34):
Dreams that, from the perspective of their supporters, dreams that
appear to predict the future, violating what we understand is
the laws of linear time and what we learned in
those episodes, it's weird. I went back and listened to
the matt and reread the research too. We went back
(01:55):
and listened to those episodes and reread the research, and
we found that the basic physiological or neurological phenomenon that
we call the dream is understood in that we know
it happens. We also know the other non human animals dream.
(02:19):
Do check out many video clips of octopuses that appear
to be dreaming. And Dylan and you and I were
having a little family time before we rolled, talking about
how much we enjoy our animals dreaming, like our pets are,
(02:39):
our dogs and cats and so on.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's pretty adorable, especially watching my dog dream, just watching
how animated her body is, where she will physically be running.
You can see her arms moving while she's laying on
her side as though she's chasing something, and then making
verbal sounds as though she's barking at something or up
said about something. Even it's fascinating. What makes you wonder
(03:04):
what we really do when we're asleep. And if you
sleep next to someone on the regular, maybe you've got
some reports of what your sleeping life is like. But
even they might be sleeping too in the times when
we're doing really wacky stuff, jogging in place, doing ninja stuff.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, and I've seen this. I've seen birds dream I've
seen an octopus stream. I've seen one of my cats
actually doesn't make a lot of appearances on here, the
cat with a thousand names. I've seen that guy went
a wall a few years back and then returned to
his own volition, and ever since then he's been having
(03:46):
dreams where he's obviously back outside hunting things. And he
also snores, And one time he snored so loudly that
he woke himself up and then turned and shot a
poison glance my way, screamed at me, and instantly went
back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
What did you do? Me? Up? Right?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right right? Another phenomenon that's a good entry point, because
we know that dreams can Dreams are functionally another version
of reality that you experience in a specific series of
brain activity stages, and that vividness, the appearance of concrete
(04:29):
experienced reality is why again, if you sleep next to
someone all the time, it is why your girlfriend might
wake up mad at something you did in her dream.
Classic trope.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yep. I would just say that kind of thing occurs
a lot. I think that's probably universally and just your
significant other. Yeah, look at you a little different. When
you wake up in the morning. You're like, what's going on? Everything? Okay,
You're just a jerk.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right right? You're like, what, I just woke up too?
And then they're like, yeah, well, I guess I'll see
you on the lush, exotic coast of Belgium, asshole. And
you know what do you do but respond politely and
wait for people to get back and sync with the
waking world. We know more and more about brain activity
during dream states, but get this, even on May sixteenth, Friday,
(05:26):
twenty twenty five, human civilization still isn't sure why dreams
are a thing. No, Matt, you'll remember in our previous explorations,
I think we landed on the on a loose agreement
that the most plausible answer for dreams as and why
they're a thing. It goes down to the concept of
(05:48):
like defragging a hard drive and encoding memory, and that's
the most widely scientifically accepted explanation, but the debate continues.
And back in twenty twenty one, we had a interesting
conversation about a controversial ad campaign, and that is what
(06:11):
led to tonight's episode. You see, despite the fact that
people don't fully understand dreams and what this bizarre mental
activity is, civilization in the past few decades has made
stunning and we would posit somewhat disturbing progress toward manipulating dreams.
(06:32):
And that's where our story begins.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, it begins right after these words from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Here are the facts. What are dreams? All right? We're
not going to belabor our earlier complaints about how cartoonish
the idea of sleep is. To begin with. Dreaming is
literally and simply put, a hallucinatory experience that occurs to
some living organisms during sleep. Yep, it's hallucinating.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, it's extremely vivid images, sounds, all of your other
sensory equipment. It gets activated via that old brain you
got up in that head of yours, and it's pretty cool.
It's awesome. Actually, dreams can be fulfilling, dreams can be terrifying,
dreams can make you go out and try and fulfill
(07:31):
some vision that you saw while you were sleeping.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, and unless we sound like we're casting aspersions on
our much beloved pets, we've all been in a situation
where your nervous system gets confused about which reality you're in.
Because dreams are truly the first virtual reality. That is
(07:56):
what the series of hallucinations can be defined at. So
everybody's had that moment where you just sort of feel
like you're falling and who right, yeah, or you need
to move and you can't that sleep paralysis. Check out
our episodes on that. Please do do do do keep it.
Please check out our two part episode on whether dreams
(08:17):
have really predicted the future. For now, for us, the
most important thing to remember about this mental state is
the following. Like you alluded to, Matt, dreams have always
mystified humanity, and they've created a great deal of religious thought,
and they've also determined many real world events. The wars
(08:40):
have been inspired, right because somebody woke up having a
vivid dream that stayed with them upon waking. Religions have
been founded upon this civilization has hinged on these images
from the dark.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And you know, I've written multiple songs because I woke
up and I just couldn't get a thought out of
my head that was somehow conjured in those moments when
I was asleep. And I've done that with drawing as well,
where you just wake up here, what is this thing?
I have to get it down, whatever message was trying
(09:14):
to be conveyed to me by myself. I gotta put
this down.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah. Actually, I think I told you a few years back.
I do most of my best writing in the few
hours when I'm asleep, and then I wake up and go,
oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, just pour it out. Or
that old Mitch Hebberg joke, you know he has to
keep a notepad by his night stand because otherwise he
wakes up in the middle of the night, doesn't have
(09:40):
a way to write it down, and has to tell
himself the joke wasn't that good?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Well, because then it'll be gone. That is the thing,
dream journaling and all that stuff. If you don't get
it down immediately, your brain is going to start filling
in gaps and just make up other things, which could
be great if you're in a creative process.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Right sure, yeah, we And also, what, well, how about
this later on in tonight's episode, will teach you a
little pen and pad free mnemonic encoding device to help
you remember your dreams when you wake up, and it
does work. It's weird, but it's worth trying. So, like Matt,
(10:18):
you and I have a lot in common with countless
authors and musicians. Mary Shelley right, Frankenstein. Paul McCartney credits
a lot of his musical endeavors to experiences in his
dream state. We also know this is not restricted to
what we would call quote unquote creative pursuits, even though
(10:41):
I think science is inherently a creative pursuit. Scientists like
Neils Bohr have made some of their greatest discoveries while
literally asleep. As we all know, Borr, who is considered
the father of quantum mechanics, He repeatedly throughout his later
life credited his discovery of the structure of the atom
(11:04):
to a dream. He said, look, I was just having
a regular day, regular night.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
He ate his soup and rude of begas or his
case idella whatever Niels Porn was eating, and he goes
to sleep, regular guy. He starts dreaming about atoms, and
he vividly sees it is burned into his brain. The
nucleus of the atom, the electrons and the passages they
(11:31):
spin in orbit around it, the way the planets spin
around the Sun. And he wakes up and he goes,
holy shit.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly what he said. Well, if we
think about dreams as specifically defragging the hard drive that
is your mind and your neural connections, and then we
imagine that every thought and every reference, every word, all
of the things that you have to be able to
produce as language and to have thoughts are connections between
(12:01):
different neurons. Right sure, yep. And if we are defragging,
we've maybe learned about seventeen different things in one day,
and then we've got some older memories packed in there
that we defrag the right way in our dreaming state,
and that connection gets made without us being consciously aware
of it, and then you wake up and now it's there.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And riddle me this, because this verge is onto something
fascinating that has still yet to be explained. Let's walk
through it. So we know that different avenues of receiving
external stimuli process memory in different ways. Smell and taste
(12:43):
are extremely powerful. That's right. That's why, right now, if
we ask you friends and neighbors to recall your favorite smell,
it's gonna pop in your head. It's not just gonna
pop in your head. A series of favorite smells are
gonna pop in your head, along with associate images and
maybe the sense of time and what you experienced it.
(13:04):
So this is what mystifies me. Folks. Why why are
dreams often not reported in terms of smell or olfactory stimuli?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't have that thing. I can't think about a smell.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Most people don't dream, don't encounter smells when they're dreaming.
And if you do, please let us know, because you
would be a fascinating outlier. Right, this is something I
think it. I think it goes down to the way
smell and taste in code into the brain. I really
(13:42):
think that's it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sorry, I was gonna be I was gonna make a
joke about you know, if you're if you're getting actively
Dutch ovens while asleep and you're unaware of it, then
you could probably sense smell while you're dreaming.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, don't call us, call call the pot police. Yeah,
law in order, poop police. Boom boom, Oh wow, you're
gonna get sued, no joke left behind anyway. So I
(14:15):
love that man in these and other cases, though, we
do see the science and dreaming at play, right, And
you and I have known each other for quite some time,
and we've talked consistently over the years about the nature
of lucid dreaming. Don't make fun of us. Matt and
I do share our dreams with each other. We have
(14:36):
also encountered lectures and courses and even technology that's designed
to inculcate lucid dreaming to help you understand the symbols
or interpretations of what you see, journaling exercises like you mentioned.
This is valuable stuff. And the thing that I'm not
(14:57):
going to speak for you, But the thing that bugs
me often about skepticism in this regard is that a
lot of the more skeptical of us will dismiss dreams
as little bore than, like a knock on cool side
effect of evolution. Right, But then we have to ask
what happened if Matt forgot the song that he learned
(15:21):
in his dream. What happens if Neil's Boorr just forgets
the structure of atoms? What happens if that legendary sleepy
little patent cleric Albert Einstein ignores his own slumbering visions
on the principle of relativity and the nature of the
observable universe.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, then all of our sleep just becomes blackness, nothingness,
the void itself.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I'd be fine with that, man. There's a reason I
don't sleep often. It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Oh no, I get it. Dream that is something we
should talk about. Dreams can also be the worst thing ever,
especially if you've got traumatic experiences in the waking world.
By I've been there, I think maybe a lot of
us have, where the moment you fall asleep, it is
feels like torture almost, because you're just back there.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I also, you know what I hate. This may be
symptomatic of a larger mental issue, but I can't remember
if I told you this. The majority of my dreams
exist in an interconnected universe. They're aware of each other.
They reference earlier stuff. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well, you're actually fine. An ancient vampire, right, and what else?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Is the spirits of the dead. No, it's seriously, it's
weird stuff. Man, Like that is cool.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That's like a superpower though, because you could build that
universe like here if you wanted.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To, Man, I don't know, Like I haven't told you
all the stuff. It's the lore is deep and it's
like I want to reboot oh Ya again. But anyway,
it doesn't matter. We're not here to talking about me.
We're here to talk about the fact that people have
been interpreting dreams. We've been human civilization has been trying
(17:16):
to understand what the heck this is and why it
exists since before humans figured out how to write things down.
And it's a thriving industry today. I don't want to
put you too far on the spot, but do you
ever do you ever have a dream that sent you
to the Internet? Do you ever just do a quick
google on dream symbolism?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Generally no, But I have weird stuff Like the other night,
Jimmy Fallon and Chloe Feinman and I were hanging out
and for some reason drinking absence Like, but that was cool.
It wasn't haunting, it wasn't scary, it was just great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, it's just a moment that happens, you know what
I mean. Also, also, folks, from just a production perspective,
please respect your brain. It is doing new shows every
single time you fall asleep, you know what I mean. Yeah,
not all of them are going to be terrible. Some
will be great, and then some will be Like I
(18:13):
had one where I had to drive from one dream
to another, and time is tricky in this virtual reality,
but it was literally two and a half hours that
I remember where I'm just driving and listening to light
instrumental music.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's beautiful, man. I don't know, man, Well, it's a
weird thing because time doesn't work the same in dreams.
I don't know if anybody has experienced this, but I
took a nap. In total, it was fifteen minutes, just
like lay your head down. For me, it was literally
in between two meetings because I just couldn't keep my
eyes open laid down. I thought it was days in
(18:58):
a dream like I thought so much time had passed,
but it was, no, it was It was less than
fifteen minutes. So it is a weird thing that we
can perceive that stuff even when in this space, this reality,
it's only been a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, I remember similar experiences. I think we've all had
some time or linear time parkour in dreams, which is
one of the one of the coolest branches of the
concept of dreaming, and there is a modern scientifically respected
(19:36):
version of dream study owneurology O N E I R
O L O G. Why it's branch of psychology, and
they're not really trying to do the Freudian Youngian interpretation
of you know, what does this blue tiger mean? Right?
(19:56):
Why does it pursue you? Or things like that. What
they're doing instead is exploring the process of dreaming and
further attempting to correlate the nature of the lived experience
of the dream to the activity in the human brain
on a physical neurological level, and then also to understand
(20:18):
how it relates to memory formation, how it may relate
to mental disorders and other I don't love the term,
but other divergent conditions. That's how it's often put in literature.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That word reminds me of oni. The concept of oni.
Isn't that a specific type of yokai like a yes demon, right,
which makes you think of nightmares, which makes me think
of like the when we looked up the origins of
that concept, Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Okay, nightmares that's sleep paralysis episode was a banger and
also interesting. If we want to go YOUNGI in just
for a moment, I believe Eve, and I'm not gonna
I'm not going to google it. Let's see if I'm right.
I believe that an one is subterranean trogoladitic. I believe
(21:11):
they're found in caves, in deep places, which Young would
just love.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Deep within the recesses of the folds of your mind.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Dude, Young would be Okay. If you had to pick
between hanging out with Freud or hanging out with Carl Young,
I'm gonna say it, I would probably go Young. Freud
feels like a very smart dude who could be a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I'm going with Freud so I can get to Berne's.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He'll say, why do you keep asking about my nephew.
We're supposed to sit over here, lick these cigars and
not think of penises. Freud was crazy, dude. I feel
like enough time has passed right that I can say
that he was He was, Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
He was protecting. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
He proposed and projected a lot of interesting concepts. But
and look, a lot of people struggle with substance abuse.
But that guy apparently loved cocaine.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Who doesn't. I'm just joding me. I don't know. Yeah,
I don't know what that's.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Like me neither. I think I'll leave that experience unexperienced.
I'll just read Freud, I guess anyway. So, fellow oeneurologist
in the crowd, awake and asleep. We know this sounds
a little dry, maybe disappointing, but please trust us. There
is bizarre stuff ahead. We have been fascinated by the
(22:39):
concept of well you'll see. We'll pause for a word
from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,
there turns out right it's an ancient science interpreting dreams,
(23:01):
figuring out what dreams mean. There are in recent decades fascinating,
fascinating experiments into the nature of dreams. The more passive
stuff is observing what happens in a brain when a
dream occurs. And then you get to the idea of
(23:21):
enabling that dream world or the dreamer to communicate with
the waking world. And then you get into Flutson with
a dream, you know what I mean, touching it just
a little. What dreams may come rated.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Film dreams.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Got to and everybody knows how we spelled that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Oh yeah, okay, Well, the thing that I think fascinated
us pretty recently. Back in January, we found this story
about a company that was trying to do this kind
of stuff. How do we unli the power of dreams? Right?
And how do we even potentially connect people via dreams
(24:08):
the way we would connect people in an alternate reality
space or a virtual reality space by making their senses
via you know, Wi Fi signaling see each other, hear
each other, and potentially even feel each other.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Right. Which avenue of sensory stimuli can we hack? You know?
What I mean? Is where we get down to it.
This is a response to an ancient thing that is
problematic for a lot of scientists, and I will confess
(24:46):
in my various misadventures it has been problematic and difficult
for me to explain as well. Folks, you have perhaps
felt that you have communicated with a loved one or
a quaint since what's that old trope? There are no
strangers in dreams. Someone reached out to you. And this
(25:06):
idea is ubiquitous. It exists across time and cultures, and
modern science overwhelmingly says, you know, clap trap, hogwash they do.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Until again, this group came along and said, well, let's
at least give it a try. Let's see if we
can make it happen. And by the way, the person
acquaintance unknown, whoever it is that we feel is communicating
to us in our dream, that can be a living person,
that can be a like again, like for some reason,
Jimmy Fallon was all about like encouragement and stuff in
(25:44):
my dream. I don't know why. I don't know the dude,
but he was. But he could also be somebody who's
passed on already, right, or maybe somebody from history that
we that we know and love, or somebody we have
we've never met before, right or could never have met.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Right or because we're also immediately you the observer and
the dream you are gifted with dream logic, which means
when you meet someone. That's why we say you no strangers. Really,
when you meet someone, you immediately know key things about them,
key visceral things.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yep, and they you because they are you. You are you,
and they are you. We are us. What's happening? Okay,
So let's get to this company. Yes, it is in California.
It's called rem Space r E M space. That's one word. Uh.
They put out several studies and some a bunch of
(26:43):
PR stuff, to be fair, like a lot of this
is prs, a.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Lot of a lot of PR.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Including like diagrams and videos, and.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
So much so that I believe both of your faithful
correspondence folks struggle to find the actual you know what
I mean. But it sounds awesome, So let's just it
sounds cool, dream with us, Okay, Matt, what's happening.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, they're able to connect two people who are experiencing
some form or level of lucid dreaming to then be
able to send one signal from one dreamer via Wi
Fi through their system out to the other side to
another human being sleeping far far away, also lucid dreaming.
Then then that person received a signal from the other
(27:36):
person and was able to then repeat it.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, exactly. So they're using and again this is a
startup and it is hoping to monetize what we're exploring.
That's an important thing for later. This experiment uses, as
you said, Matt, just your average brain monitoring equipment, the
server and the Wi Fi or key. The researchers use
(28:03):
the brain monitoring equipment to watch in real time the
action and activity of the brain and then when they
receive the signal that indicates the participant has entered a
hypnogogic or lucid dream state. Then the server, not the researchers,
(28:24):
the server creates a word in such like some sort
of specific quote unquote unique language word, which is how
we know this A is pr and not science. And
so it said, the server creates this thing, and it
sends it to now our hypnogogic or lucid sleeper via
(28:44):
earbuds that they're wearing as they enter that state, and
they are still dreaming, but they can still hear the
outside world. So they repeat the word in whatever the
hell a unique language means.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
And these are sitting there sleeping, and then they say
it out loud in their body. They dream it somehow.
Then the clock it. The researchers understand that that's.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
What happens, because they measure they can see according to
what we understand. The the brain monitoring equipment indicates a
change such that you would know someone that has received
and repeated to themselves internally information. And now, of course
(29:31):
if we're at that state of lucid dreaming, or if
we're between full wake and full sleep, then yeah, it's
possible that someone just went someone went oh, I see
or whatever, but that's not what we're looking for, and
so small window of time passes in the real world, right,
(29:52):
I know, we're getting very inception with this. The second
sleeper has entered their lucid dream state, they receive that
saved message from the server, and then they wake up
and they repeat the word that they learned communicated in
(30:13):
a dream state to a dream state, yet still created
and entirely dependent upon the server and the Wi Fi.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, that's where it's a little weird. I think when
you look at some of the materials that rem Space
is put forward, it feels as though it sounds as though,
if you don't get dived too deep into it, as
though the Lucid dreamer created a message and sent it
to the second Lucid dreamer and they were lucid dreaming simultaneously.
(30:44):
And it feels as though, at least to some of
their materials, that it's happening in real time, like the
sleepers are just communicating with each other. But that is
not at least what we understand to be happening. It
is all their their tech basically that is doing all
of this stuff. But potentially cool if you had two
(31:05):
eight comms in dream states. I don't know, man, no,
I think. In the episode when we first brought up,
we talked about long distance relationships and how interesting it
would be to actually connect. You know, there's a saying
if I don't know if anybody else has this experience,
but like saying good night going to Ben's sing, I'll
see in the dreams, Cabra, I'll see out there in
(31:26):
the dreams, And you say it as a hopeful thing,
a sweet thing. Sure, what if you could actually flick
on a machine, put a little something on your head
and nay, now we're out there in dream world together.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Interesting? That interesting that you would bring up that part specifically,
because that aspect of our conversation stayed with me as well.
We know for this right, like what we're describing, according
to the PR is the ideal next step for r
EM space. But what we see, even with this tech
(32:02):
reliant proof of concept, is the first known instance of
communication between people whom are both in a dream state
a sender and a receiver exists. Right. This also follows
up on an earlier experiment from twenty twenty one, which
was a big year actually for dream science researchers. Well,
(32:29):
there was this sort of justice League or Avengers or
x men of researchers from multiple countries who collaborated. And
this is led by a guy named Ken pallor cognitive
neuroscientist over in Illinois at Northwestern, and they are able
(32:49):
to create dialogue between a person in a dream state
and a fully awake scientist. It's not a very long
conversation at all, but it is interesting. I don't know
if it's long enough for us to do a classic
like stuff. They don't want you to know reenactment, but
(33:13):
maybe we just do the lines together.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh no, let's tell you this. Okay, I will play
the scientist. If you don't mind, Ben, please play the sleeper.
Here we go. Scientist says eight minus six.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Eight two.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Eureka, guys, what happened?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was so asleep? Man, I was sleeping, definitely, man.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Shout out to all of us who are so impressed
that somewhat did math while asleep.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah. I don't even know if you're supposed to be
able to do that, man.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, we have to check with sleep police.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love how we're just inventing police departments. Now we
got poop police. We got sleep police.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Uh huh, we got Java police. They said that you've
had enough coffee, as he drinks a monster coffee.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Job police arrest this.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That's a good one too.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh yeah, guys, we are drinking canned coffee because.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's just not the same when it's in a cup,
but if it's in a can, and he goes.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I dreamed that you said that, So so okay, look
eight minus six. Our scientist, Frederick, Doctor Frederick says eight
minus six to a sleeping person, and our patient says,
I essentially I hear you, and here is the answer.
(34:57):
So I know this is not in this barely freezed
as an interrogative. It's just the three words eight minus six,
and the sleeper, despite not being awake, immediately recognizes, interprets,
analyzes this as a math conversation, and then produces the result.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, well amazing. So it's not the same as what
rem Space claims to have done, but it is pretty
cool to be able to send a message out into
that dream world and then get a response. It kind
of reminds me of some of the sci fi tropes
where you've got somebody going through like a portal or something,
or even someone going down into the depths of the ocean,
(35:43):
and there's still communication between the surface world and then
the depths of the ocean where just someone else is
exploring out in an unknown, unseen place, and then people
back in you know, the waking real, you know, whatever
we call real world, can then talk to that person
and see what they're discovering. I don't know, I'm sorry,
(36:06):
I'm having a hard time even like phrasing these things correctly.
But I'm imagining the dreamscape as another world to be explored,
another reality to be explored.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
One hundred percent. Yes, like the high heavens, the deep
ink of space, and the ocean and the seas. It
also reminds me of I don't know if there are
any fans of the television series Fringe.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
In the crowd.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yes, but remember, dude, yeah, I know we are. But
remember the entangled typewriters. This is a slight spoiler three
two one. These people and characters and entities are able
to communicate across various planes of existence through putting a
(36:56):
mirror next to a special kind of typewriter and typing
one thing in their reality and then seeing a message
typed out on the mirror.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Oh, it is so cool, so good that show gives
me frision.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Is excited to meadows on board. We also know that
depending on how further research works out REM Space and
other startups or initiatives like it, some of which, by
the way, are federally or militarily funded, they may pave
the way for brand new approaches to things like treating
(37:40):
PTSD or anxiety, along with some other stuff that we'll
talk about after the next ad break. We do have
to Matt, We've got to say it. Michael Riduga is
the founder and CEO of rem Space, and he is
pretty ambitious in his statements about it. He says the
follow in multiple PR communicats. Quote yesterday, communicating and dreams
(38:06):
seemed like science fiction. Tomorrow it will be so common
we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology. Ambitious,
you know, man's reach must exceed his grasp. Else what's
a heaven for? And however the old poem goes. But
also full disclosure, Reduga has made some controversial moves in
(38:28):
the past. He did put a chip in his own skull.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, he gave himself brain surgery with a home depot
drill and it wasn't from home depot, but you know,
a drill that you would use for wood and stuff.
And then he had to get it removed because you know,
he put a chip in his own brain at his
own house, which almost died. Like we admire.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Well officially he said personal reasons. Yeah, but I think
being alive as a personal reason ambitious. This man is ambitious.
This man is all to say. When you think about it,
it's an exciting time to be asleep.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Weird.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Exciting doesn't always mean good. What if we take a
break for a word from our sponsors here, and then,
as they say on the LA leaguers, we get to
the chicken. I think there's something you and I are
both excited slash terrified to explore.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Let's do it, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
This is the thing that stayed with us the most
and really informs our exploration tonight, Matt. As you and
I alluded to earlier, the same innovations that allow for
potential anxiety or trauma treatment, the same innovations that allow
(39:59):
for or potentially better communication between people, also, inevitably, just
like nuclear research, lead us to the dark side, the
troubling stuff. What if by the same the same methods
used to observe and help people in a dream state.
(40:22):
What if we could manipulate it, put a thug on
the scale.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
What if that scientist instead of saying eight minus six
said drink core's light.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yes, yes, exactly. And I loved when we talked about
this back in twenty twenty one in our Strange News program.
The year before that, in twenty twenty researchers over at MIT,
which is a kind of good school. They are they're
(40:56):
gonna be so bad. All right, it's fine as school.
I'm kidding. Oh my gosh, they're gonna kill us anyway.
Media they have a thing called Media Lab Fluid Interfaces.
This is a group that created something called targeted dream
Incubation or TDI. The technology or the approach, the methodology
(41:20):
they deploy is new, but the concept isn't. You can
read some great, some great work by a journalist named
Sophia Motino about this, writing for Science and she just
describes the following. You know, dream incubation is, in my opinion,
something familiar to anybody who's played a video game too
(41:43):
long before bed. It's where images sounds, repetitive, sensory cues
shape the content of the hallucinations you have in your
sleeping state. And Sophia goes on to note this is
an ancient people throughout history had rituals techniques to try
(42:04):
to change the content of your dreams. That's why in
the Western world, that's why people pray before bedtime, you
know what I mean, Let God shepherd me through the
night and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, it's a cool it's one of the reasons people
do a lot of research before bed, meditate, often create art,
write songs. I mean, some of the things that you
do right before bed tend to find their way into
your dreams, at least most vividly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, And that makes sense because if we encounter a
sort of sedimentary accretion theory of stimulus before you leave
the waking world, then you could argue that the stuff
at the top, the soil at the top, is going
(42:58):
to be the things that the shovel hits first.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Right or last. It could be either right, and then
it just depends on we don't really know if the
brain goes from the bottom up like what we learned today, Okay,
going from the bottom up to the top of the thing.
The last thing you learn or does it start from
the top, as you're saying, go down.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And we don't know whether certain let's call them elements.
I'm loving this analogy, by the way, may have more weight, right,
and metaphorical weight because of the variables of previous holes
dug right, previous shovels, things that this is where we
enter recurrent content. Right. The nightmares that haunt you are
(43:38):
the We're just gonna let that one go.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It's just your brain going, oh crap. We really haven't
dealt with that yet. We're trying to, but we can't.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Yeah, so we know that people would, like you said, Matt,
people would meditate, People might do a creative act like journaling, writing, sculpting, painting, sketching, praying,
of course, And sorry, I got that wrong. I'm not
an expert on the Christianity stuff. It's now I lay
(44:10):
me down to sleep, not God shepherd me through the night.
I think that's a different religion. It's now I lay
me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul
to keep I.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Mean that's one of the Yeah, that's one of the prayers.
There's so many, dude.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
What's the cool one?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Uh me this night? No, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
To the glorious dead and also me falling asleep on
the couch watching Police Academy five.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
You hold the septa, we hold the key. You are
the devil, we are an e. I think that's how
it goes.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
That's amazing and that's a tribute. Yeah, So shout out
to the fellow nerds who enjoyed that. Oh, Noel would
have had chuckle at that too. So all right. People
would also use drugs, right, And this we see reflected
in things like the concept of sipping a nightcap or
(45:10):
the an alcoholic beverage before bed, or for instance, people
who ingest cannabis right, or take any number of pill medications,
et cetera. Yes, yes, exactly. Which what an amazing word, right.
(45:31):
It sounds like it does something. It does it does something,
but it sounds like it's a real word, and it's
very much not a real word.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Sleep drive to Kroger. That's what it does.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Right. Oh and then if you ever misbehave on social media,
blame it on the ambient anyway. So TDI targeted dream incubation.
It is the in this sense before the thing we're
about to get into. It is the combination of an
app and a wearable sleep tracking sensor device. Things that
(46:10):
you and I were I think both contemplating for a while.
Did you ever pull the trigger on that, like the
like the lucid dream goggle thing.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Oh no, I never, I never tried it. I would
love to, though, I would really really like to do that.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It'd be interesting. If you want to read more about this, folks,
check out the paper that the people at MIT. I'm laughing, Dylan,
so as a joke that the check out the paper
the people at MIT wrote called dormio a targeted dream
incubation device. So yes, we talked about the good stuff.
The technology in this paper can plausibly help address issues
(46:51):
by redirecting your dreaming mind, getting you to dwell on
something else. When it turns out, the world of dream
research it includes some potential nightmares all its own.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
All right.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
So in step with all of this related interesting inspirational
research we've been exploring, multiple organizations are looking into the
concept of engineering dreams not for mental health, but instead
to sell you stuff. And Matt, I don't know which
(47:25):
where do we start unpacking this. What's the one that
stood out the most to you?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
The stuff that's one of the most was the cores
light or the cores, mulsen, cores, whatever it is. The
companies that wanted it was, look, we have to put
this out there. It was part of a commercial campaign. Yesay,
so what we're telling you was kind of happening, but
it was also a tongue in cheek commercial thing. And
it's hard to know where the line is between what
(47:53):
the company actually wanted to do and then what they
wanted to do just to sell more of their product.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And of the eighteen people that we're going to reference
in the study, all consented to participate with advanced knowledge
of what was happening, and twelve were paid actors.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yes. Absolutely, So let's just get into what I This
is what I recall from our previous discussion. The hope
that at least Cores had was that if they played
sounds of nature of certain types of water, of a
chili landscape, the imagery of mountains and clouds and all
(48:33):
of these things, that it would it would make the user,
let's say, the experiencer in the dream state, think of cores,
tap the rockies, cores, ice cold, forged in ice. You know,
all of these concepts that have been a part of
the cores mythos thinking of these things would have them
(48:55):
want and desire cores.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Cours the beers so good, you can drink it with your.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Mouth, that's right, that's right. Yeah. But but yeah, that
was interesting to me. The concept of not directly stating
within somebody's dream and you know, pumping in audio that
says drink more, corese drink more. Course, it was let's
give them the experience of the things that they associate
positively with our product. Maybe they will then purchase.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
It right, right, And they had to be quite careful
with the idea of, as you're saying, explicitly telling people
to go buy something right. They wanted to avoid that
part that.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Would fall under subliminal messaging and a bunch of other
things that would probably get sticky legal wise. This is
a this is more fun science.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
This is more look at us, fellow humans. We're in corporation,
but we're cool. We're in fact, we're not cool. We're cores.
So TDI targeted dream incubation. Like you said, it's you
could call it. We could call it an ad campaign
or ad stunt. They might call it or an activation.
(50:07):
Heaven forfend it's the twenty twenty one Super Bowl, right,
one of the most pivotal moments in advertising year over year.
So there are one hundred almost one hundred million people
watching the super Bowl one way or another. Uh, And
they wanted to alter cores, wanted to alter dreams of
(50:29):
viewers the night before the game. They wanted them to
dream about cores and then buy corps while they're watching
the Super Bowl the next day. That's the idea, that's
what they're They're already selling the idea, right, And this
was I love that you pointed out. It's already kind
(50:50):
of a a story, right, it's a story we're telling.
And even you know. The interesting thing and I'm sure
they talked about this. The interesting thing is it increases
visibility enough just the reporting about this that people are
gonna be thinking, of course, even if they're not one
(51:11):
of the eighteen people who participated in this study.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, it's a little weird. It feels like a crambling production.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yeah, yes, Oh my gosh, it is a crambling production.
Detroiters is so good. Please check it out, bolts and
join us and pushing for a season three please? Yeah,
and then we have no we we have a lot
of examples from the world of gaming. Xbox U use
TDI in what you could arguably calls another ad stunt
(51:48):
to have pro gamers primed to dream of their favorite
video games, PlayStation latched onto something we've already known about, Tetris.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
They said, we can create a Tetris game based on
this sleep study. And the study shows that if you
play enough Tetris, you dream about Tetris. And I think
we've all been there at one point or another.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Well, Scientific American has talked about that, that Tetris study dreams. Yeah, like,
why are there test? Why do we all have Tetris dreams?
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Yeah, you can go to science dot org. The study
that launched one thousand ships comes out in October of
two thousand, replaying the game Hypnagogic Images in normals and amnesiacs. Okay,
the title is something we're going to move past, but
(52:48):
but it is. It is an experience, right, and it
shows us a lot about how dream incubation can work
because Tetris just has you know, a small set of
shapes that move in a predictable pattern, and you are
participating in that pattern. You are programming yourself to experience
(53:09):
a routine yet interactive series of stimuli.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
See. The next thing is, can we alter perception within
those Tetris dreams so that we become each individual piece
as we plunge faster and faster down towards whatever shape
we're becoming and making interesting.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
I like it the adult argument there, Yes, Tetris. We're
hanging out later if you guys want to kick it.
We know that the vice president of marketing at Mulson
Coors again is back a few years ago, praised this
beverage company's strategy and said, this is never before seeing
(53:55):
form of advertising. I don't know why. It sounds like
a British villain, but agreed with the VP at course,
and they also said, not only have we never seed
this before, we never want to see it again.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
Oh yeah, no, Well, imagine imagine what happens if all
of us, at some point in the near future have
access to our dream world via some app, via some
device that was pretty ubiquitous, and it's just something that
becomes popular and now we're all doing it. Imagine if
(54:31):
those dreams can be invaded with ad space, right, yeah,
what happens?
Speaker 3 (54:38):
Right in twenty twenty one a group of around forty
real life honorologists dream researchers. They got so concerned about
this that they penned an open letter calling, most importantly
for regulation of what they see as an emergent industry.
You know, and as you were saying, Matt, They're concerns
(55:00):
are pretty valid. The idea is, Look, human civilization is
already monitored at a much more invasive level than at
any other point in history. So dreams and your inner
thoughts for now remain the last sacrisanct areas, the last
truly private places. And we know external stimuli like sound, smells, lights, speech,
(55:25):
that can affect what you're dreaming about, for example, falling
asleep while watching a movie or listening to your favorite podcast.
A lot of people are thoroughly creeped out by having
some external entity seek to not just infiltrate, but to
control your dream state, even if only briefly, even with
(55:47):
the best of intentions. This is my house, you know
what I mean. We don't take walk ins.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
We already know that trice a Lawrence can get in
there without us knowing. So you know, if we can
avoid them, probably not, but we could probably legislate out
of letting. I don't know, Microsoft hang out in our
brains and tell us to buy things right?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
Right? Right? Is there a world with no walls to face?
Just to keep going with that?
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Three?
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Okay, so we know we want to give a shout
out to a cognitive scientist, Adam Harr. Adam Harr points
out he was a participant in this open letter and
he speaks to some of our concerns. He points out
the second big issue with dream advertising is that quote
people are particularly vulnerable to suggestion when they are asleep.
(56:42):
He also, he's not some guy outside of a deli
that they asked about this. He might have been outside
of a deli. But before he did any of that,
he invented a glove that helps with dream targeting. It
helps to steer people towards specific subjects in certain stages
of the sleep cycle. And to your point, Matt, by
(57:04):
twenty twenty one, this guy had already been contacted over
a number of years by Microsoft, other giant corporations, and
oddly enough, to airlines, two separate airlines. They wanted him
to help them work on dream incubation. He was not
super opposed to this. It's fascinating research he's a brilliant person,
(57:28):
but he is a moral person such that he feels
uncomfortable monetizing this technology and his work for the purpose
of advertisements. I mean, let's think about it this way.
You know, you're listening if you're awake, and you and
Matt and Dylan and myself are waking brains have all
(57:51):
these tricks and barriers that allow for things like skepticism,
analysis and critical thought. You know, like Matt, when you
hear a commercial these days, do you immediately say, crap,
I have to buy this now?
Speaker 2 (58:08):
Yeah, I say Google, buy me that thing.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
That's why you have so many that things.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, they're everywhere.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
Thing one, thing, two. There are more boxes, boxes of
things and stuff. So this is a mission critical point
because those same processes are processes whatever you prefer. They
don't work the same way when you're asleep. So we
could hear you could hear us while you're awake saying
(58:39):
something like, behold the lush, exotic coast of Belgium, brought
to you by Illumination Global Unlimited. Buy a ticket today.
You could hear that over and over while you're awake,
and it's going to give you pause because you know, Belgium.
Great Belgium is a fantastic place. It is not known
for its lush, exotic coast That makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
But if you they're there, are people gonna wake up
and they're going to be thinking about that. I go
to Belgium, but I want to go to the beach.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Because it's your partner is going, why are we going
to Belgium? And you're like the lush, exotic coastline. But
I mean, that's that's the fear, right. This technology is
not meant to cause harm. But how could dream incubation
(59:32):
affect folks who have addictions to gambling or drugs or
you know whatever compulsive behavior. If they're asleep, they don't
have the ability to remove themselves from that core's advertisement,
and they don't have the ability to prevent exposure to
known triggers. You know, like all of a sudden, I'm
(59:52):
asleep and all of a sudden, I have an invasive
dream about Blackjack.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Oh, oh, casino.
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Right, This stake's native advertising to a new level. I
know we're running along, let's maybe not. What do you say,
can we walk a little further into the dark?
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Oh yeah, sure, let's go the darkness of your dreams
and our dreams. To be sure, what about other interfaces
that we haven't thought about, that haven't been invented yet.
Things Again, like we're talking about some device, some small
probably a teeny tiny little thing that's ergonomic for your
head when you wear it, and it's gonna be comfortable
(01:00:34):
at night, and you're gonna want to wear it because
it's gonna make you sleep better. It's gonna be nice.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
How can you sleep without it? Is what they're hoping,
you ask yourself after about four months?
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, well, then what happens when they come out with
a version that, oh, well, we can actually just implant this. Now,
you can just get this in your brain the way
our friend did with his drill, except it'll be in
a safe but it'll be in a safe surgical environment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yes, we're calling it trepanation. Plus. It's part of your
it's part of your US citizenship plus membership. Imagine a world.
I know it sounds like we're being weird, but imagine
a world where giant tech companies like Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon,
they create sleep technology that becomes normalized. And maybe what
(01:01:24):
if it to your point about everybody wearing one, what
if it becomes another aspect of social media. Like in
their heyday, everybody had to have a TikTok or a
Facebook account, so you are expected to do this, and
now you can pay extra to avoid some ads, and
now these corporations who own the platform have a gargantuan
(01:01:45):
new revenue stream. One of the dumbest examples. Okay, everybody
has their micro sleep or their metasoft or whatever, and
now they are telling advertisers, we can get into people's
dreams for you. If you are Mattel or Lago, how
much are you going to pay for literal dream ad
(01:02:08):
space across a given demographic right before Christmas?
Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Especially for kids? How young before you get an implant? Yeah,
listen to tomorrow's Monsters. That's a show created by Dan
Bush and it is about this very thing. It's an
exploration of this concept of like sleep and how can
we capture sleep.
Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Yes, I remember that I'm a fan of Dan on
a personal level, and Matt, you and he have worked
together for a while. We do have another this is
a tangent, but we have another new show by Dan
and team that we'd love to recommend.
Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Oh yeah, listen to a Live again right now. Alive again.
Check it out. It's all about, well, it's all about
a lot of things, but mostly it's near death experiences
and what consciousness does when it's outside of this reality
that we all.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Experience another brief hypnogogic experience right the line between life
and death. And just like dreams, emerging from an NDE
has also a tremendous effect on individual lives and on
the course of human history. Honestly, this all goes in
(01:03:25):
so many directions. We also know. Another concern for people
are against dream incubation is the idea that all of
this tech will inevitably create another revenue stream by harvesting
the user data sleep patterns, brain activity, behavior before, after,
(01:03:46):
and during sleep. And this sounds sci fi, but we
have to remember this occurs in step with previously established
technology like the breakthrough back in twenty thirteen where Japanese
researchers leveraged MRI scans to go into the minds of
sleeping people and generate like printouts of the images they
(01:04:11):
saw while they slumbered.
Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
That's a big note things.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Yeah that's past. Yeah for me that.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
I really don't I honestly don't even really want to know.
Sometimes where my jams go.
Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
I'll draw it myself. If it's that important, I will,
you know, and I respect the science. It is amazing.
These are brilliant, well intentioned people. But it might be
a rubicon too far. You know, dreams are baffling, they're inspiring,
they're joyous, they're terrifying, they're amazing. We are on the
cusp of a new paradigm where again, if you want
(01:04:48):
to be optimistic about it, the bleeding edge of science
is leading us to deeper nize spiritual questions about the
nature of consciousness and the thing called the soul and
how it experiences it health or you're gonna wake up
thinking I can't believe I could get fifteen percent off
a cheeseburger.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Today, zero percent down on that new Toyota.
Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Holy kra hon hon, wake up, you were talking in
your sleep again. Oh what was it about. It's about
the great deals for the Toyota Camry.
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Oh my god, you said. Honda Odyssey has their top
line models on sale this month.
Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
It's perfect for the lush, exotic coast of Belgium. We
have to go. Tell us, folks, would you trade off
your privacy and the secrets of your dream state. If so,
what would be your price? If not, tell us why not?
For a lot of us, We have to realize this
is the stuff we don't want them to know. So
(01:05:48):
let us know your thoughts so you can find us
online conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff, show any derivation thereof on
the social meat you might sip. You can also pop
by our email address or just give us a call
on our telephone number.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Our number is one eight three three st DWYTK. It's
a voicemail system. When you call in, give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know in the message if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you've got more to say, they can fit in
a three minute voicemail. Maybe you've got links, maybe you've
got attachments. Why don't you send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, So get hypnagogic. Join us in this liminal
state conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.