The world of the matrix coming sooner than you think?

[smoothy]

This is quite a long post but full of spectacular information

For a long time now I have been a big fan of VR - Virtual Reality and with the advent of cloud gaming on the horizon and the wonderful work being done by Jules Urbach from Otoy. This vision of the Matrix is really upon us.

I believe we will be able to do at least 70 percent of what was portrayed in the Matrix movie within the next 5 years.

For a long time I had thought that you would need VR gloves like in the movie Johnny Mnemonic or haptic exoskeleton gloves like the cybergrasp made by cyberresearch which costs like $200,000. These gloves alllow you feel the texture or weight of a virtual object. For a long time now I had hoped this tech would be adopted mass market and sold for under 100 dollars but it's unfortunately kept it's large price tag as it's only used in VR research. As VR hasn't quite taken on mainstream yet. Unfortunately even these exoskeleton gloves are quite clunky and heavy for that matter and there not practical in a consumer environment.

But recently I have been thinking a lot about how just because of having a haptic VR glove won't necessarily be immersive enough for all VR data applications. For instance you cannot do a somersault as for that you would need full motion tracking and if your not a gymnast chances are you won't be experienced enough to pull off ninja type moves in a VR world. So in that sense it's actually a far more realized sense that to go in the way of the Matrix in that you lay back in a reclining chair and have the brain connected to your nervous system. This way you can feel the weight and texture of an object as seen in the Matrix. But not only that, but the Matrix could beam imagery onto your closed eye lids.

Now shortly after the Matrix came out Sony Computer Entertainment filed a patent to do just this and said it was a vision for gaming in the next 15 to 20 years. Well to be quite honest with you, I think we are probably another 25 years away from being able to do the Matrix in that way. The idea of the Sony patent was that they wanted to do this in a non invasive way.

My take on the idea of the Matrix is very different and could be here within the next 5 years.

Here is the method:

There is a great scientist called Dr Parviz. I believe he is Iranian. He has been feature in numerous documentaries and has been working on this new technology for the last ten years. It's a contact lens with a wireless computer chipset built onto the lens. It started in black and white and a few years back started being able to produce a small range of colors. Eventually the goal of this invention is to be able cover the full human visual field of view. The contact lenses can be used to whisk yourself away to the ultimate VR adventure experience such as VR worlds or VR games and augmented reality for on the move in the real world. Now whether this tech will progress and mature enough in 5 years to do such that will be something to keep our eyes on.

But one other interesting technology on the horizon are these new light weight video glasses also known as head mounted displays - HMD but these look like an ordinary pair of reading glasses which have RGB lasers embedded within their frames that beam an image onto the glasses displays for each eye. They will be capable of displaying a stereoscopic image. They can also be set as prescription glasses as well. The interesting thing about these glasses will be that they are using RGB lasers and no mirrors. Their point of light source can be bent and they don't go out of focus even on curved screens. So that your eye sockets will be able to see a full human visual field of view. They will be battery operated, work wired or wirelessly with your computer.

However way we will be seeing VR in the near future will be interesting. But on the vision front we should have that covered by 5 years from now.

The next area is in the way we will hear the VR and that is easy. The next logical step would be in binaural sound which is very natural and works with the brain. A lot of research has gone into this and you can already buy products of the sound format. This is better than current surround sound systems for head phone technology. It's not used as much but is being worked on for VR. Anyway we see that there are lots of sound formats which would be ideal for VR anyway.

So then the next is taste, smell and touch

Well here is the very interesting bit. Soldiers of war who have had limbs blown off from mortar fire etc and are being treated for post traumatic stress disorder report that after surgery where they have had their legs amputated they report the phantom limbs phenomena.

Where they can still feel their legs even though they have been removed. Then in hypnotism people have been said to of been made to feel an extension of their arm like having a third arm. Here in the UK their is a very famous psychological mind reader called Derren Brown and he uses trickery such as sleight of hand, misdirection, hypnotism, magic, NLP, cold reading and muscle reading in his shows and he's demonstrated something similar to the phantom limb phenomena to people to whom he's hypnotized. Now the reason I bring this up is because TV is known to be hypnotic, people can get so drawn into their favorite TV show and be hypnotized by it. That's why so many people are glued to their TV's and the same goes for gaming as it's interactive. When your senses are completely immersed as in VR especially when your eyes are seeing a virtual world wrapped around your eyes you can start to be drawn in like you too are being hypnotized and when that happens you can start to lose yourself within these worlds and start to experience the phantom limb phenomena. Which can be used to feel the weight and texture of a virtual object. I don't know how much of this idea is being currently tested in VR experiments, but I know this is a default reaction for anyone experiencing intense VR and that I am suggesting is upon us and when we get closer to this immersion in the next 5 years. I think we will all experience this level of immersion. What the brain experiences, the brain makes real.

Taste and smell may come naturally through such a process that I suggest in the above. Now all this without us needing to have any surgical implants or non invasive devices as in Sony's patent filing.

Now of course there will always be research into actual invasive and non invasive devices for jacking direclty into our nervous system for touch and jacking into the smell and taste systems as the ideas I presented in the last paragraph, where the brain creates these senses they will be limited by your imagination and not everyone has good vizulaization skills. The VR realism will give them a sense of heightened awareness which would make this all possible, but only to a certain degree and when research into these invasive or non invasive devices show promising results. Then these will eventually become the defacto standard for experiencing all the other senses over just your brain creating them based on the phantom limb ideas.

Another way to think about the phantom limb idea is let's look at a recent application developed for the piesight which is currently the largest field of view FOV HMD on the market but also the most expensive at around 150 degrees FOV but costing around 200,000 USD. 150 degrees FOV is covering nearly the full human visual field of view which is 180 degrees horizontal. The creators created a technology demo where there are sensors tracking your body and you could physically move in the real world and your virtual avatar would walk a long a cat walk being displayed high up on a building rise in a urban environment and the imagery was being shown in stereoscopic 3d. The users wearing the HMD said they would experience such levels of vertigo that it made them feel sick and this was no problem of the HMD, like being the case with previous systems where HMD's were always creating eye strain and sickness. But in this case they were truly feeling sick because they were experiencing vertigo just like if they were afraid of heights in the real world and walking physically on a cat walk on such a high rise building. So you can see that these are in a way heightened senses of experience. Which can apply to VR enviroments which in turn can allow you to play with your senses even though you are not exactly jacked into your senses which I have to say is still a long way aways. So this is the best we have so far and can be here in 5 years.

Now the next bit is what good is any of this even if we don't have photo realistic levels and characters as we are just moving down the uncanny valley. Which is a sign that what we are experiencing our brains are just telling ourselves that this is not real. Well in 5 years time we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the virtual world and the real world. Graphics would of become that advanced. But we will of course know that what we are experiencing is a virtual environment unless we could wipe our minds of the experience. But I don't people would want that. The experience of us knowing would be similar to when Neo in the matrix finds out that there bodies are really on the Nebuchadnezzar ship and that they are avatars within the matrix.

Now thanks to cloud gaming such as Otoy this vision of complete photo realism is upon us and will be here in the next 3 to 5 years. When a line has been drawn where we cannot go further in terms of graphics, then the next step would be rapid development in all these VR devices talked of here as the next major hurdle in the immersion of the users that play the games to begin with.

This covers about 70 percent of what's seen in the Matrix. Another way to look into this is that most of the Matrix can be witnessed in our very own dreams. While we are dreaming our brains work with our central nervous system and allows us to feel the weight and texture of objects in the dream world as well as smell, taste, sight and hearing. When we are wide awake we can do all this under intense visualization which just shows what I suggest as being very doable. I of course have incredible visualization skills and a number of people don't have this ability. But it all boils down to the fact that these things can be done.

Now I don't think we are anywhere near the ability of being able to do the last 30 percent of what was being shown in the Matrix. Where by we could have incredibly powerful AI characters like the software codes of Agent Smith which can dominate the Matrix. This level of AI is probably about 25 years away and lastly the ability to download martial arts into our minds and then use them in a sparring program. This again is probably about 25 years away. And whether you could just load these programs within seconds as seen in the Matrix and then whether these programs exist when you jack out of VR worlds, whether they work in the real physcial world that we are in now is something I am not sure will work. It would be like our brain could be on extreme overload like depicted when Keanu Reaves gets that kind of brain information overload as portrayed in the movie Johhny Mneumoic.

I know one thing that by 2050 we will be able to scan our brain thoughts and memories into a computer. This was said a while back by the futurist, visionary and inventor of a number of technologies. The man Ray Kurzwell, he is of very interesting stature.

To wrap this up, as robots get nearer to looking more and more human with their silicon skin and humanoid appearance. It's possible as little as 7 to 10 years time VR will be a big component of robot living on Earth. The cost will certainly go down thanks to Moores Law where every couple of years computers double in power. When these chips become so small and affordable and can be layed into every robot humanoid out there and give them the AI needed to perform daily tasks. Then it's going to be quite an amazing world that we will be lviing in sometime in the near future.

There is a movie called Surrogates which stars two of my favorite actors Bruce Willis and James Cromwell. It's a great movie. You should see it. Without giving too much away, in this movie the Surrogates are these clones of humans which are basically robot humanoids. But they are controlled via you remotely from a reclining arm chair where your brains are hooked up to these computers. Which is a lot like the Matrix except there is not virtual world. Instead using an HMD you see through the eyes of the robot and control them using your brain thoughts which is all entirely possible. There is this brain machine called the epox which costs around 150 USD and really works and this is the future of VR. This is what would enable control of these VR worlds within the next 5 years and ties into what I have been mentoning in the first few paragraphs of this thread.

It's quite possible we will continue with humans in the future doing certain chores that require certain brain processes that cannot be replicated just yet artificially via AI. But robots could in the very near future go to work for us where as we get to stay at home with the comfort of being around our family. Where as our robots could do all the work for us like meet clients at our work place, do business deals etc but they won't have the AI to do this job not for at least 25 years time. But will be able to do so as in the home within 5 years as we will be controlling them just like in the movie Surrogates. Eventually the VR world would converge over and there will be a use for robots in other areas such as love robots. I had to say it, it's a big business for some people, a lot in fact. But anyway then VR would take it's cause and be used to conduct business while you control the action of your avatar going to work all from the comfort of your own home.

One other thing, is that when we dream we already can experience other senses like extrasensory perception such as telekinesis and psychokinesis as well as pyrokinesis. This can as well be made possible using the brainwave devices such as the Epox device.

Lastly to jump up a bit, thanks to cloud gaming services like Otoy. The idea of this photo realism is well upon us like wthin the next 3 to 5 years and we will connect to thse cloud super computers like the AMD Fusion Render Cloud powered by Otoy. And then coupled with this epox brain wave device which is entirely non invasive we could control and like the device somewhere further up in this thread we would get a simialr experience to the phantom limb phenomena. Where as you would feel an extension of your very own arm.

A scenario to look at this to really understand this is a theoretical photo realistic flight sim powered by Otoy. You are wearing a full human visual FOV HMD. You are wearing the Epox brainwave device. You are wearing binaural headphones. You then think and your brainwaves make your avatar inside the cockpit of the plane move your avatars virtual hand to the joystick of the plane. And at that point because of the phenomena, the brain would associate it and send the right signals to make you actually feel the joystick texture. Then you can look around this cockpit. It's a bit like having a Track IR Pro PC head tracker. But the fact is it's thought alone that makes your head in the avatar's body move around the cockpit canopy in the flight sim. And in the real world you are not moving any part of your body. But what the brain sees, the brain makes real.

So there is this idea laid out and this is upon us very soon and these next five years are going to be very exciting. I hope you enjoyed this sensational write up.

[yuriythebest]

wow smoothy great article!

No doubt we'll see a lot of advancement in the next 5 years, however as far as the mass market goes 5-10 years is basically the period of 3dtv proliferation. As a reputable stereoscoper in the industry once told me, manufacturers won't move on to a new format/tech till they've exhausted and milked every single penny from the previous one (like adding superfluous "upgrades" to hdtv "Now introducing the new ___ HDTV with clearContrast 120hz smothMotion fineRender superClear yadda yadda tech"

As for dreams then yeah as a lucid dreamer I can tell you they can get as (and sometimes more) realistic than real life. I've had many "matrix" moments - like walking down a street of my city in the middle of the day, the sun shining brightly - if someone were to ask me to bet a million dollars that everything around me was real I would - only that the next second I looked at my hand and it was disfigured (a common dreamsign) and was able to float and fly around. ahh the euphoria of realising that you are basically standing in the middle of your own imagination. splendid experience.

[tritosine5G]

I think this traditional cyberpunk thing is way too old now.

Look at the movies we get,only a "moon" with slight resemblance to blade runner, but not much else.
Worse yet, where are those crazy midi instrument fusion tunes? Arcade games of late 80's , early 90's were way better than todays games too.

At least the future is bright, next console generation comes with 3 tflops CGPU.

I for one know for sure that we can make accurate , dynamic audio space simulation in real time for 1.5 tflops. It'd match the virtual microphone measurements, haha, and continuusly moving with you along in space. Also nvidia is selling a lot of their cgpu for supercomputer clusters. Maybe distributed computing would work well. Only audio, and basic graphics are rendered on client side.

[tritosine5G]

Maybe in the next generation, 28 nanometers, we goin to see realtime raytracing, sorta lawnmover man

nah, Im a projector guy. I wont let a HMD obstruct my sound system either.

[tritosine5G]

Worse yet, where are those crazy midi instrument fusion tunes?

...with the corny brass solos. ™
Those are the best. I would wait for HMD -s 10 years longer if we can have back the corny midi tracker brass

[yuriythebest]

Maybe in the next generation, 28 nanometers, we goin to see realtime raytracing, )

real time raytracing is possible even today and I've seen code for it for engines like Ogre3D. however the problem is implementing it for an entire game - atm too cpu expensive. however, "baked" ratraced environments such as we see today look plenty nice- RRT will be useful though in places where there are moving lights.

[cybereality]

Well to start off, I think 5 years is too short a time frame for true VR. I mean, some video games take that long to make. But I do think we will see it in our lifetime, maybe in the next 25 years max. But there are a lot of technology that needs to advance before this happens and we are barely anywhere in this direction. But it will happen, and the sooner the better. But I don't think it will be like you think.

There are a few roads that you can go down to get a true VR system running. One road, the road we are currently on, is through external devices. For sound, we are pretty much there. A good set of 5.1 headphones should be able to replicate most any sound with high fidelity. For video we are not nearly as far. Although some research level HMDs exist with, like you say, ~150 degrees FOV I am not sure the resolution matches that wide a FOV. Probably the closest thing on the consumer market would be something like Nvidia 3D Vision Surround, which has the FOV but you lose the headtracking and immersion of an HMD. And don't even get me started with consumer level HMDs which as mostly crap. The point being we have a long ways to go to having a full resolution full 180 degrees FOV accurate headtracking HMD. I think in the short term, something like a CAVE system will yield much better results. But we at least have stuff in the labs for visuals. For touch there are certainly haptic devices but they are in the early stages. Most haptic devices work similar to the Novint Falcon in that they only simulate a single point of touch, sort of like holding a pen. There are some haptic gloves I have seen but even this is very rudimentary. They could not simulate things like the feeling of running water on my skin, or the feeling of touching a woman's thigh, or the cold metal grip of a gun. For smell, I know there has been some research prototypes over time but nothing ever materialized. And taste there is basically nothing. So I am not sure the "Lawnmower Man" full body suit with data-gloves and an HMD fantasy will ever come true (although I am still wishing).

The other alternative is a full Matrix style implant technology. With implants you have the possibility of controlling the entire reality matrix and thus obtaining a 100% virtual experience. For sound there are already implants for people that have lost their hearing. So that is basically attainable today. There have already been blind people who have gotten their sight back with implants. Although today they are primitive, low-resolution vision, it is only a matter of time before full resolution is possible. For the other senses I don't even know of any research that has been done, so that may prove to be further away. But there is already progress in this field so it is not hard to believe that in 10-15 years we will have mature implants that will at least be able to reproduce sight and sound to a decent quality. Input is also possible as I have seen videos of people with robotic arms controlling them with their mind.

The third alternative is using the human brain as the computer and simply altering or training it to attain VR states. The prime example of this is lucid dreaming. With dreaming you have an experience with is pretty close, sometimes indistinguishable from reality. With lucid dreaming you have that same VR type experience but you can control it. I have had many lucid dreams in my lifetime and the experience is great. You can do basically whatever you want, fly around, have sex, you name it. With full 180 degree stereo vision, stereo sound, and definitely touch. Not sure about smell or taste but I imagine they could work too. And that is today, just using your brain. Now you can't have a lucid dream every night but with the proper tools maybe you can. I know of a device called the NovaDreamer that helps you attain lucidity (new version coming soon) and people claim different herbal supplements can help you go lucid in your dreams. So I think if there were more technology/drugs focused in this area we may get true VR results quicker than other methods. I know because I have experienced it and it feels pretty friggin real. Its just a matter of time before there is a breakthrough in this field.

Personally I am hoping all three methods develop and converge within the next decades. I believe it could hold so many possibilities, not only for entertainment but for society as a whole. The potentials in education and rehabilitation alone would be worth the effort. I think these are going to be some existing times but we have a lot longer to wait than 5 years for sure. Although in the time being I just hope stereo 3d takes off because that is just one step closer to the ultimate dream.

[PalmerTech]

I want so, so much to write a ton on this, but I lack the time currently.

For a short bit: I have been playing with something that, as far as I know, has not gotten utilized by anybody, so until I know otherwise, I will call it "Minimized Adaptive Sensory Input Response". An interesting capacity of the human mind is to learn new "maximum" positions, almost in the same way that we can set maximum pointing fields for motion trackers. Where I live, there are a lot of rowers, they row boats as a sport. One thing that a lot of them have explained to me is that after rowing for so long, their arms automatically feel a "stopping point" that feels like they cannot move further. They COULD... but because the rowing limits their field of motion, their brain begins to interpret a half movement as a full movement. This is something that appears to be aquired, like riding a bicycle, and you do not lose it once learned.

Why go with a full suspension exoskeleton? Given a good HMD, and some sensory feedback through touch... I think we could get away with a lot less. If you wear a simple arm movement tracker than mechanically gave resistance and limited movement (Very, very easy mechanically, just use friction joints), you can very easily train your brain to think and perceive a movement of only several degrees as a full arm movement, and have it interpreted as a full movement in the simulation.

If it sounds far fetched, just think about mice: Gamers that play on high sensitivity (most competitive ones do) are moving their mouse one, maybe two inches to perform a full 180 degree spin in an FPS. We learn those minute movements, and map them to the movement we see on the screen, to the point where it is instinctual!

I need to make my own thread for this on the weekend, but I figured I would throw that out as a possibility.

[yuriythebest]

Not sure about smell or taste but I imagine they could work too.

I can confirm from personal experience that I tasted stuff on multiple occasions - tasting is possible like that one time I ate a sandwich but it was sour, and that one time after drinking the water I ate the plastic bottle and it tasted like "fun" and each chunk evaporated/melted in my mouth into nothingness - very awesome sensation. Haven't smelled anything yet but if you specifically set that as a dreamgoal no reason it can't be done.

[DmitryKo]

Wow, engineering by cyberpunk comics (re: "Surrogates"). What about pro wrestling and Moon landing?


IMHO science fiction genre has taken things much too far. Jules Verne, who basically pioneered the genre, has been known for doing very thorough research for his novels, even collecting a large library of reports on innovative technologies. His novels are considered very scientifically accurate, and he was able to predict many future technologies which came into everyday use decades and centuries later.

Since 1950s, science fiction and comics have drifted to a land of pure fantasy, with aliens, lasers, inter-galactic travel, artifical intelligence, superheroes, etc. Not necessarily a bad thing, but all this is quite far from a scientifically accurate extrapolation of current research and inventions. Yes, there is academic research in virtual reality and brain-computer interface, but as a whole, the Matrix or Surrogates are not something you would readily believe to be knocking on your dorway in a decade or two.

[cadcoke5]

I think some of what the original post called "hypnosis" is what would be called, "suspension of disbelief" in the theatrical world.

My only personal experience with VR was on one of the first games that toured around many years ago (perhaps the early 90's). However, I was disappointed because the experience of immersion was not much different from what I experienced using AutoCAD version 10. But, my disappointment was not due to any limitations in the game's technology. Rather, it was because my mind had already been used to looking at a wireframe CAD model on a 13" VGA screen and perceiving it as 3D.

Fast forward two decades, and even though large stereoscopic displays are relatively cheap, they are almost unheard of in the world of CAD. While there may be some circumstances that inhibit its adoption, the bottom line is that it doesn't really help CAD design much, or it would be used much more often.

So, I agree that the mind is able to accept a minimal representation of an artificial world, and adapt to perceiving it as a VR.

Joe Dunfee

[tritosine5G]

Hi, could you try metro2033 on a 3d vision ready projector , and a silverscreen for brighter 3d gain=3 ? I think you would sink into immersion, not CAD

I can tell you a paint mix for gain 3 paint, beware this game needs a GTX470 on a lowest note.

[Okta]

Someone needs to lay off the crack pipe.

[cybereality]

AHhhahAhAHHAAHAHAHhAHAhAHAHAH

[smoothy]

wow! It's good that my thread got you guys interested in the topic but I was expecting some pretty big write ups that I could enjoy as much as you enjoyed my writings.

cybereality

I too am very much into lucid dreams. I know that the novadreamer 2 is coming out soon but hear it's going to cost between $800 to $1000. It better not be that much, that's ridiculous. The remdreamer at $200 is pretty incredible made in Poland. Anyway I usually hang out on the ld4all forums which are pretty awesome. I was just browsing dreamviews and saw you on there as a member. I just became a member as well and posted some thread on ld4all about some awesome new technology ideas for building a LD sleep mask. I posted under the sleep and dreams forum and into the sub forum titles research. I did a cut and paste as I wasn't sure if dreamviews allow external links to other sites. It's worth checking out. If you got any technical experience in building simple electronics then please work on a LD sleep mask. I am looking to get of group tech minded people together to make some amazing new technologies that can aid in LD development, I would like it that they work in their spare time and release these technologies free to the community. I think that's the only way LD is going to expand and become really mainstream, if people share their ideas rather than charge for them.

[yuriythebest]

I too am very much into lucid dreams. I know that the novadreamer 2 is coming out soon but hear it's going to cost between $800 to $1000. It better not be that much, that's ridiculous. The remdreamer at $200 is pretty incredible made in Poland.

if you hand out on DV you'd know that most members agree that all this artificial stuff ain't really effective - the trully successful LD-ers just do it by simply getting to know themselves/their dreams and getting comfortable with their subconsciousness. Yes, novadreamers (or similar) will get you LD's but nothing that can't be achieved normally.

[PalmerTech]

I am looking to get of group tech minded people

Count me in. This stuff looks fun.

Link me to a good place to start reading, and I will educate myself, and pull together some of my buddies, we are all good with electronics.

I am not convinced it will go anywhere, but hey, if I can build something to induce dreams, controlled or not, then awesome!

[smoothy]

I am looking to get of group tech minded people

Count me in. This stuff looks fun.

Link me to a good place to start reading, and I will educate myself, and pull together some of my buddies, we are all good with electronics.

I am not convinced it will go anywhere, but hey, if I can build something to induce dreams, controlled or not, then awesome!

Sweet!!! I really didn't think many of you guys would be interested in Lucid Dreaming. Palmer with your knowledge we could easily get something built

So start things off, If you don't know what Lucid Dreaming is. It's knowing that your dreaming while your dreaming. When you know it you can take control of it, some people have little control at first until they keep having them and can slowly keep training themselves to have more control. While others have very good control from the beginning. Ideally what we would want is to build a lucid dreaming sleep mask such as the REM Dreamer which is currently the best sleep mask on the market but is expensive at over $200. http://remdreamer.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; To learn a bit more about lucid dreaming and the sleep mask read all the pages on the REM Dreamer website, they have lot's of great information right there. This device uses an IR Sensor to detect REM (Rapid Eye Movement) which is movement that happens under our closed eye lids when we are dreaming. It has been said that IR sensors are not that accurate and there are better methods. I think the more expensive IR sensors are perfectly accurate. It could be the REM dreamer has a very expensive IR sensor. Some have said the REM dreamers IR sensor to work great while others say it's ok. I think it just varies with people. Anyway nowadays people are trying to create sleep masks that use a better detection for detecting REM and that is using brainwaves from the temples or frontal lobes which are located on the forehead via EEG for electroencephalography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; EOG for electrooculography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrooculography" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or with my idea via EMG for electromyography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromyography" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Now below I go through all this among the posts I have created on a Lucid Dreaming forum.

Okay so firstly I hang out on the ld4all forums and been a proud member for years. My username is honeyjigga and I created this really long thread on there which you can find here: http://ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37859" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; If you can please read it all the way through, it's a mind blowing amount of research I have conjured up.

Then look at this device by someone by the name merkzu http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaB ... 1267726728" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; he seems to of vanished with an unfinished project. He has become a member of ld4all but not signed in for a while and made only two posts. You can read them on page 9 of this thread onwards where I make some replies as well while they discuss the possibility of turning a mini wireless mouse into a REM sensor. http://ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10431&start=120" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Then read here of an old German project I posted:

http://ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=582817#582817" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Make sure to read all the links in those threads I posted, the information is overwhelming. People have been trying to make these Lucid Dreaming devices for years but never end up finishing such projects, they run out of time/patience and have work to do or college studies etc

I would really like to see something built quickly, anyone with some simple electronics could easily know how to make these devices, especially you Palmer, when you were building that HMD and posting updates the progress on that was simply amazing. I can tell you building a lucid dreaming device will be a much easier job to do.

Well anyway thanks for reading and for what you could contribute to the community

I too am very much into lucid dreams. I know that the novadreamer 2 is coming out soon but hear it's going to cost between $800 to $1000. It better not be that much, that's ridiculous. The remdreamer at $200 is pretty incredible made in Poland.

if you hand out on DV you'd know that most members agree that all this artificial stuff ain't really effective - the trully successful LD-ers just do it by simply getting to know themselves/their dreams and getting comfortable with their subconsciousness. Yes, novadreamers (or similar) will get you LD's but nothing that can't be achieved normally.

Hey Yuriy

A lot of members on DV are trying to build a LD device, on most LD forums it's all the rage. Everyone is trying to make the most perfect system. Sometimes their projects are too ambitious and costly. Which is probably why no one has made a successful one just yet. Sometimes the tech just isn't there. This has been going on for years and I have held off from purchasing one of these expensive devices because I keep thinking the community is going to finally build one for less than $15 but it's never happened in like 5 years of waiting. There are some basic kits which creators have made that you can purchase, included in the kit is a flashed PIC. But none of these detect REM sleep which is the holy grail. Of course you can buy REM detecting LD sleep masks like the remdreamer and novadreamer but there very expensive. $200+ and there is no point as to build it yourself will be under $15.

Now I am well aware that you don't need a device, you can train yourself but many people have given up on this as it's pretty hard to do. I have been training my self for years and it's difficult. With a lot of people you can use the device to get the same effect while with others it doesn't work. But the fact of the matter is, you read countless posts on forums and everyone wants a LD device. So let's build one!!!

[smoothy]

Hi Palmer,

I have added a little about lucid dreaming to my above post addressed to your post which I quoted.

[PalmerTech]

Thanks for all that info! Looks like LED pulse rate and intensity are, obviously, very easy to do, so the hard part is detecting REM sleep. I will see what I can do.

But yes, getting busy with work and college studies is always a problem. Just so you know, I never stopped working on HMDs, I just realized that until I can come up with a duplicable, complete system, posting pictures would actually just be embarrassing. I have gotten halfway done on 5 or 6 now, only to realize that I could greatly improve, then scrap and start over.

I have some high sensitivity IR sensors from old mil-spec night vision equipment. Probably overkill for a project like this, though, I would like to use cheap parts.

[smoothy]

I am just really pleased that you can work on this project. It's high time a LD device was created.

Detecting REM should be easy once you have a good IR sensor

Did you manage to read all the way through those links I posted?

[cybereality]

Oh yes, I am very much interested in lucid dream hardware. In fact, I just a few days ago purchased an REM-Dreamer. I contemplated building one, but I had some extra cash so I figured why not give it a shot. And I want to test to see if the concept works before experimenting further. But even so, I am still interested in building possibly a better device. I think there is a lot of work still to be done in this field and I am not going to sit around waiting for the $800 Novadreamer 2 (if it ever comes out). My idea was to get a cheap EEG device like the OCZ NIA and hack that into a dream machine. I think it reads eye movement too so it could be used to detect REM. Then I guess have that trigger some light show or MP3 or whatever to tell you that your dreaming. It could work. Building something from scratch would be a lot more fun though. I also had some ideas for a reality checker device but thats another story. I'll have to check out those links you posted.

[smoothy]

welcome to the matrix cyber

at last we finally meet lol

when we finally build one of these devices I will be saying that for sure in the dream world

Anyway, in the links I posted I talk a lot about the OCZ NIA as it does detect eye movements which is pretty awesome.

[Okta]

Cyber have you tried out the REM-Dreamer yet? Give us a review once you get a chance. I would probably have some horrific nightmares using something like that

[PalmerTech]

Okay, read up on all those links.

I already have a rough prototype, I made it today. A small cordless mouse, a lot like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/TINY-800DPI-USB-WIR ... 363wt_1137" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See the light up scroll wheel? The mouse goes to sleep if it does not move for 15 seconds, and the light turns off. If it detects movement, it turns on that LED. I have a transistor hooked up to it so that when it turns on, it turns on a secondary circuit I made (555 timer IC based, I usually use it for making rapid fire game controllers) to flash a pair of RGB LEDs. The rate of flashing is adjustable, and I can use several very small potentiometers on the board to adjust the color of the LEDs to be anything I want. Right now, they are hot pink. The sensor, of course, is focused for very close movement, I used some replacement optics from a Lazer Tag gun that puts the focus point at about 3 inches from the sensor. I can plug the USB wireless plug into my netbook, keep it on my bedside table, and have it record my eye movement all night. Now I just need to make a program that charts the output, which is not my strong suite.

I am obviously only reading the movement of one eye, but I assume that is fine. The blinking is in both eyes. Thinking about adding sound cues, but I have no idea if that is even a good way to do anything.

Anyhow, no idea if it works for lucid dreaming yet, but it certainly detects eye movement and flashes LEDs in response!


EDIT:

I wanted to say that the two fields I find most interested are virtual reality, and augmented reality. They sound totally different, but the first step to making technology seamlessly integrate into everyday life is to be able to simulate a real world. This lucid dreaming stuff is a fun concept, sure, but not too much of a step that way.

[smoothy]

Wow you read and work fast!!!

That's some amazing work you done, I think that mouse prototype sounds awesome. Well done!

I don't know about the focus point, 3 inches seems too far. You got to remember the PCB/stripboard has got to be enclosed into a sleep mask, there must not be any light entering into the mask. Also the sensor needs to be incredibly close to the eye and sensitive enough to pick up eye movement. you got LED's for each eye but pink I don't think will be good enough. Tests have been done and it's found that red works better. It seems to enter the dream. But keep them pink for now. As I also heard something about the new novadreamer 2 will have multi coloured LED's but let's not worry about that for now. I think for now we should go with tracking of one eye like you have done but I am not sure how well that works with TWC for two way communication which is a remdreamer feature. What this does is allow the dreaming mind to signal back to the real word via eye signals that their dreaming and then the blinking lights will be reset till the next REM period. So I don't know how accurate that would be with tracking one eye like currently. But we can forget about that feature for now and just try to make this prototype work in the most basic way.

If your going to have trouble creating the software. I could put a post up on the ld4all forums and see if I could get someone on board. They got some pretty good software programmers on their.

Anyway I'm like you, I also am totally into VR and AR. But realistically we are still a ways away from total immersion and that's why I'm into lucid dreaming. As it truly is like being in the lawnmower man movies. It's mind blowing, you got all 5 senses as well extra senses. You feel everything, it's more real than the real world. When you experience it you will say wow!

Get up the great work

Thanks

[PalmerTech]

I only work fast on occasion. I have actually been very, very productive on all my other projects (I also modify game consoles and build high powered lasers as a hobby). The main reason is that I am rushing to finish a lot of things before I leave on the 10th for a week, I am flying a few states over to visit my wonderful girlfriend, who had to move for a good while, and who supports me and all my crazy projects. Reading fast is something I am good at, though.

I really like some of the projects people are doing on that forum! But building things from scratch would be a bit harder than modifying existing hardware, at least if you want advanced features like eye tracking and logging.

Is there any reason to have to use a mask? I read on one of those links that a mask can interfere with natural sleep cycles by blocking light... 3 inches is a bit much, this was just a quick test, but I was planning on making a headband that goes above the eyes, and has the sensor and LEDs point down at the eyes. That should work, yes?

I chose pink because I read different kinds of colors can trigger different kinds of responses, depending on what the color means to you. Pink is a good color to me! I think the reason red works best is simple: It matches the color of your eyelids, and the blood inside, so it passes through the easiest. I am guessing colors in the general vicinity like hot pink or reddish orange will also do well. I will adjust them to just red for now, it is probably better, anyways, cheaper and all. I just love RGB LEDs!

Human eyes tend to move together. I would have to track eye movement independently in REM sleep to confirm, but I would be willing to bet that tracking one eye would be fine for TWC.

I will just worry about getting the hardware right for now, if I can induce lucid dreaming, I would love some help on the software side. I am not sure how sensitive this cheap mouse is, I hope it is enough for TWC! Otherwise, I suppose just having it flash for a pre-determined time after detecting movement would work, I do not know long that would be, but trial and error should tell.

Thanks for all the help!

[cadcoke5]

The little I have read about LD seems to indicate that it is simple day dreaming. I realize there are some more claims made by advocates of LD, but I suspect those are not really substantiated, or actually a feature of day dreaming.

Joe Dunfee

[smoothy]

The little I have read about LD seems to indicate that it is simple day dreaming. I realize there are some more claims made by advocates of LD, but I suspect those are not really substantiated, or actually a feature of day dreaming.

Joe Dunfee

Hi Joe,

LD is not day dreaming. There has been tons of research on LD for over 30 years now. It's a real ability that anyone can learn. Some people are natural to LD. A day dream like the name implies happens while awake. LD happens when you realize that your dreaming. Then you can take control of the dream. Psychiatrists teach their patients how to LD as it can rid them of all sorts of fears that they may be facing in life. There are a number of top researchers in this field from university professors to psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, therapists, PHD's etc

[smoothy]

Is there any reason to have to use a mask? I read on one of those links that a mask can interfere with natural sleep cycles by blocking light... 3 inches is a bit much, this was just a quick test, but I was planning on making a headband that goes above the eyes, and has the sensor and LEDs point down at the eyes. That should work, yes?

I chose pink because I read different kinds of colors can trigger different kinds of responses, depending on what the color means to you. Pink is a good color to me! I think the reason red works best is simple: It matches the color of your eyelids, and the blood inside, so it passes through the easiest. I am guessing colors in the general vicinity like hot pink or reddish orange will also do well. I will adjust them to just red for now, it is probably better, anyways, cheaper and all. I just love RGB LEDs!

Human eyes tend to move together. I would have to track eye movement independently in REM sleep to confirm, but I would be willing to bet that tracking one eye would be fine for TWC.

I will just worry about getting the hardware right for now, if I can induce lucid dreaming, I would love some help on the software side. I am not sure how sensitive this cheap mouse is, I hope it is enough for TWC! Otherwise, I suppose just having it flash for a pre-determined time after detecting movement would work, I do not know long that would be, but trial and error should tell.

Probably tracking one eye will be fine.

I would imagine that the sensor would need to be able to work far closer than 3 inches. I would say less than 1 inch or really about 1 to 1.5cm or less from the eyes.

The REM Dreamer has both features, once it detects REM it can flash the LED's for a pre-determined time which you can set in the options menu through it's own LCD screen on the micrcontroller this way you don't need to connect it to a PC for configuring. Then if say you become lucid and the constant flashing of the pre-determined signal bothers you in the dream to the point you wake up then it also has the TWC mode. So having both features is a good idea.

The reason red works has nothing to do with the color of your eyelids, it's more to do with objects we see in the real world. They say the red light flashes and you see in your dream a fire brigade with it's sirens on or an ambulance. These are the most common in the dream and because we see them in everyday life that manifests themselves in our dreams more easily and we become lucid when we see the LED's going off.

Everyone that makes these REM detecting LD devices are always making them into sleep masks. I think it's the most natural way. One thing is when it comes to lucid dreaming you can't worry about things like it's going to effect my sleep pattern. One thing to fix that problem is to choose to have 1 LD if you can each night and to stop using the device after each LD session of that night. The REM Dreamer has a feature where after a REM period it can wake you up so you can right down your dream in your dream journal or take off your REM Dreamer and sleep normally. We could add this same feature to your prototype, it's an easy feature to implement. Also the problem you get without a sleep mask is that a lot of light is going to enter your bedroom and that will effect how accurate the reading is when detecting REM. I would say for now the best way to go is the sleep mask way.

Here is a video on youtube that shows the REM Dreamer, during the middle of the video you will see how the sleep mask looks. It has a pocket for the microcontroller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpNbbUI8aRw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I assume your not going to desolder the components of the mouse and resolder them onto a custom cut stripboard? I would imagine this would be better as then you could cut down the size of the device even further. As the PCB from the mouse would be curved to confine to the curvature of the curved plastics. So to keep everything in proportion and sleek enough wouldn't a stripboard cut to the perfect shape be better for mounting a sleep mask to get it just close enough to the eyes?

[cybereality]

Wow PalmerTech, you sure work fast. I wish I could help but I've never built any hardware before (I'm more of a software kinda guy). Good luck though.

@Okta: Yes, I will be writing a full review of the REM-Dreamer once I get it and have a chance to test it a bit. Stay tuned.

[PalmerTech]

The mouse PCB inside is already very, very small and compact, I could not make a much smaller one. It will work fine.

[smoothy]

Palmer,

I am sure you know what your doing and so I will leave it to you to build this amazing project

Thanks

On another note...I have been doing some research into this field of VR. To see just how much of my idea and vision of VR is possible, in the next 5 to 10 years, based on what I posted in my original post of this thread. You are all going to like what I am about to post.

Firstly, it starts with out of body experiences. OBE or OOBE. Apart from a few lucid dreams I have had, I have also had a few OBE that have happened from within a dream. I haven't mastered a fully conscious LD or OBE just yet. I nearly achieved it on the fresh hold of sleep. Anyway, so I have been also researching OBE's for many years. OBE's tie into VR, very much if you didn't know. How?

Well their is this doctor, Dr Olaf Blanke from Switzerland. He's a Professor, MD, PHD of cognitive neuroscience. He's done a number of tests, in one he was treating a lady for epilepsy where he implanted electrodes in her brain to stimulate areas of motor activity. To find a treatment for her epilepsy and when they switched on the current. The lady reported leaving her body and rising up to the ceiling above her bed and looking down at her body and then returning when they switched off the current. They were not trying to induce an OBE. Just trying to treat her for epilepsy. Later Dr Blanke started to research this are of OBE's more and did a test in 2007 to create a virtual OBE and you can see the video on youtube which I posted the link to below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQAc_Z2OfQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He followed this experiment up in 2009 with H. Henrik Ehrsson with this other video where it got a bit more advanced and was featured in newscientist, well all of his experiments have:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xWowv7Qryc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also back in 2008 an article was published that you can read here http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0003832" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The above article talks all about the body swap illusion which the above videos are about, it also goes into detail about the rubber hand illusion.

So why am I posting this, well in my original post of this thread. I talked about how we could sit back and don a HMD and then be catapulted into a VR world. One scenario that I mentioned was to play a flight sim where we actually feel like we are inside that cockpit. Where we move our hand via brainwaves to the flight stick inside the cockpit of an aircraft and then what our brain sees makes it real. I discussed that this was possible because of the rubber hand or phantom phenomena. Well the article goes into detail on why this happens and this just shows that my original idea is possible and can be done. So really the world of matrix is coming sooner than you think, possible like I have said before in the next 5 to ten years. If you watch the 2 videos posted. They said this technology can be applied for the military to remotely occupy a vehicle in the field or to become a character in a video game. You can step into another body and feel that body like it was your own.

In a way I feel the experiments that have been done and presented in these articles are ancient. This research has existed for decades in the VR industry. It seems that neuro-scientists are only just catching up. I have written ideas on other gaming forums for years about how this VR tech exists and how I would love to see it applied to gaming consoles. I mean look at it this way. We can already track the human body, there are haptic gloves, head tracking, HMD's. A game developer can create a virtual avatar that you can slip into inside the VR world and then you can look down at your virtual body via head tracking and see within the HMD the avatar body over layed completely precisely on top of your physical body. It would seem very real to your brain, and what the brain sees the brain makes real. So you would get that same rubber hand phenomena. If someone came and touched you in the VR game/world you would probably feel it to some degree. I believed this was possible since the moment that I tried VR which was like over 20 years ago. The ideas have been sitting in my mind ever since. So we can already do this and it's funny, it's like the neuro-scientists are bringing VR tech to the table and passing it as real science. It's amazing still what their doing. But it's nothing new. Unless I'm missing something. We could recreate the same effects that there doing, it may be costly. Perhaps not. You would need 2 HMD's, 2 pairs of cameras for each HMD. In place of a doll you could use another human test subject that can sit still for a few seconds that would trick your brain into thinking it's their body which is on you. I remember they were doing this experiment with iglasses before moving onto the very expensive cybermind HMD. Obviously the larger FOV the more real the brain makes the phenomena.

So this idea of the movie avatar and the matrix is much closer than we think

Update: here are some more articles and videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rawY2VzN4-c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscienc ... ces_in.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cybereality]

I see what you are saying but I still think 5 years is optimistic. Not because of any technical challenge necessarily but more about motivation. I mean, if people had stuck with VR since back in the 90's I think we'd already be there. I mean, it is 2010 after all. Its already the future. But there is little to no interest in VR outside of some academic studies (like the videos you posted) and the die-hard people that frequent this forum. We need some reason for there to be commercial development in this space. I don't know what that means. I just doubt people like us will be able to home-brew the next-generation VR. We need some serious time and financial investment for there to be any progress. And I just don't see that happening any time soon. I mean, seriously, why can't I buy a decent HMD for a reasonable price in 2010? Where are the data-gloves? What about those full-body haptic suits? What happened???

[smoothy]

Some very interesting articles I found

The reason for posting them was that I had been looking more into this rubber hand illusion and found the scientist involved has been experimenting into other illusions that fool the brain but in many areas of the body. The articles make mention that they can be applied to virtual reality applications. So it really seems like the stuff I was talking about in my original post is really possible. That is if a hardware company and a game developer would utilize them. We really could have this technology and jump inside game worlds so real like the matrix in a way.

If you scroll down the page of the second link it talks of how you can create a OBE in healthy people.

The problem is to get access to the full articles you will need to pay, I am sure if you cut and pasted the title of each article into google, they will probably be on there to read for free. I can't post that many links as I am typing out these links as cut and paste doesn't seem to be working anymore for me for some strange reason.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... usion.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newscientist.com/special/tactile-illusions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Update: Look at what Ehrsson is doing in this article, they made a virtual computer generated arm feel like your own arm. A bit like in the rubber hand illusion. Ehrsson said 'we want to make a computer generated body feel like your body' then he says 'the ultimate aim is to make the virtual world feel real'. This is totally amazing!!!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... -body.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[topcat]

This was posted elsewhere by me and smoothy from an article in Lucid Dream Exchange; but it is the future because it brings the social element into the private world of the dream:

With goggles/masks that also allow the lucid dreamer to signal back to the device (such as the new REM Dreamer and NovaDreamer) , it is possible, with the right mask/software and a website controller program (such as multi-player game sites and chat sites use), to coordinate two or more LD masks with computer connections and allow very simple communication between dreamers; a multi-player dream game, if you will.

The ingredients for multi-player lucid dream connectivity are:

1. A lucid dream cuing device such as a dream mask or audio device with dreamer response detection and interpretation.
2. Computer software (LD program) that has two-way, real-time communication with the cuing device.
3. Computer software (LD program extension) that has two-way, real-time communication with a remote host site.
4. A multi-player host website program that receives input from the LD programs and issues messages to them.

Here are a few scenarios that could be fun for dreamers in a multi-player environment:

1. Two players register and log onto the LD multi-player website, selecting the other player to communicate with that night and which player is to be the guide player (first dreamer cued). The respective local LD programs monitor the eye movements during the sleep of the players and upon REM detection send a message to the website that the respective dreamer is in REM; the website host program waits for both players to reach REM, then the host sends a command to the local LD software to signal the guide dreamer via audio/visual cue that she is dreaming. When (if) she becomes lucid, this lucid dreamer now signals (via eye movement) the mask/program to stop cueing and, in addition, send a message to the host program to notify the other dreamer that he is dreaming by audio/visual cue (could even be a pre-recorded audio cue in the guide’s own voice). The signal to the recipient’s to become lucid is now coming directly from the guide dreamer and may carry more meaning than a neutral cue (and lots more fun). For those folks with an interest in mutual dreaming, this may prove also to be a useful initiator for such a dream, coordinating the timing for lucid dream sharing.

2. A lucid dream race: players log on and join the race, then go to sleep. The host site waits until all the respective LD local programs indicate REM state for all the players (hopefully at some point all REM’s coincide). The host site sends commands to all the local programs to cue all the dreamers more or less at the same time. The dreamers, upon becoming lucid, signal to stop the cue and, in addition, send a message to the host site that they are lucid. The winner of the race is recorded on the host site and the players can view the results--just for fun, of course, but competition can have a strong motivational effect, as many psychologists know.

3. This multi-player scenario would require a mask with various colored lights or audio cues and dreamer feedback variability. The dreamers, upon both becoming lucid, signal different eye movements to the other dreamer (via the local LD programs’ connection to the host website) which result in varied cues, the meaning of which is agreed upon beforehand when the players register for this ‘game.’ A “hello” signal from one dreamer can result in a ‘blue’ cue to the other; an “I am flying” signal from the other dreamer could result in a ‘yellow’ cue to the first, and so on. Audio messages could be used as well.

4. Masks or other cuing devices with multiple cuing options such as varied colors could also be used to enable more than two dreamers to send messages to the entire group in the same session. Dreamers sign up for the night’s session and assign themselves a color cue or audio cue. As the dreamers become lucid, the host software sends that dreamer’s cue sign to the rest of the group. A dreamer, for example, recognizes the ‘red’ cue as “Mike has just joined us” and the ‘blue’ cue as “Sally’s lucid now too.”

While the lucid dreamer communication described here is very rudimentary, the exciting thing is that such dream games as outlined above are technologically feasible right now. We are at the point with inter-dream communication that Alexander Bell was when he spoke “Mister Watson, come here! I need you!" And we saw where that led.

[smoothy]

Hey Palmer,

I haven't been posting in this thread for a while. I didn't want to disturb you as you were away with your girlfriend. Did you have a good time?

Anyway since you been back now, can I ask what progress has been made on this lucid dreaming device?

I am sure we are all anxious to hear what's been happening!

[PalmerTech]

Zero progress has been made since then.

It is a long story, but real life just gave me a big blow, and I no longer have a workshop area, and it will be some weeks or months before I get another one.

I did have a good time, though, thank you for asking. I am still ordering some of the parts I need, though, so I can get to working on this again as soon as I can!

[jhonsadins]

Someone were to ask me to bet a million dollars that everything around me was real I would - only that the next second I looked at my hand and it was disfigured (a common dreamsign) and was able to float and fly around. ahh the euphoria of realising that you are basically standing in the middle of your own imagination. splendid experience.