He shouldn’t feel bad, neurotechnology is my life 
Hey I never mentioned which home I was refering to ! So, please wait. 
(Actually, you guessed it just got out of my mind 
)
Actually, I just wanted to confess my confidence in functional analysis.
Since nowadays we can observe activation areas dedicated to simple movements such as opening the hand, moving thumbs, and so on, and since thinking of a movement generally leads to the same activation as if it had really been executed, I don’t see why it would not be possible to “see” someone dreaming of opening his/her hand under appropriate circumstances.
Some labs work on what they call “retinotopic maps”, “tonotopic maps” or “somatotopic maps” which locate precisely the expected cerebral activation of particular actions : just put a rotating light in front of someone’s eyes, and you “will see” “rotating” activation in the area dedicated to vision.
Of course, the possibilities are still limited to simple mecanisms so far, in particular because they don’t commit any subjectivity. Don’t hope to see a cat in someone’s brain because he’s looking at one : people see cats different ways, some may love them, others may be afraid of them…
Obviously your dreams won’t be recorded on a near future’s night. The first step to go through before reading someone’s dreams is probably to overcome brain inter-individual variability (see an interesting documentation work introducing the problem for those who can read french (I’m the author ) at Cortical surface parameterization from gyral parcellations). Then, functional analysis has to be improved, which is on the way I think.
I’m not predicting it’ll be possible, but I’m convinced it’s impossible to say it’ll never be.
(hope my passionnate words understandable… I doubt my english gets better while I’m struggling a bad evening headache… 
)
I don’t think you could actually record dreams per se, but I think maybe, in the distant future, and approximation based on biofeedback information could be made, sort of like, a digital re-enactment, or a holographic re contruction or something.
Hey Grg, is there any chance you can translate your article into English or German?
(Wow, definitely not before some time since I’m spending my whole days working to write its continuation 
. You might be interested in the english-written papers mentioned at the end of the article. Excuse me for the inconvenience 
)
Grg and Josh, I agree absolutlely. However, it would be far more easy and effective to condition (by neurofeedback) established variables of communication for “thought” or “narration” rather than to take on the incredibly daunting task of establishing precise patterns of your “perception” or “senses”.
What I just described is part of my theory that I plan to eventually research with MEG (magnetoencephalogram).
just a little thought on dream controlling by “big brother”…
the government will never, ever, pass laws on dream control. it will be suicide. the instant any government passes a law saying what we can and cannot dream about, that government will be targeted, and within mere days, it will be overthrown. don’t believe me? what would happen if the united states government said that only american citizens are allowed to eat more than one meal a day, and that any other country doing so will be considered a target of war? the entire world would attack the united states as one. thats what would happen. and if you think there is a difference between food and dreams, think again. without food, we can live for a few days. depending on the amount of fat on our bodies. without dreams, we can live for a few days. depending on how strong our mind is. anyone that goes without dreams long enough will go mad. and madmen tend to kill themselves quite easily…
so worrying about dreams becoming controlled is useless. even president bush isnt stupid enough to start making laws on dreaming. it won’t happen, and if it does, god forbid, we will be at war so fast that they won’t have time to get the infrastructure in place to monitor them in the first place. either that, or said infrastructure will be destroyed on sight.
but back to topic. i must say that i am not very keen on the idea of recording our dreams. it makes it too easy for people to be manipulated. anyone that gets access to someones “dream files” will be able to find out exactly what that person wants, and can manipulate said person with ease, knowing that he/she will do most anything for that one little thing. just get the person drunk, tell him/her that you have what he/she wants, and tell him/her to give away his/her credit card in exchange for said object. i for one do not want my dreams to be accessible to others. too much information in them. but on the other hand, it would make for some kickass movies, without a single penny spent on props or actors…
It does not have to be technologicall device as we see it.While it is good that we research it this way we may also enter “age of the mind” in the future when secrets of things like telepathy, remote viewing or shared dreams can unfold themselves.
What is subconciousness? is brain “us” or just tool we use?Can two brains communicate?How far self healing goes?so on,so on.
If we have a genius in this field, like phisics had its Einstein we may not need a “device”.Just sit down in silence and have a mind trip to a friend whos away or other people dreams/thoughts.
And before this question is asked- i dont think it will lead to misusing or to hurt anyone in any way.If we can do such things, this will aslo come with knowledge that theres no “others” and what we do to “them” we do to ourselves.
I really wish technology gave us such miracle thingo like dream recorder, but id love to see the topic being developed also from psychologicall study.
I don’t think that you should decide for anyone else if their dreams are for themselves or the world. I also don’t think that you should decide whether or not dreams were meant to be recorded? I mean, why should dreams NOT be recorded. Why not simply stop building cities, or computers, or why not just kill ourselves? Who’s to say that WE were meant to exist?
My point is that it is a individuals choice whether he or she should be able to share their dreams, and I don’t think that you, or anyone else, has the right to tell them that they can’t or to stop development in such technology. Why do you get to choose what people do to themselves? It’s THEIR choice.
that is a lot of money.
couldnt they cure cancer instead?
i would like it, help me with my dream recall, and i could post uber-cool lucid dreams on the net.
I am lazy, i dont like to write out my dreams, if i could watch them to boost recall, that would be very helpful.
Heh i doubt any commercial version will be available or affordable within my lifetime. (assuming they figure the thing out)
c’est la vie
Heh heh, quite a good point
Neuroscience is great but I suppose we do have bigger fish to fry before we get to something like recording dreams, so I agree with you
If you look at the bigger picture (mind/body link) then this device may well be a tool to help cure cancer … from a psychological viewpoint, it may be an exciting tool to help diagnose neurosies, or work out better interventions for patients.
So many applications… 
Well, there’s probably enough funding to go around.
The thing is people are probably going to be more interested in getting cancer cured or something like that, because Lucid Dreaming isn’t as popular with the general public as topics like Cancer, AIDS, etc.
My opinion anyways
Well… thats only because the applications of lucid dreaming have not yet been fully understood by the wider community.
And in the end, if they could invent a drug that if you took before you went to sleep, then you would lucid dream for that night only…
That way the drug companies would still get their fill… and this is what will probably happen in the future.
isn’t that what shrooms and acid are for?
I cannot think of any drug that would induce lucidity… or rather none that have increased any levels i have had in lucidity.
I think the only way to possible achieve any level of lucidity
without actually working for it is through hypnosis.
but then again i am not pharmocologist. (is that a word? if it isn’t it should be.)
MAC
sisokogotai,
There have been studies that have proven that LSD will increase your REM5 period up to 500% and almost guarantee a lucid dream. Check out the forum at lucidity.com about psychoactive drugs and dreams.
Ah, i see… thank you for bringing that up, i will check it out/
MAC
When I found out about this discovery, it really made me consider the alternatives to LSD since the drug is far too unstable to consume. A similar hallucinogen that was safe without the long-term effects of LSD would be ideal for research as a supplement to technology systems for assisting induction of lucidity.
How funny to read it while lds are said to be alternative to lsd.Intriguing though.