My Dream Theory

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

IMO, it's still easier to ape the Matrix and do it that way. Manipulating EEG doesn't actually help, since it'd be like manipulating a photograph. (Say hi to Fox's server farms.  ) AFAIK, you can't stick EEG readings back into your head.

Well, it's not like you're taking the EEG of one person and just injecting it into another. You're reading the EEG of one, using a computer to convert those findings into electrical stimuli, which can then be applied to the other dreamers brain to manifest an image of the first person in their head. And vice versa. We already have the ability to stimulate the brain, and ways to record brainwaves, now we just need to find a way to convert brainwaves into a form of stimuli which can be applied to the brain to manifest in dreams.

If you ape the Matrix you don't actually have to make the people go to sleep. Just get a pair of screen glasses, earphones, motion detectors, and then make them float around in space.  However, REM sleep has a benefit - the body is already paralyzed, so you don't need to worry about the participant crashing into walls because they can't see the real world.

But that's not really like the Matrix, or even dreaming. You'd still be bound by what comes through the equipment, in dreams or Matrix-style simulated reality, you're completely free from the limitations of the physical world. It would not be a truly immersive experience. The world would be generated in the headphones, glasses, and motion detectors. It would not feel truly real like dreams or the Matrix.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Nope. Think about this. The post-conversion EEG will look like a live 3D video feed from person A and person B. Can you combine them to create an integrated environment with BOTH person A and B? Kehe, ma tsmuke.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

?

I think we've got different concepts in our heads. Maybe EEG wasn't the best word, because an EEG is just an image. What I mean is the brainwave itself. I'm just kind of taking the futurist approach here and trying to build off currently technology. Now, currently, the two most necessary parts of machine-assissted shared dreaming are already available. We already have the ability to read brainwaves, and we already have the ability to use electrical stimuli to stimulate the brain. Not sure how much neural stimulation has ever been done to people while they are dreaming, but I assume that given current (or near) technology, a stimuli applied to the brain can manipulate the subject's dreams (I'm not even talking about other people yet, just neural stimulation. period.). Sound reasonable so far? Now, let's assume that brainwave mapping will get more complex in the future (again, sound reasonable, given the way tech is heading?), to where we can isolate which part of the wave represents the dream character, and which part represents the dreamscape. Let me lay this out.

Dreamer A: Host dreamer, the "dream administrator" so to speak, who's dreamscape will be used.

Dreamer B: Guest dreamer, who will "occupy" dreamer A's dreamscape.

The machine will analyze A's brainwave, and isolate the section that represents the dreamscape. It will then convert that information into electrical impulses, and apply that to the brain of dreamer B. In turn this will copy the dreamscape of dreamer A into the mind of dreamer B.

Now that the dreamscape is occupying the heads of both dreamers, the machine will then isolate the brainwave of each dreamer that represents the dream characters. The same process will then be applied again, so that each dreamer will appear as a sort of "NPC" in the head of the other. Each time they interact, that interaction will be read, interpreted, and converted by the machine, and then applied to the respective brain, and vice versa. This is kinda how I interpreted the PASIV machine to work in Inception, and how the administrator dreamer remained at their respective level.

I think I am going after something different than you. You seem to be interested in combining the dreamers into a single, shared dreamspace (ONE actual dreamspace, not a common dreamspace playing out in both heads).

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Oh. The "complicated" description I wrote about was just that. It is only approaching it from a more...practical and technical aspect. Such a system, though, would give too much power to the dream administrator. What if he decides to send a few palulukan after you?

Edit: I seriously doubt that the mind actually contains a whole dreamscape. For example, in a dream you are driving a car. Does the dreamscape in your mind actually contain the parts of the city that you haven't explored and the shape of the back of the car? I am quite afraid that after I enter your dream, I will fall into randomly disappearing parts of the city because you simply stopped thinking of them. The brain does not have an infinite "video memory," so probably when you fly your ikran away from Hometree, Hometree would just disappear together with a big chunk of Pandora...not a good idea.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

That's why you trust the person you're dreaming with.

From the few lucid dreams, and the vivid non-lucids I have had (and the anecdotal evidence from others) it does seem that a full dreamscape does exist. How far out from the DC? I don't know, it is probably like a videogame, where certain sections are only created when the DC is in them, and disappear when the next section "loads." In a shared dream each dreamers NPC would likely just fade from the other's mind. Remember, the brain creates a "realscape" everday when it reassembles sensory input, it should seem equally capable of doing this in a dream using internally-created information.