has a blog.

There’s something that creeps me out, and you know what it is?

Sleep.

More specifically, that tiny bit of time just before you fall unconscious.

You see, before you fall asleep your memory processing shuts down, which is why even though you’ve gone to sleep thousands of times in your life, you never actually remember the moment it happens.

This memory loss in fact extends a little bit before when you actually fall asleep. So why does this creep me out?

Sometimes I’ll be lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep and thinking about things, and as I get closer and closer to falling asleep, I suddenly realise something.

If I’ve entered the timeframe where my memory has shut down, then I won’t remember anything I’m currently thinking about. Effectively, the person who I am for that moment won’t be remembered, and will effectively “die” as soon as I fall asleep.

This knowledge somehow awakens some deep seated survival instinct, and I’m suddenly wide awake. It’s a strange reaction. Like that person who I am for that small moment doesn’t want to disappear.

So that’s why sleeping creeps me out: in order to do it, you have to effectively let a tiny part of yourself die every night.

You may think I’m a bit silly, but I bet a few people will be lying awake in bed a bit later than usual tonight.

So recently I was thinking about true virtual reality, and what it would entail. You know, virtual reality à la matrix. I didn’t feel like it would be happening anytime soon, what with the invasive surgery such a thing would require. A decent interface would need to connect with multiple sections of your brain at once, meaning your skull would be quite a mess afterward. Even assuming this could be done non-invasively, we just don’t know enough about the brain to really do anything with it.

Shortly though, I realised something. Your brain has virtual reality functions built-in already. It’s called dreaming.

Now I’m sure you can think of some problems with that statement, namely:

1. I can’t control my dreams
2. I don’t always have dreams
3. Even when I do, I can’t remember them

I’ll tackle those one by one.

Firstly, you can control your dreams, provided that you can realise that you are dreaming. It’s called lucid dreaming.

See, there are some things in your dreams that can tip you off that you are dreaming, for instance:

• If you read text then look away, then look back, the text will change
• If you look into a mirror, you will not see yourself (you will see something though, which can be disturbing)
• If you look at a digital clock, away, then back, it will change (analogue clocks will not, however)
• Flipping a light switch on or off will often have no effect
• Often times there will be something odd with your hands if you observe them

If you perform these checks often in reality, it’ll become a habit and you’ll sometimes do it in your dreams as well, exposing them as dreams. Once you realize you are in a dream, you gain the ability to control it. Lucid dreaming is interesting, I suggest you do a google search to learn more.

Now, for the second problem: what if I don’t have dreams? Well, turns out this isn’t actually a problem. You only think you don’t have dreams because you don’t remember them. Everyone dreams every night during REM sleep. A handy study noted in my psychology textbook showed that even people who claim to “never dream” will recall a dream 80% of the time if awoken during REM sleep.

As for the inability to remember your dreams, this can be improved. If you keep a dream journal and write down your dreams as soon as you wake up, you will start remembering them more and more. It will also help you lucid dream, as you will be more able to notice tell-tale dream signs.

See? No problems.

So basically, I propose that instead of doing all that work of making real virtual reality, we just exploit dreams instead. This is all we should need:

1. A way to sleep at any time and for as long as we want
2. A way to stay in REM sleep (you normally jump between dreamless stages during the night)
3. A foolproof method of making sure you realise you are dreaming (maybe frontal lobe stimulation? It’s the part of your brain with the logic and is fairly inactive during normal sleep (likely why you believe crazy stuff while dreaming))
4. A way to guarantee that you can remember what you dreamt would be nice too
5. A method of dealing with any downsides caused by the above four (no idea what these could be, but I bet there is something)

The only problem with dream VR next to real VR is that there is no multiplayer, and the experience would differ somewhat, but at least dream VR seems possible within our lifetimes.

Dunno, just a crazy idea. Leave you thoughts in the comments.