Subj: dreaming's future
Date: 1/1/2000 1:56:51 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: future@dreamgate.com
To: present@dreamgate.com
Cc: past@dreamgate.com
Lars Spivock has not written a best-selling book, patented
a breakthrough electronic invention or worked as the science editor for
a famous news department. He is however, well-qualified to speculate about
the future of dreaming. He has been a lucid dreamer since early childhood,
has credentials in physics and computer science, and studied with several Nobel laureates. In the 80's, he designed and built a computer-interfaced
dreaming monitor out of an old pair of ski goggles and $20 worth of parts
from Radio Shack. A lifelong interest in artificial intelligence has led
Lars to personally experiment with technologies decades before they become
popular.
Jean
Houston is a leading spokesperson for the Transpersonalists who were instrumental
in bringing the ancient and non-western skills of altered states to the
industrialized West where many people were otherwise fixated on cars, tv,
beef and enjoying an economy based on population growth, the labor of others
and non-renewable resources. The Transpersonalists helped spawn a plethora
of new age practitioners who rely on low tech solutions and simplified
psychologies. As an aging group, the baby boomer new-agers remain generally
skeptical about technology.
By contrast, the generally younger Transhumanists are
willing to embrace electronic implants, genetic engineering, drugs, artificial
organs, and more, to gain longer, less physically and less psychologically
limited lives. The Transhumanists are now bringing the messages of some
of the serious* futurists to the mainstream. Isaac Asimov once said that
if you build a machine that has as many parts as the human brain and as
intricately organized as the human brain that it could emulate what we
refer to as human thought, including dreaming.
Just as eye glasses, microscopes, and telescopes extend
the capabilities and correct the deficiencies of the lenses in our eyes,
we can expect an explosion of enhancements for sensing and dreaming. Devices
are becoming very small -- small enough to wear and be powered by body
heat, body motion or ambient light. Nanotechnology, or "molecular manufacturing"
will allow systems to be small enough to be injected into the human blood
stream.
Wearable
computers are increasingly popular -- there are people who have been wearing
them daily for five years or more. Within the decade a Sony PuteMan will
have flip down eyepieces that clip onto a headband or sunglasses, accelerometers
in finger rings for input and a wireless modem for easy access to mass
storage, the web and email. The video image will have the apparent size
of a 60 inch screen about 6 feet away. The finger rings work by detecting
movement patterns similar to those used by a piano player playing simple
chords. Doug Englebart** demonstrated "chord" input with his left hand
at the same meeting where the desktop mouse in his right was shown to Apple
executive Steve Jobs.
As
these devices become more comfortable -- both psychologically and physically
-- we will be able to sleep and dream while wearing them. Add a few sensors
and some software to gather and analyze data and you have a portable, sleepable
heart monitor, brain wave monitor -- and ultimately a full bidirectional
sleep laboratory. This could be used as a trainer to increase the frequency
of lucid dreams, although to date, no electronic method has gone significantly
beyond a combination of low tech techniques -- meditation, relaxation,
journaling, affirmation, dream reentry, etc. -- and there are no batteries
to go dead. The most promising immediate advantages for this technology
are interactive dreaming, systematic data collection and reduction, tireless
reminding, and integration into wired collectives.
In a recent interview in Intuition Magazine, www.intuitionmagazine.com,
Ray Kurzweil whose name is most often seen during music performances which
use the synthesizers he developed, predicted that by 2030, computers would
be able to exhibit conscious self-awareness. Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon's
Robotics Institute is tracking the progress of computing speed and predicts
that humanlike robots will be among us in the 2020's. These androids could
also be transformed into more compact non-humanoid shapes for other purposes.
"Extropic
Art calls upon our heightened sensibility to reveal the multiplicity of
realms yet to be discovered, yet to be realized. We are exploring
how current and future technologies affect our senses, our cognition and
our lives. Our attention to and comprehension of these relationship become
fields of art as we participate in the most immediate and vital issues
for transhumanity: extending life, augmenting intelligence and creativity,
exploring the universe." -- a quote from prominent transhumanist Natasha
Vita-More. She predicts that today's sexuality of "rubbing mucus
membranes" will evolve toward other definitions in the "post-biological"
future. Within a few decades, collective "wet" dreams are likely to be
a popular form of "safe" sex. By 2020, people then under 50 will
be as comfortable with wearable computers and dream monitors as boomers
are with the telephone.
*It's cheap and easy to make shocking doomsday or utopian
predictions -- a lot of books were sold and lectures attended about Pope
Gregory's digit rollover -- better known as Y2K. Having just lived
through the Y2K event, we are all familiar with futurists that dwell on
only the most dramatic possibilities -- usually extremely optimistic or
pessimistic.
**Englebart is often credited with inventing the modern mouse; however,
devices for pointing in two dimensions had been around for a long time,
notably mechanical and electronic joysticks. Tectronix manufactured a popular
graphics monitor in the 70's with two fingerwheels built in and an optional
graphics tablet. Englebart cleverly put two similar wheels in contact with
a sphere that could be easily rolled over a desktop. Most of today's mice
point in two dimensions and monitors display in two dimensions -- sometimes
an artistic illusion of depth is created. Accelerometers in a "gyro" mouse
are capable of pointing in three dimensions. Correspondingly, by delivering
separate images to each eye, a much more realistic 3D view can be produced.
Lars Spivock
Lars
Spivock is an international technology consultant and an original member
of the DreamGate.com team. He has been a lucid dreamer since early
childhood. He freelances for The Wisdom Channel, Electric Dreams, and America Online's Alternative Medicine Forum. Lars
has contributed to dreaming outreach and education projects for the Intuition
Network, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Association for the Study of Dreams,
Bay Area Dreamworkers, and the Dream Library and Archive. He may be contacted
at future@dreamgate.com.
Lars also designed and wrote chess
software; invented and prototyped a microfilm reader smaller than a contact
lens; designed a movie film technology to show 3D films with conventional
projectors; taught accredited college cybernetics, biofeedback and impact
of technology; designed and wrote art criticism software for Wight Gallery
at UCLA, and is now working on software to automate development of neural
networks for forecasting.
