This reminds me of how people who are born with healthy vision but later lose their sight continue to see unimpeded in dreams (our own natural simulator). Those in a wheelchair may sore through the air across lakes and mountains, unbounded by their gravitational cage; only to wake from the nocturnal simulation amazed or tortured, depending on their perspective.
I've always dreamed of eyes that could see a sharper image, zoom in and out, and see colors we can't see or maybe see in the dark.
I like the idea of having super-eyes. I've recently been trying to teach myself how to echolocate, it's difficult to make progress without the proper guidance but I like a challenge, and it would be nice to gain the ability to effectively 'see' in the dark. I'd also love the ability to focus my eyes to see through walls or see two different views simultaneously. If any boffins are reading, please get to work inventing that...
Maybe they lack the vocabulary! :-D
This is also a feature of some vivid lucid dreams and prophetic or spiritual dreams and can be related to the specific activation of certain parts of the visual cortex. So you can recreate the experience of "seeing in HD" or seeing things "more real than real" either in certain kinds of dream (there are some convincing arguments that NDEs are a form of vivid dreams) or by electrical stimulation of those parts of the brain (the same technique can also trigger NDE-like experiences).
Wow, that sounds amazing. Kinda jealous.
Let's put it this way, the first time I ever experienced it was in a vivid dream that inspired my entire career as an oneirologist. I think I've only experienced it once or twice since then, less intensely. Honestly, nothing can re-capture that first time, you can see how NDE's can be such life changing experiences.
Didn't know there was a term for that. So were you an academic or a hobbyist?
A little of both in a way. I don't work for a university, but I'm published and a lot of my research is funded, I also ran a successful clinical practice doing work mostly with nightmares although I'm on hiatus from that at the moment.
Yo, can you teach people here how to plan your dreams? That sounds amazing! I remember I asked myself to work out a dilemma I was facing, and I dreamed a dream that provided me the answer. It wasn't the answer I wanted, but it ended up being right on the money.A little of both in a way. I don't work for a university, but I'm published and a lot of my research is funded, I also ran a successful clinical practice doing work mostly with nightmares although I'm on hiatus from that at the moment.
It's also a hobby though, I keep a dream journal, lucid dream once or twice a week and engineer dreams over the weekend (you don't want to artificially plan your dreams too often as natural dreams are an important part of emotional regulation and insights into your subconscious).
Apologies for the spam, it's something I'm very passionate about and once I get talking with someone about it, I need duck tape across the mouth to shut me up...
You can probably see now why my idea of futuristic technology was dream related
Honestly though, imagine that you want to know what it would feel like to fly out to the edge of the solar system, witness the birth of a star (beginning of life) and get sucked into a black hole (end of life). Or you want to experience what it would be like to be a student at Hogwarts casting magic spells...
Once you get proficient enough at dreaming you've got a totally immersive sensory experience where you can explore those fantasy adventures and although complete fantasy, they feel hyper-real. Those are just one tiny fraction of the possibilities.
One area of research I'm involved in at the moment involves using dreams to help people give up smoking or lose weight. In the future, potentially, you'll go to sleep and when you wake up you'll find cigarettes or junk food unappealing. There's an argument to be made that you can use similar techniques to cultivate attraction or love as well - if you've ever seen Futurama, think of dream adverts, these are theoretically possible (in the lab at least), you could suddenly wake up with a craving for Nike shoes without necessarily knowing why...
Anyway, sorry, I'm rambling
It's funny you asked because one of the projects I'm working on at the moment is developing a series of workshops to teach people exactly this skill. It's something anyone can learn and it's based on scientific principles, no cultish voodoo new age mysticism, but in my experience, if you have a good imagination and have a more creative personality, you'll see much better results.
That's so cool! I hope you are able to make advancements with this!
I'm really sorry. Do these issues with your jaw cause physical pain or limit your ability to speak or chew properly? You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.
Reading this gave me an idea to respond with. Something I'd genuinely like but it's probably pretty sad. A truly conscious AI, just like suggested above, but for the purpose of being a friend. Someone I can chat with about anything at any time but doesn't feel like they're a robot reading a script and programmed just to agree with me and parrot back everything I say.I'd like a way for artificial intelligence to be truly conscious, and for us to be able to upload ourselves to a virtual reality simulation. Once in, we could avail ourselves of illness and disabilities, erase certain memories or enhance ones we liked. Loved ones human and animal, would be waiting for us, themselves conscious and eternally healthy, and we'd be unconstrained by physics - personally, I'd make myself a wizard. The entire experience would be much like a vivid lucid dream, except our voluntary volition would be much higher.
Maybe I'm just describing a romanticised version of the matrix...
THIS! I'd rewind time to just before I was born, and somehow get my dad to have a vasectomy so that I could never be born.
Time machine can probably only change one event because after that life will begin to deviate from the original. It will be new also to the future self. Both old and future selves will make new mistakes. Then a future future self wants to go back fix things....
