SCI/TECH: Need Help With Dreams?

A new gadget designed by the Takara company may help the dreamer choose dreams and insomniacs to get to sleep better. While the gadget is fairly low-tech, the 14-inch device will help put you in the mood for a dream of your choosing. Here's how it works...

Source AP:

While preparing for bed, the user mounts a photograph on the device of who should appear in the dream, selects music appropriate to the mood - fantasy, comedy, romantic story, nostalgia - and records key word prompts, such as the name of a romantic crush.

Placed near the bedside, the dream-maker emits a special white light, relaxing music and a fragrance to help the person nod off.

Several hours later, it plays back the recorded word prompts, timed to coincide with the part of the sleep cycle when dreams most often occur. It then helps coax the sleeper gently out of sleep with more light and music so that the dreams are not forgotten.

The gadget has a 22% success rate in inducing dreams that contain one of the prompt words. Do you think it may help you? Would you buy this device? The gadget will start selling in Japan by late August for $136.

[edit on 30-6-2004 by John bull 1]

Interesting, but I would think in order for me to buy it I would pay only 22% of the $136 they're asking...

Takara? As in the Japanese toy company that makes Transformers? It sounds more like a gadget for teenagers than serious scientific equipment...

Yea, it doesn't seem very scientific, not probes or electrodes or nothin....but, it would be good for subliminal thoughts, kind of like improving your vocab while sleeping

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Yea, it doesn't seem very scientific, not probes or electrodes or nothin....but, it would be good for subliminal thoughts, kind of like improving your vocab while sleeping

I suppose it could work as a placebo. But like all placebos, it's all in the person's mind...