The idea that programmer's and engineers have these vivid lucid problem-solving dreams where they figure out a solution to a bug they've been having isn't anything new. I've never had those dreams personally, but I've heard from developers that claim they do. And they spout that magical whiteboards floated around with all the codes.
Color me a bit skeptical. But then again, I wasn't there.
Now a relatively new venture-backed startup thinks that it can bring the lucid dreaming office into the real world through the power of data and A.I.
The company is called Prophetic and their "Halo" device aims to induce lucid dreaming in an individual to pretty much make use of those pesky sleep hours that seem to vanish overnight.
The device is worn on your head much like a crown and it is able to use EEG feedback to spatially generate ultrasonic pulses that resemble those of lucid dreamers at the appropriate times, per their technology roadmap. I'm not a sleep expert, but it seems like there's a substantial amount of research backing this idea.
The company has already raised over $1 Million in funding and they are working with Afshin Mehin, who was the designer for Neuralink N1. Needless to say, there might be some validity to this whole working while you sleep idea.
For me personally, the idea is intriguing if the technology can indeed get portable enough to wear while you sleep. And not because I want to code while I sleep, because I don't. I code plenty in the waking world and the last thing that I want to do is to carry it over during the only time I have to not do it. But the potential for other cognitive endeavors during nights of rest are fascinating.
Because I have had very vivid dreams in the past, and in the moment of the dream, you're not really thinking "How can I be productive right now". You're typically thinking "I'm sleeping. I'm sleeping. I'm sleeping. cool". But what if you could step into that part of the brain and have a creative standup meeting with the creative subconscious part of your self.
All speculation on my part of course, but if the reviews are decent once it is released, I might just be adding it to my wish list.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.