SUMMARY
UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical Engineering have developed the Dream Brain System, an immersive Virtual Reality platform that collects dream data for therapeutic, scientific and experimental use. By capturing relevant dream data through multimodal signals recollected by the user, the Dream Brain System greatly advances conventional dream reporting techniques by providing effective dream recollection and interpretation.
BACKGROUND
Dreams are often seen as the most relevant unguarded windows to human brains. If interpreted properly, dreams can be diagnostically valuable, especially when the interpretation is integrated with a thorough knowledge of the waking situation of the dreamer and a systematic knowledge of psychology and collective cultural constructs. To understand the complex nature of dreams, a series of dreams needs to be examined in the context of waking life, with analysis tools from data science, computational statistics, neurocognitive science and new media studies.
Up until now dreams have been examined as subjectively written reports, which has restricted dream analysis tools to be based only on the methods of content analysis of texts. However, dream is a multi-sensory immersive experience that cannot be expressed only through written language. Thus, with the aim of analyzing dream reports and detecting meaningful correlations in them, a large data collection should be thoroughly examined in an environment that would enable optimal conditions for subject’s dream recall. In that sense, dreams can be analyzed on a firm scientific foundation where hypotheses can be guided by data and empirically verified to the extent possible.
INNOVATION
Researchers at UCLA have developed the Dream Brain System, an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) platform that collects dream data and is also able to test or validate various theories about dreaming. The Dream Brain System is a set of scientific methods and tools, conceptualized in the form of a multisensory platform that captures relevant dream data through multimodal signals recollected by the user.
The Dream Brain System improves on conventional dream reporting techniques that are primarily unimodal and textual, limiting both dream recollection and effective dream interpretation. The System provides a methodology for implementing the multisensory platform of immersive VR, as well as data analysis method to interpret patterns that occur in dreams and/or dream series in order to retrieve more accurate data, and to gain better understanding of dream content and dream process.
In addition, an 8-signal model of emotional layers has been developed to help researchers visualize emotional aspects of dream data and to illustrate subject’s prevailing state of mind during dream experience. The Dream Brain System is equipped with advanced methods and tools enabling a fundamentally new and more integrated approach to dream data collection and consciousness studies.
APPLICATIONS
- Diagnostic evaluation of patients in psychotherapy and treat patients with various mental disorders
- Record dream experience with high fidelity and interpretability
- Dream science research tool
ADVANTAGES
- The VR technology allows the user to re-experience and recall their dream events in its original spatial-temporal configuration, including the emotional layers that underlie their dreams
- The multisensory platform improves on conventional dream reporting techniques by allowing capture of dream data through multimodal signals recollected by the user, including emotional aspects of dream data
- Allows accurate data collection and effective data interpretation
STATE OF DEVELOPMENT
Currently at implementation-ready stage