For as much advancement as humanity has made in modern medicine even in the last century alone, there’s still plenty we don’t understand about the human body. That’s particularly true of the brain, where something as common as dreams are the subject of active debate about their fundamental nature, if they serve any purpose, and where they originate. One research team is hoping to probe a little further into this mystery, and has designed a special glove to help reach a little deeper into the subconscious brain.
The glove, called Dormio, has a number of sensors and feedback mechanisms which researchers hope will help explore the connection between dreaming and creativity. Volunteers were allowed to take a nap while wearing the glove, which can detect the moment they began entering a specific stage of sleep. At that point, the device would provide an audio cue to seed an idea into the dreams, in this case specifically prompting the sleeper to think about trees. Upon awakening, all reported dreaming about trees specifically, and also demonstrated increased creativity in tests compared to control groups.
While this might not have the most obvious of implications, opening the brain up to being receptive of more creative ideas can have practical effects beyond the production of art or music. For example, the researchers are also investigating whether the glove can help individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder manage nightmares. From a technical perspective this glove isn’t much different from some other devices we’ve seen before, and replicating one to perform similar functions might be possible for most of us willing to experiment on ourselves.
Surprised Inception didn’t get a mention here 😉
So when your fitness band is monitoring your sleep, it can notify Alexa to trigger the audio of your subliminal programming at the optimal time. Neat.
Hook it up to Alexa, have amazon get you to dream of whatever makes them the most money.
This is what Chat GPT came up with for me:
To design a routine that utilizes your Apple Watch to trigger Alexa to say a predetermined phrase when you enter REM sleep stage, you will need the following hardware and software resources:
Hardware:
1. Apple Watch (compatible with watchOS)
2. Amazon Echo device with Alexa support
Software:
1. Apple Health app (pre-installed on your iPhone)
2. IFTTT (If This Then That) app (available on the App Store)
3. Amazon Alexa app (available on the App Store)
Now, let’s break down the implementation process step by step:
Step 1: Enable Sleep Tracking on Apple Watch
– Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
– Tap on the “My Watch” tab.
– Scroll down and select “Sleep.”
– Enable “Sleep Mode” and configure your desired sleep schedule.
Step 2: Connect Apple Health with IFTTT
– Download and install the IFTTT app from the App Store, if you haven’t already.
– Open the IFTTT app and create an account (if needed).
– Tap on the “+” button to create a new applet.
– In the “IF” section, search for and select the “Apple Health” service.
– Choose the “Sleep Analysis” trigger and configure it to detect “REM sleep” stage.
– In the “THEN” section, search for and select the “Webhooks” service.
– Choose the “Make a web request” action.
– Configure the action to send a POST request to a specific URL (you will need to create a server-side endpoint to handle this request).
Step 3: Set up a Web Server Endpoint
– You will need to set up a web server endpoint (using any programming language or framework of your choice) to handle the POST request sent by IFTTT.
– When the endpoint receives the request, it should trigger a function to communicate with your Amazon Echo device and make Alexa say the predetermined phrase.
– There are various libraries and methods available depending on the programming language you choose. For example, if you’re using Node.js, you can use the ‘alexa-voice-service’ package to interact with Alexa.
Step 4: Connect Amazon Alexa with IFTTT
– Open the IFTTT app again.
– Tap on the “+” button to create a new applet.
– In the “IF” section, search for and select the “Webhooks” service.
– Choose the “Receive a web request” trigger.
– Set the event name (e.g., “rem_sleep_detected”).
– In the “THEN” section, search for and select the “Amazon Alexa” service.
– Choose the “Send an announcement” action.
– Customize the announcement text with your predetermined phrase.
Step 5: Test and Monitor
– Ensure that your Apple Watch is tracking your sleep and correctly detecting the REM sleep stage.
– Test the IFTTT applet by simulating the REM sleep stage using the test feature in the IFTTT app.
– Monitor the system to ensure that the web server endpoint receives the POST request from IFTTT and triggers the action to make Alexa say the predetermined phrase.
Please note that the implementation details may vary depending on the specific programming language, frameworks, and server setup you choose. You may need some programming skills or assistance from a developer to handle the server-side implementation effectively.
Loving the more cynical (read: realistic) responses here – sad that we’re already at this level of dystopia.
Simple answer though: don’t buy hardware or software that isn’t FOSSH!
If you only use open source software and hardware then you are very much limiting what you can use and how advanced that stuff is, what about your oven, microwave or fridge? What about your PC or especially phone? What about your TV, car, etc?
You really can’t just use open source stuff.