Although privacy would perhaps always be a concern, if it were otherwise safe I’d let myself be strapped into a device so that my memories could be recorded for viewing later and sharing.
I saw a group called, “I Want to Create a Device That Records Your Dreams Straight to Video As You Sleep” …
…and it got me thinking.
If such a dream-recording device could be created, what’s to stop it from being modified to record memories as well? Even all your thoughts?
I then engaged in some back-and-forth with the person who posed the question. I also pointed out perhaps the ability to have this done might happen in our lifetimes.
“Scientists Figure Out What You See While You’re Dreaming
A learning algorithm, coupled with brain scans, was able to predict the images seen by dreamers with a 60 percent accuracy”
By Joseph Stromberg
smithsonian dot com
April 4, 2013
Here are some of my comments on the subject.
I think another question would be would you want to use such a device to record your own dreams even if there was a risk someone else could record them as well?
And would intellectual property rights exist? Meaning could you sue a movie production company if they wrote a screenplay about a dream of yours without your permission?
If one could merely think about a past experience and the device could accurately record that past event from memory, they could watch that experience any time I wanted to. Imagine being able to re-live a vacation in every single detail. And share it with family or friends upon your return. If you couldn’t remember something exactly, just ‘think it’ and then download for later viewing.
But, personal privacy would be an issue. If such a device could be used surreptitiously, then all your dreams, thoughts and experiences would be an open book. And not just for that person’s own thoughts and memories but when they were the subject of someone else’s dreams, thoughts or past experiences.
If such a device could be used against government officials without their knowledge, how long do you think the government would make it a law to be able to be used against the citizenry? To prove crimes, help identify witnesses.
But I still think the idea is fascinating.
I think that once such a device was safe to use, I’d want to use to be able to record, view and share with total accuracy any of my dreams, thoughts or past experiences.
But the trade-off would be the potential for the total loss of privacy of not just your dreams but any thought, any past experience, good or bad. Or imagine any experience that you were part of that someone ELSE decided to share that, something that was a shared experience or something they saw happen to you that was embarrassing or humiliating, something that you surely didn’t want shared but now wouldn’t have any choice in the matter.
It would open a Pandora’s Box, certainly.
Dream-recording would likely be first. But say you went further? Would you let people know thoughts and memories could be recorded as well or would you let them naively think only their dreams will be recorded as they lay down on a bed in your oneirological Institute?
If YOU were the person who invented such a device, how would YOU use it?
I think it’s worth exploring the ramifications of such an invention. Because once it exists, I don’t think we’d be able to put the genie back in the bottle.
But let’s assume that I’m assured that the use of it is medically safe. I would at that point most certainly want to use it.
At that point I’d sure be interested in trying it out, to have my dreams recorded and be given a copy on a DVD or Blu-ray.
I make an appointment and show up at your dream record center, not knowing that my thoughts and all past experiences as I saw them happen could be recorded as well, thinking it’s only about my dreams.
I’m so full of anticipation that I quickly sign the consent form, not paying much attention to the fine print that recordings of all my past and current thoughts and my memories will be recorded and that your center is entitled to keep view, analyze and distribute any or all recordings of patient subjects for further scientific research and will share them among the scientific community, associated companies and other interested parties.
In fact, had I paid attention to the consent form I might have seen that my active thoughts and dreams will not only be recorded by your sleep center but will also be streamed live to any of those interested parties and that all my past memories will be stored for their unfettered access and download as well. The word ‘privacy’ is pointedly absent from the consent form.
I’m verbally told that your sleep center staff will have to monitor the recordings of my dreams while I sleep to make sure the equipment is working safely and properly. I’m told you and they would be seeing my dreams on large view screens as if they were dreaming my dreams themselves. Everything I see and hear in my dreams will be viewed and recorded.
The machine wouldn’t just record those images from my dreams as if a vidcam was recording them, but sounds as well. Any ‘thoughts’ I would have during my dream would result in a ‘narrative’ overlay in my own voice. I acknowledge that I understand that it’s completely necessary and that I’m okay with that.
Of course, they don’t mention that the same is the case for my thoughts as well.
I’m immediately fitted with a small device to the back of my head and a machine is switched on. I’m told, truthfully by your staff, that my dreams can now be recorded.
What I don’t realize and what I’m not told is that starting at that moment all my thoughts are now being recorded as if I was speaking them aloud, captured in my own voice as if I were narrating a video of them. Also, everything I now visually see and hear is now being stored on your machine’s server as seen thru my eyes and heard thru my ears. All my past memories can now be accurately recorded by you and your technicians as I had seen and heard them as well.
The result would be as if I had been wearing something like Google Glass with video of everything I saw and heard for my entire life, with all my thoughts as an overlay in my own voice. All of this being essentially ‘downloaded’ from my memories in 100% accurate detail and recorded onto your institute’s computers.
I do not realize any of this, of course, thinking it will only be my dreams monitored and recorded for later viewing by me.
I am asked to walk behind a small privacy screen and completely undress and told once I have done so to put on the short paper hospital gown that one of your staff hands to me.
So first, I undress completely. I stand totally naked in front of the full length mirror on the wall nodding and smiling approvingly of myself, then turn and look over my shoulder at my cute butt. I left out a slight giggle as I look at myself in the mirror jiggling my bottom, then I turn around and watch myself jiggle my boobs.
But because I gave such a scant overview to the contract and agreement, I do not realize that all my memories and thoughts are at this point being recorded and monitored by you and your staff, including these new memories that my mind is creating of me at this very moment of me looking at myself fully nude in the mirror. Everyone who is logged in to watch the live stream can see me looking at myself nude in the mirror as well.
I don’t realize any of that of course. But I do start to think of all those people milling about the room on the other side of that small privacy screen. I can’t help but get goose bumps as the thought crosses my mind of standing there fully exposed in everyone’s presence if someone suddenly accidentally moved the privacy screen away. I can’t help but think about it and visualize it happening, of everyone first starring at me before they all burst into laughter, making comments about my boobs, my untrimmed bush, my butt. I shiver at the thought, and then I quickly put on the hospital gown only to be frustrated by the lack of closure tie strings or Velcro in the back before I realize it’s too small to close in the back even if there was tie strings, as they’ve given me a junior’s size. It’s also quite short, barely covering my bush.
With barely anything on and the room’s air conditioning making me feel even colder, I glace again at myself in the mirror and see that my nipples are poking prominently into the fabric of the paper gown. I wonder if it will be noticeable and I think to myself, “People will notice my nipples are hard.” Those thoughts are also being recorded and monitored in real time by you and your technicians.
I can’t help but blush as I walk away from the privacy screen and into everyone’s presence, trying to maintain some modesty as I struggle, ultimately unsuccessfully, to hold the back of the hospital gown closed with one hand as I carry in a plastic bag all my clothes I just took off in my other hand as staff of both sexes walk about both in front and behind me.
Then a nursing assistant asks me to hold both my arms out in front of me. She takes my blood pressure on my right arm while one cute young male aide takes the plastic bag with my clothes, eyeing me up and down briefly before walking off in a direction behind me before stopping to engage in a conversation with another assistant. Another young male nursing assistant ties an ID name tag around my left wrist. As he does see, I see him smirk as he glances down towards my boobs. I then realize he can obviously see my nipples poking hard at the paper material of the gown.
Our eyes meet and I blush badly and I think to myself, “Oh crap. He can see that my nipples are hard.”
Your machine records that thought in my own voice as your techs watch all these new memories being created of me looking at the smirking male aide.
With my arms outstretched in front of me, the short gown of course is now fully wide open in the back and I hear some snorting and chuckling from behind me. I can’t help but visualize an image of myself standing there from the viewpoint of those behind me. The young woman taking my blood pressure and the young man putting the ID name tag on my wrist both have grins on their faces as they exchange looks with several of their colleagues standing behind me. I then see them both look down and smirk even more.
I think, “Oh my God! My gown is too short to fully cover my bush!”
Again, these thoughts are recorded as if I were speaking them aloud.
As my face reddens, I try to tell myself the embarrassment will be worth being able to have my dreams over the next 6-8 hours recorded.
“But what the heck,” I tell myself, “I’d even stay here totally naked in front of everyone for this opportunity.”
Those thoughts, too, as well as my visualization of that happening, imaging myself naked in front of everyone, are being recorded and monitored by your staff, unknown to me. Once again, I don’t know that the recordings of my thoughts overlay the video of them in my own voice.
(You now know all those thoughts, your staff as well. You now have recordings of them. Would you take advantage of that knowledge by perhaps concocting some ‘medical’ reason as to why I must remove my gown for the duration of the testing knowing from my thoughts that I’d embarrassingly comply?)
As I stand there being attended to I’m further told that you and your staff will use time-practiced standard and advanced ‘dream incubation’ techniques on me. Sensory stimuli and physical sensations will need to be used and, therefore, to have my dreaming accurately reflect the sensation of change in temperature, you and staff will periodically alter the state of dress I am in so that I’d feel hot or cold, for example to reflect my dreaming about a change in the weather.
I don’t really understand all that I’m being told, but nod anyway. I assume to myself perhaps that means a blanket or two will be laid on top of me to make me feel warm, without thinking about how I will be made to feel cold (given that I am wearing only the paper hospital gown).
As I lay back on the bed, I am given a mild anesthetic to keep me soundly asleep and you instruct your staff to hook me up to various monitoring devices both for the recordings and to properly monitor my vitals, including a heart monitor, for safety reasons. As I fade out I feel the electrodes being stuck on to my skin. Whether my gown was lowered down to my waist, raised up to my neck, removed entirely or put back in place after I was hooked up I do not know as the anesthetic already started having an effect. Unbeknownst to me at that moment, I actually did know the answer as I lay there looking at myself. And that’s a memory that can now be accessed and recorded as it was created in my mind even though I might not otherwise remember it as I drifted out.
While I’m out, it’s probable that one of the techs tells or replays to everyone else my thought earlier, “Heck, I’d even stay here totally naked in front of everyone for this opportunity.”
A decision would then be made with regards to my hospital gown, perhaps not only with whether it remains on at all during my dreaming (that is if it hasn’t been removed already) but also whether it will be on when I come out of sedation.
What decision would you have your techs make about it?
Then, with regards to my dreams and thoughts and memories, how would you proceed? What would you do with the recordings of my thoughts and the memories I just lived thru once hooked up to the device? Would you give them to me, obviously causing me embarrassment in the process, or keep me in the dark about them? Would you share them with others? Just your staff or with other researchers or others?
What dreams would you suggest? How would you use sensory stimuli and physical sensations? Would you limit your recordings to just my dreams or expand those recordings to my thoughts both before and after my sleep since I’d still be hooked up for observation for a full two hours after I awake and my past memories as well and finally what would become of the recordings?
I would have after all given you that OK, though not knowing you may take advantage of the fine print of the agreement that I didn’t pay attention to go and thereby go further than record only my dreams and only for my private use.
How would you use that if given that opportunity?
Would you share recordings of my dreams? If so, with whom?
Let’s assume I am hooked up right now to that machine, me having to answer your questions and responses as if I was. After all, I did post this story. In fairness, shouldn’t I have to respond?
What dreams or thoughts might you induce?
What kind of sensory stimuli and physical sensations would you use?
Would you record my thoughts and induce me to recall past memories and record them as well? Would you share those, too?
What kind of my memories would you record? What about my most intimate moments? Would you record those memories as well and what questions would you ask me to trigger them?
At this point you wouldn’t be conquering the world. But perhaps you might want to show the power you could now unleash? Perhaps after seeing and recording my thoughts and my past experiences you feel I need a good public shaming for years of promiscuity? Perhaps you want to showcase what you feel are the dangers of such a device? Or the potential for good, like having the memories of a witness accurately recording for help in prosecuting a criminal? Perhaps all of the above or something else entirely? The power is in your hands.
You would have the power for the next six to ten hours (perhaps even each night over an extended period of time, say several weeks) to record and share any of my dreams including those you could induce through sensory stimuli and physical sensations, any of my thoughts and any past memories of the 30-year old sleeping woman lying down in front of you and your staff wearing, for the moment at least, nothing but a short, paper hospital gown, or perhaps not even that.
How would you use that power? Be honest. I won’t be offended, nor by having to answer your questions.
Join the conversation:
https://similarworlds.com/3980192-I-Wish-Memories-Could-Be-Recorded-And-Played-Back/38606-Would-you-permissively-allow-your-dreams-memories
