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Make It Wearable | The Concepts: Sleep Hacking With iWinks

Lucid dreaming is a strange phenomena. From early Buddhism practices to films like The Science Of Sleep, the concept of becoming aware that you're dreaming within a dream has capitivated human beings for as long as we've...

Lucid dreaming is a strange phenomena. From early Buddhism practices to films like The Science Of Sleep, the concept of becoming aware that you're dreaming within a dream has capitivated human beings for as long as we've been, well, dreaming. There's the common anecdote of turning a nightmare about falling into a heroic story about flying through the skies, but regularly controlling your dreams in all their logic-less glory has always been a mere pipe dream. One start-up may change that, though.

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iWinks, a San Francisco-based company featured in our fifth installment of our wearable tech series, Make It Wearable: The Conceptsmay make sleep-hacking a common reality. Comprised of engineers Daniel Schoonover and Andrew Smiley, iWinks has been working since 2009 to investigate lucid dreaming through wearable technology. In our documentary (viewable above), iWinks shared with us a wearable headband they developed called Aurora that helps people have lucid dreams and then control them. "We're building a wearable device to literally help people live their dreams," says Schoonover. "It's going to open up a new world of opportunity for people interested in sleep hacking."

Aurora helps people have lucid dreams by measuring brain data through EEG (electroencephalography) sensors embedded in the headband. By reading your brainwave signals, which can be measured through the surface of the skull, Aurora will begin to understand how you dream. It compiles data about your sleep habits, such us how much you toss and turn (measured with a built-in accelerometer), and when you're in REM (when dreaming is most likely to occur), and other quantifiable sleep behavior.

Then, after you've practiced sleeping with it, the device will provide audio-visual stimulus to the wearer—flickering lights, or chanting audio that you can customize—as you're smack-dab in your REM cycle. Humans are responsive to external stimuli while they dream, and Aurora strives to make people aware they are dreaming without waking them up.  Any easy way to stay grounded in a dream is to activate the senses of your "dream body." Anything that engages you in the reality of the dream world will help you stay grounded there.

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Schoonover elaborated futher:

"The idea is that someone is wearing this headband, and they hear this tone or see this light. And then they realize they're in the dream, but they don't wake up because they've been practicing really hard. Then the person wearing Aurora would become lucid of their dream as they're dreaming. Your dream character, your dream body, your dream self, is going to incorporate real-world stimulus in the dream world."

But why would we want something like this? What can dream-focused wearables do other than make us aware that we're eating our pillow, prompting us to grab a napkin and maybe a glass of milk in dream land? For those who regularly dream of their teeth falling out or are prone to other familiar, Freudian nightmares, this tool could literally help you take control of the night. Not only is Aurora great for anyone interested in polyphasic sleep and sleep data, but iWinks claims people who lucid dream are better at handling their nightmares.

"Lucid dreaming has been proven an effective aid in combating PTSD, and increases your effectiveness in being able to wake at your discretion," iWinks told us. "Science has shown really great effects among people who do lucid dream. They're happier. People who lucid dream live happier, more healthy lifestyles than people who don't, on average." Schoonver himself even said, "When I have a lucid dream I feel amazing. I feel validated. My life has purpose."

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iWinks will also be open API so new avenues can be explored with this innovative tech. "We're building it not only with the purpose of selling it to a consumer, but also to build a community of developers and investigators who want to explore what's possible with sleep enhancement."

"To many," said iWinks, "dreams are passive experiences, and they leave them at that. But we think that there is a lot more to dreams than that, and we're trying to help people become more conscious and aware of their dreams." The field of tech-based dream exploration is just blooming, and wearable technology like Aurora could be the keys needed to unlock unprecedented access to slumberland.

For more on iWinks, visit the start-up's website here. And stay tuned for more in The Creators Project's dive into the emerging and innovative world of wearable technology!

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