Technology
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 5:55 pm EDT
Key Points
- Prophetic’s Innovative Mission: Eric Wollberg and Wesley Berry co-founded Prophetic, a tech startup focused on creating the “world’s first wearable device for stabilizing lucid dreams.” Their mission is to use technology to explore consciousness through lucid dreaming, where individuals become aware that they are dreaming and may control their dreams.
- Funding and Partnership: Prophetic recently secured $1.1 million in funding, with participation from a16z’s Scout Fund and BoxGroup. They have partnered with Card79, a company known for its work with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, to prototype their non-invasive device called the “Halo.”
- Innovative Approach and Challenges: Prophetic’s approach involves using AI and focused ultrasounds to stimulate the prefrontal cortex during dreaming to induce lucid dreams. They aim to decode brain imaging data into “tokens” using a convolutional neural net, creating a closed loop to maximize prefrontal cortex activation. While ambitious, the company faces challenges, with the full prototype test scheduled for 2024 and plans to ship devices starting in spring 2025.
Eric Wollberg and Wesley Berry, both in their late twenties, co-founded Prophetic, a tech startup aiming to develop the “world’s first wearable device for stabilizing lucid dreams.” Lucid dreams are those in which a person becomes aware that they are dreaming and may exert some control over the dream. The company recently secured $1.1 million in funding, led by BoxGroup and with participation from a16z’s Scout Fund. They have partnered with Card79, known for its work with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, to prototype the device called “Halo.”
Prophetic’s founders plan to reveal a semi-working prototype soon and conduct a full test by the third or fourth quarter of 2024 after a year-long study on brain imaging in partnership with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. Their long-term goal is to start shipping devices in spring 2025, but they acknowledge they are still some way from achieving this.
The concept of lucid dreaming has intrigued both the public and the neuroscience community for decades, with references in popular culture and scientific studies dating back to the 1970s. Wollberg, who experienced his first lucid dream at age 12, is passionate about using lucid dreams to explore consciousness. Berry, with a background in neurotech prototyping, was initially skeptical but became interested when he realized that they were not inducing dreams but activating the prefrontal cortex to make dreams lucid.
The Donders Institute’s study aims to provide training data for Prophetic’s AI, focusing on gamma frequencies, the fastest measurable brain wave frequencies associated with an active prefrontal cortex during lucid dreams. Prophetic plans to use focused ultrasounds to stimulate the prefrontal cortex while users are dreaming, leveraging research suggesting that such stimulation can enhance working memory.
Berry’s innovative approach involves using a convolutional neural net to decode brain imaging data into “tokens” and feeding them into a transformer model, creating a closed loop that helps the model understand the sequences of brain states and neurostimulation needed for lucid dreams. Despite the challenges, Berry believes in the potential of their technology, describing it as a “quantum leap” in the field of dream manipulation.
For full original article on CNBC, please click here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/ai-startup-prophetic-aims-to-build-headset-that-lets-you-control-dreams.html
