program to help in reality checks

[lord soth]

okies, i am willing to make a program that reminds you to dream every 30 40 minutes, a heck, i will make it random! and before i spend all this effort on it, i have to know if anyone would use it.... any takers?

[wasup]

why not just remember to do a reality checks A program will be less sucessful in inducing lucidity...

[iadr]

How exactly would this program work ? Would it be like using a watch that chimes every hour to remind a person to do reality checks ? Or would it be something generated by a computer that a person would listen to at night while they sleep ? Either way it sounds like a good idea.

[lord soth]

no, its just a program, that, at random times during the day, it will make the most ridiculus pop up, and beep... it will say: dream-ing? [/b] something like that

[iadr]

Rediculous would probably be the key to make this work. Maybe have a different rediculous random pop-up come up each time to remind one to check their state. Good idea. I may work on something this myself. I used to have a dos based program that was a subliminal program that sent custom messages to the screen in whatever time increments a person specified that was similar to this, except that it was more subliminal because the messages flashed so fast they were hard to read.

[ypm]

Originally posted by lord soth no, its just a program, that, at random times during the day, it will make the most ridiculus pop up, and beep... it will say: dream-ing? something like that [/b] Hey Lord Soth (like the name, used to read the books) I'm assuming that this is a windows based program? I'd be willing to use it if it can minimize to the system tray, and if I could set it to do something beep randomly one and hour, or one every half an hour. ypm.

[iadr]

You've given me a great idea on this that will be easy for me to iimplement at work. Where I work we use Lotus Notes and alarms can be set in this to send messages at the times specified, so I'll just program one of these big bold messages to pop up on my screen every 30 minutes. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to set up. Thanks for the terrific idea...

[muse.v]

this would be great if you could make the 'pop-ups' related to common dream signs, or perhaps a way to add your own to make it more personal... just an idea

[iadr]

This pop-up thing is working great. Everytime I turned around today at work I was getting a pop-up to check my state. Most times I've ever checked my dream state in one day. And yes, I would be willing to use a program like this because I still need something that will work on my home computer.

[lord soth]

awesome, the program is basicly done, except for 2 MAJOR bugs... hey im new to VB! anyway, beeps are optional, and you can set the slider for specific times... around 1 hr and minimum is 1 min it can turn invisible... im not sure about the tray, but it stays off the main bar, you can disable it using CTRL+ALT+DEL and the message is put in by you... what else.. i guess that covers it, i can make the pop up optional... i guess... and its just a normal pop up box... i will also add a random feature... VB random = RND (EASY!)

[ivi]

How about Lucille 2 by Mythwell Software?

[iadr]

The pop-up part of it is what is working so well for me because it forces me to stop and think about it when I am close the pop-up, so I just go ahead and check my state, while when attempting to check my state while wearing a watch that chimed every hour, checking my state ending up being half-hearted attempts or no attempts at all as a chime on a watch becomes very easy to ignore. Of course one would need to be sitting at a computer all day like I do for this to be of benefit. One terrific idea lord soth. Now I am wondering what kind of device could be made for someone not sitting in front of a computer all day long. Maybe a little jack in the box type of thing that could be set up to pop up out of a watch or ring that a person would have to reset each time after it popped up, which undoubtedly would be much more difficult to create than a computer program. Can you imagine sitting in an important meeting and all of a sudden your jack in the box pops up because you forgot to turn it off. You would certainly be life of that meeting (party). This might be a good project for someone like BitterSeason with all of his creative genius.

[lord soth]

oh, crap oh well, just use that program and you dont have to wait for mine to come out (now im not going to try as hard, but dont worry, i will get it done someday, maybe when the trial version of that program runs out)

[lord soth]

to get people that are away from their computers, just buy a pager, and have the computer call it every hour or so...

[Seeker]

You can also use the Windows task scheduler to launch something at predetermined intervals if you like.

[iadr]

Excellent idea Seeker, It could be something as simple as an Access, Excel, or VB Program with a simple message box. And the task scheduler is very easy to set up multiple intervals in. I'll set one up tonight. And don't give up soth. I'm sure your program will be a lot better than these simple little message boxes I am setting up, and this was your great idea to begin with. Thanks !

[dream-scape]

If done right I think this could be a good idea. Harvard has done a number of studies using tetris as the medium of choice, so to speak. One where they made a modified version of the game to display the message "Are you dreaming?" at the end of each level. Another where they made people play a version of tetris over and over to try and induce the same dream in the subjects (17 people shared the same or similar dreams that night). I can't find the link right now to the study about the modified version of tetris that asks if you are dreaming though.

[iadr]

I finally got the task scheduler thing to run on my computer (Seekers great idea) and it is working like a charm coming up every 20 minutes. No matter what I have open, the reality check reminder now comes up and asks me if I am dreaming. To get the task scheduler to run I had to assign a password for my login since the scheduler has to have a password in order to work. I simply created a form in an Access database that asks me If I am dreaming with a button on it which then brings up another form which says Are you sure, with a button that closes the database. I made the forms bright pink to get my attention, and created a macro and named it autoexec containing only a form open command in it to get the form to open automatically when the database is opened by the task scheduler. Thanks for the great idea...

[Damascus]

liquid dreamer II does the same thing. and u can put it on speakers so if your one of those people who can hear external things in their sleep then you get reminded to do a reality check

[iadr]

I've never heard of liquid dreamer II but I am interested in it. Is it a computer program of some sort ? Do you know where I can find information on it ? I searched on Google and came up with one site on it but the site had a problem coming up. Thanks...