Will making a dream mask work?

**timm** · 04-04-2012 05:22 PM

Hi. I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and decided to sign up so I can ask a question.

Would making a dream mask work?

I've been having trouble lucid dreaming. I usually write in my dream journal (sometimes I forget). But I have never been in a vivid lucid dream (I have been in some non vivid dreams) so its not that much fun. I have been thinking that making a dream mask would help increasing my chance of lucid dreaming.

I seem to not be able to post links so:

"Theory of operation is probably pretty similar to the novadreamer (I wouldn't know, I've never seen one in real life...). An IR LED shines light on the eyelid wich is detected by the photosensor. During REM sleep when most dreams take place, there is a lot of eye movement, and when the device detects this it gives a signal after an adjustable amount of time. You can set the number, intensity and type (light/light and sound) of signal, the time between signals and the time after eye-movement is detected that the signal is given. There is also a dream-alarm function that can wake you after a set time after the signal is given so that you can write down your dream. The device also saves the number of signals given so you can see if you have to change the settings."

Building it wouldnt be too much of a problem, the different components needed for it isnt too hard to find and there are many alternatives. My brother had volunteered to build it and hes good at these kind of things.

**timm** · 04-04-2012 05:24 PM

Dam, can't post links.

EDIT:

Its the kvasar dream mask though.

**Barry** · 04-04-2012 05:55 PM

Sounds good, but it probably wouldn't help if you don't use the MILD technique regularly, but if you do then this should be good at assisting lucid dreams.

**Nazrax** · 04-16-2012 03:18 PM

I've tried to do something like this on and off for a few years. Each try gets a bit better, but I'm still not there.

The biggest problem is one I'd never even considered: making something that's both comfortable and completely immovable. My first few projects always ended up on top of my head by the end of the night (even the ones that were really uncomfortable to wear). Who knew I'd have to get good at sewing as well as electronics?!?

My most recent attempt is pretty good. It's got an IR sensor mounted close to each of my eyes along with 1 meg of flash memory to record the readings and a serial interface to download the readings to the computer. Unfortunately, looking at the readings, I can't make anything out. I'd really hoped for a clear "the line is straight: I'm not dreaming; the line is wiggly: I'm dreaming." Unfortunately, the line wiggles about the same all night long. It works when I test it during the day, so I suspect it's moving just enough to take readings off of something that's not my eyelid; but I don't really know.

A while back, I saw a project where the guy said "forget the crazy IR stuff, just set a timer for 5 hours and blink every few minutes after that." I'm very tempted to try this approach next time.

I'm currently in my "this is too annoying, I can't work on this right now" stage of the development cycle, but I can make my sources available if anyone is interested. It's built on the AVR set of chips (the kvasar is built on PICs).