First post. Any freeware programs that will program laptop screen to provide time settable strobe?

[frascati]

I tried the Brainwave Generator. It appears that it might do what I"m trying for, but is irritatingly difficult to decipher its GUI. Brand new at this, so forgive me for knowing next to nothing yet about what is available. I"m assuming that the Dreamlight goggles that actually monitor REM patterns are pretty expensive. I wonder if anyone has ever written a small simple program/file that would allow you to sync a cycle timer module with screen settings and the laptop's clock to be able to set your laptop screen to, for instance, flash a brilliant (brilliance adjustable) colored screen at, say, three second intervals for about thirty seconds. This interval could be adjusted to commence at a time that you estimate REM to be optimal, and could be set to repeat a few times each sleep cycle. To bed at 1100pm. At 5:30, or so, laptop screen strobes/flashes brightly at three second intervals about 10 times then stops. 90minutes later it does this again. And a third time if you wish. Keep tweaking the intervals, brightness, time settings, as you acclimate it to your sleep cycles. Also, I remember we used to have an overstuffed pure feather pillow in the house that we used to refer to as the "dream" pillow. Whenever you slept with it you would have extraordinarily memorable dreams. Way before my ever becoming aware of lucid dreaming techniques. Anything to this?

[Chemicaledge]

I've never used an external device to try to become lucid, but from what I heard it's no easier than using any other method. As for the pillow, is it more comfortable than any other pillow in your home? If that's the case then you might be having more memorable dreams because you are getting a better nights sleep.

[frascati]

How about any of the "alarm clock" programs? There are dozens and dozens out there. I've looked into three of them so far and been unable to find one that allows gif or vid files to activate the screen upon the "alarm". They must be out there. Additionally the program would need to have a "duration" setting for the alarm in addition to the "snooze" function (which, obviously, is not going to be useful). postscript Found a program called AniReminder that does what I've described. Then I found a flashing screen .gif. You can find it by searching google image for "flashing background 800 x 800" (dreamviews does not allow me to post links yet). Unfortunately AniReminder failed to apply "duration" to the animated gif. Once initiated it kept flashing forever. That's something that will need a workaround such as finding the timeout portion of the script in the gif and modifying it, unless I can find a reminder/alarm/scheduler/timer program that works better. The audio reminder worked fine. Any audio file will work. I just used start>all programs>accessories>entertainment>sound recorder to record 20 seconds of my own voice prompts/reminders. Then I just browsed to that file when inside of AniReminder to set it up.

[Ev]

Hi frascati. I'm developing a completely free Android App for lucid dreaming. It is a swiss army knife of lucid dreaming tools with an extremely customizeable timer. Right now it allows to plays sound and vibrate reminders while in suspected REM. In the next update, I plan to add the feature that you are describing - a light cue during suspected REM. The advantage of smart phones is that they are dead quiet. No fan noise, no cd drive spin ups, no hard drive clicks! It just sits there and then BAM - delivers a reminder. This update should happen within 10 days, as it's pretty easy to implement. The phone's screen brightness can be adjusted to 100% over 10 seconds or so, then a series of light cues or images may be flashed. If the user is sleeping facing the phone, the light will most definitely be seen, as it is really bright. The exact timing will be set up by the user, I'll probably let you specify timing up to a millisecond. The app currently vibrates text in morse code, so the same pattern can be applied to light - enter some text to flash when the reminder is needed. Here's how the app can be used to estimate sleep cycles and see when the reminders would've been played. This is an actigraphy history of several days of data with exact times of dream awakenings recorded. REM should happen before that. Orange triangles are dream awkening, we obviously want to deliver reminder a few minutes before that. The red line is when the app looks for dreams. The Xs above graph is when the app would've played the reminder on those nights. The Xs adjust their timing based on previous events during the same night. So lets say your REM just ended and you recorded a dream. If you let the app know, it will adjust the next event to occur sooner. If you would like to see any particular implementation of this feature, please tell me, and I may be able to make it happen.