Manufacturing Dreams 114
New submitter geekgirl09 sends in a story from Wired about the U.S. Army's efforts to develop methods for digitally manufacturing dreams to soothe combat vets who suffer from PTSD. From the article:
"Fifty-two percent of combat veterans with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) reported having nightmares fairly often, according to the National Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustment Study. ... So the researchers will ask troops to take control of the 'creation of the customized healing imagery (therapeutic dreams) to counter the impact of nightmares,' according to a military contracting document. The hope is that these 'power dreams' can be watched from laptops and 'home training and 3-D goggles work to gradually enhance the strength of these new neurological images.'"
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Practical side-applications...? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, they should make dreams for the suckers who rack up massive debts getting a college education they can't really afford, then spend the rest of their life working at mcdonald's trying to pay it off.
Re:Lucid Dreaming (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not Science (TM) is scared of them, it's that they're really, really hard to reproduce reliably under lab conditions. Even if you get one person that can reliably do it, it's then even harder to find another person to do it under the same circumstances. End result: you end up with a lot of anecdotes, no data, no theory, no predictions and no way to measure things consistently.
That's why you don't hear science dealing with it.
Re:Lucid Dreaming (Score:4, Insightful)