The Digital Human - Dreams

Dreams have fascinated people since the dawn of humanity, seen as prophetic, used by the ancient Greeks to diagnose illness before physical symptoms appeared, and inspiring some of the world’s greatest inventions and works of art.

But dreams have a darker side. Often we meet our internalised anxieties in our sleeping subconscious. During the Pandemic there was a surge of people reporting having more dreams, especially vivid, nightmarish visions - facing down swarms of insects, swept away by title waves, or being overwhelmed and oppressed by unstoppable forces. At the same time, there was a spike in online searches for ways to induce lucid dreaming, and how to take control of dreams.

Aleks Krotoski explores why we have this urge to take control of our dreams, how technology can influence us in our sleep, and finds out if it’s wise to really try to take control, when we’re still figuring out the purpose and mechanics of dreams and don’t yet know the consequences of tinkering with them.

Published on Monday, 22nd March 2021.

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