Next Big Thing – dream movies

I told you to kick your once-a-week Inception habit

This is real science my friend, as practised by researchers at UC Berkeley. They’ve not quite managed to turn dreams into movies just yet but we reckon it’s the next step after the amazing imagery reconstruction produced using fMRI – functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Steve Martin looks all blurry

Probably best that way. It’s because the video shows a reconstruction of how our brain sees things, like movies. The scientists measured blood flowing through the brain’s visual cortex, recorded the brain activity with a computer program and combined the reading with a movie reconstruction algorithm, constructed out of 18 million seconds of YouTube clips.

Were they all clips of a Rorschach test?

Maybe. The tech only records activity while subjects are watching a film right now but the reconstructed images themselves can only get more detailed and less ink blotty. Next stop – tapping into dreams, memories and the brain activity of coma patients. We’d get in quick and start selling foil hats to stop those crazy science folk watching playbacks of your inappropriate, we mean important, thoughts.

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home