Do desires have which means, or are they the results of random electrical alerts firing within the mind throughout sleep? I most definitely have no idea the reply to that query, however in both case, evidently there could be one thing we might be taught by taking time to mirror on our nightly desires. However the issue is that the reminiscence of even essentially the most vivid desires normally fades away to nothing by the point we get away from bed.
A possible answer to this drawback has not too long ago been supplied up by a gaggle of engineers and designers at Modem Works in Amsterdam. They’ve developed the Dream Recorder, which they invoice as a portal to your unconscious. It’s a gadget that sits by the bedside, ready to seize one’s spoken description of their desires the second they get up, earlier than the reminiscence has an opportunity to fade. These descriptions are transformed into AI-generated movies that play on its show all through the day to supply alternatives for reflection.
The Dream Recorder (📷: Modem Works)
The Dream Recorder is powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB single-board laptop, and it makes use of a Waveshare 7.9-inch HDMI show with a 1280×400-pixel decision for the interface. A USB microphone permits for recording of the person’s voice after they want to describe a dream. The {hardware} elements have been put in in a 3D-printed case. The entire work has been launched underneath a permissive MIT license, so anybody can construct their very own copy of the Dream Recorder.
After a dream description has been recorded, it’s transcribed into textual content by way of OpenAI’s Whisper computerized speech recognition system. This textual content is then fed right into a GPT‑4o mini giant language mannequin together with a system immediate instructing it to rework the dream description right into a cinematic video immediate. The immediate it produces is then fed right into a Luma Ray2 Flash video technology mannequin to provide an inventive illustration of the described dream.
The low-resolution movies are supposed to be dream-like (📷: Modem Works)
The Dream Recorder shops per week’s value of desires domestically and cycles by means of them regularly. The overall {hardware} value is round $300, and every immediate/video technology prices about $0.15. Full directions for gadget meeting and programming, in addition to the supply code, could be present in a GitHub repository.
Whether or not or not the gadget will truly result in any insights, or if the AI-generated desires look something just like the person’s precise desires, are nonetheless open questions. However even when it doesn’t present a lot actual utility, the Dream Recorder remains to be a really fascinating and thought-provoking construct. There isn’t a query that it will look nice on anybody’s bedside desk.
