numerous individuals think was truly influenced by a sci-fi anime, may have merely been a work of fiction — a detailed, thought-provoking, and powerful piece of fiction, to be precise. Yet its fundamental concept could be more aligned with present-day reality than ever. In the movie, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his crew employ cutting-edge technology to delve into people’s dreams to extract information. However, on one occasion, they aim instead to implant an idea into a CEO’s mind while he sleeps to sway his actions in the real world. This is where actual science and technology intersect.
As indicated by a 2020 research published in Consciousness and Cognition — led by chief investigator Adam Haar Horowitz and his team — it is feasible to influence dreams through a method known as targeted dream incubation (TDI). In the research, the team equipped participants with a wearable Bluetooth-enabled glove-like apparatus named Dormio, which utilizes sensors to monitor the user’s sleep patterns and delivers sensory stimuli to shape dreams. As Haar Horowitz notes (via MIT News), “We demonstrated that dream incubation correlates with performance enhancements on three creativity tests, assessed through both objective and subjective metrics. Dreaming of a particular theme appears to provide advantages after sleep, particularly concerning creativity tasks associated with that theme.”