A US neurotech start-up has announced an artificial intelligence (AI) system named Morpheus-1 designed to induce lucid dreams.
A lucid dream is when you’re aware you’re dreaming and can control or influence the dream’s content. Imagine realizing you can fly, walk through walls, or conjure up any scenario imaginable. Well, the developers at Prophetic AI claim they’re close to enabling people to do just that.
INTRODUCING MORPHEUS-1
The world’s first multi-modal generative ultrasonic transformer designed to induce and stabilize lucid dreams.
Available for beta users Spring 2024 pic.twitter.com/crFJ0aNblP
— Prophetic (@PropheticAI) January 25, 2024
While experienced lucid dreamers can sometimes trigger this state through techniques learned over time, science has yet to reliably induce conscious dreaming on demand.
This is where Prophetic AI’s Morpheus-1 comes in – it marks the first AI system focused specifically on ultrasonically stimulating targeted brain areas to trigger lucid, controllable dreams.
The company has for some time been developing a physical product for which this tech could be used. The non-invasive wearable product called the Halo is a headband that will detect when dreamers are in REM to induce and stabilize lucid dreams, presumably using the Morpheus-1 system.
Slated for beta release in Spring 2024, Morpheus-1 takes desired brain states as input prompts, and then outputs tailored ultrasonic signals for neurostimulation to achieve those states, essentially allowing users to select a lucid dream theme ahead of time.
Prophetic AI envisions this as just the first step toward reliable, on-demand conscious dream engineering without invasive surgery. By honing ultrasonic neuromodulation – the process of using sound waves beyond the range of human hearing to gently stimulate areas of the brain – with AI systems like Morpheus-1, their goal is to develop a “digital psi-ence” giving humanity safe new windows into dream worlds we can’t normally access or control while awake.
Since the beginning, Prophetic’s mission has been to give humanity the tools to explore and expand consciousness.
Morpheus-1 is a leap forward in that mission, moving us closer to ultrasonically inducing conscious experiences on-demand and changing the world forever. pic.twitter.com/h3tn5O0cCR
— Prophetic (@PropheticAI) January 25, 2024
It sounds like something from the realms of fantasy but if achieved, technologies like Morpheus-1 may one day be seen as expanding consciousness or as Prophetic co-founder and CEO Eric Wollberg puts it, “We are building Prophetic, so that humanity can map and cultivate the frontier of consciousness.”
But we could still be a year out from a fully working prototype, with plans to ship completed Halo devices starting in early 2025.
Who is behind Prophetic AI?
Prophetic AI was co-founded in March 2023 by Eric Wollberg (age 29) and Wesley Berry (age 27). The two young tech entrepreneurs met while independently researching brain imaging tools and their potential for visualizing thought patterns, reports CNBC.
Wollberg was focused on using lucid dreams – dreams in which the sleeper is aware they are dreaming – to investigate consciousness. Meanwhile, Berry was collaborating with musician Grimes on translating neural signals into art. Recognizing their shared interests at the intersection of neuroscience and consciousness, they decided to launch Prophetic.
The startup raised $1.1 million in funding led by VC firm BoxGroup to build prototypes of Halo and they’ve partnered with Card79, also known for making hardware for Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Prophetic compares its mission to that of OpenAI – using technology to demystify and expand human consciousness.
Featured Image: Prophetic AI
