“You were in my dream last night!”, “I’ve dreamt this before.” or “I know I had a dream last night, but I can quite remember what it was about.” These are all sentences that we’ve heard or spoken throughout our lives. The concept of dream recording gives purpose to them all, but at what cost? Today we will explore the ethical, social and privacy implications that could be associated with emerging technologies of dream recording — taking reference from the contemporary visual communication practice “Dreamers”, which is a prediction of future dream recording technologies and social networking.
During REM sleep, there is generally little power over what we mentally manifest, as dreams usually are an aftereffect of spontaneous feelings and ideas instead of purposeful processing. (Windt and Voss, 2018). A participant of dream recording could consciously permit researchers to involve themselves in the observation of their subconscious thoughts and visualisations. Although once, unconscious, they will not have control over what is actually visualised and therefore shared. As the technology of Dream recording is developed, and the potential for more personal information is revealed, it will be an ethical minefield to discover successful ways to maintain constant consent form participants.
Naturally, dream recording technology also creates unique privacy concerns. Researchers have developed plausible theories that support the idea that dreams are a humanistic technique to process emotional events, along with being an abstract reflection of a person’s phycological state. (Lemonick, 2004). Even without these theories, I think we can all agree that our dreams contain deeply personal information, that at times is also confronting for ourselves to understand. With this understanding, it is clear that the data sourced from an individual’s dreamscape could provide an intimate insight into their characteristics, potentially, impacting their professional and personal lives. (Farrah 2015).
As Neural recording technologies evolve and with no doubt, they will, an extensive evaluation surrounding the privacy policies will have to be undertaken. Users will need to be fully informed of the power surrounding the technology and its process. Ownership Laws will need to be made and should be established before the technology is available to the public. As fun as this technology sounds, it holds a high power that if misused, could be detrimental to the safe functioning of society. As we sleep, we exist in a vulnerable state of living. Future technologies like “Dreamers” give power to the user, making dream recording a personal experience, enabling them to have full control over who sees their recoding and how. The possibilities of this emerging technology are overly exciting, we spend around one third of our lives asleep, creating and imagining impossible events. The ability to record and document these would be like discovering millions of alternate universes.
References:
Christoff, K., Fox, K., Windt, J., & Voss, U. (2018–05–29). Spontaneous Thought, Insight, and Control in Lucid Dreams. In The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2020, from https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190464745.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190464745-e-26.
Farah, M. (2015). An Ethics Toolbox for Neurotechnology. Neuron,86(1), 34–37. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.038
Grassler, A. (2018). The Ethics of Dream Recording. Retrieved 5 June 2020, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2018/12/the-ethics-of-dream-recording.html
