Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Your Inner Sleeping Landscape Is An Advertiser's Dream

Advertisers aren't satisfied with merely covering every surface with ads. They also want you to see them in your dreams.

Last year, Molson Coors, the esteemed purveyor of watered-down frat-party beer, ran a jarring ‘experiment.’

In a discreet building in downtown Los Angeles, 18 subjects were instructed to watch a strange video featuring a synth-laden soundtrack and natural imagery interspersed with glimpses of Coors Light cans.

The participants were then asked to drift off to sleep while listening to an 8-hour soundtrack featuring audio from the video.

Coors’ stated goal was science-fiction worthy: The company wanted to “shape and compel [the] subconscious” into dreaming about beer.

Shockingly, it seemed to work.

Around 30% of the participants reported that Coors products made an appearance in their dreams.

I'm not sure if I really recommend it, but you can see the Coors advertising dream conditioner for yourself if you want.

In his intensely imaginative way, scientifiction great Edmond Hamilton wrote extensively on dream technology in his 1940 story Doom Over Venus:

Slih Drin now put the spool of tape into the dream-machine’s holder, and touched a switch. With a faint humming, the spool began turning. Gently, the effeminate Venusian plugged the two wires from the machine into the tiny electrodes in Stanton’s skull. He felt a wave of darkness flow through his brain as he rapidly sank into the sleep.

“Now I leave you to happiness, sir,” he dimly heard Slih Drin saying, as though from a great distance.

Stanton was already deep in shoreless blackness. Soothing electrical vibrations from the machine were drugging his nerves and brain. Then, slowly, light began to appear in the darkness. It was not really light, Stanton’s fading consciousness was aware. It was only an electrical impulse from the dream-machine that gave his brain the sensation of light.

The principle of the dream-machine was old. Long ago, men had learned that the brain received all bodily sensations as electrical impulses through its nerve-system. They had found that if they produced such electric impulses artificially, and transmitted them into the brain, the brain was deceived by them and experienced sensations which seemed perfectly real. Long research had classified the different electric impulses which brought different sensations to the brain. It was only necessary to transmit such impulses to the brain in correct order, by means of a tape-record, to make the brain experience any desired sensations or adventures.

Clark Stanton now felt himself, in his dream, in a small ship that was rushing at thousands of light-speeds toward a glorious galaxy of millions of suns. But he was not Clark Stanton in the dream — he was a younger, stronger, handsomer man. He was steering his ship right into the colossal swarm of suns. He curved around huge, booming dark-stars, dived past the heads of flaring comets, and rushed breathtakingly through vast, glowing nebulae...
(Read more about dream-machines)


('Doom Over Venus' by Edmond Hamilton)

Roger Zelazny anticipated this idea in his 1966 novel The Dream Master; see the entry for the dream console.

Also, compare this item with the lucid dreamer from Peter Watts' 1999 novel Starfish and the empathy box from Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Take a look at this extremely well-done article at TheHustle.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/21/2022)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Culture ")

Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'- Joe Haldeman, 2011.

Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment
'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion. - Philip K. Dick, 1969.

Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?' - Robert Castle, 1939.

Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1953.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'

Robot With Human Brain Organoid - 'A Thrilling Story Of Mechanistic Progress'
'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'

Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'

With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'

Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'

WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'

Climate Engineering In California Could Make Europe's Heat Waves Worse
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'

Optimus Robot Will Be A Good Nanny, Says Musk
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'

ESA To Build Moon Bases Brick By Printed LEGO Brick
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'

Does The Shortage Of Human Inputs Limit AI Development?
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'

Textiles That Harvest Energy And Store It
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'

LORIS Passive-Gripper Climbing Robot
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'

Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity
'Cultured brains on a slab.'

Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.

Coin-Sized Nuclear Battery Good For 100 Years
'...power pack the size of a pea.'

Live Stream With Meta-Ban Multimodal Smart Glasses
'...the bug-eyed, opaque gape of her True-Vu lenses.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.