People spend one-third of their lives sleeping. What if employees could work in their dreams during this time?
Prophetic, a venture-backed startup founded earlier this year, wants to help workers do just that. Using a headpiece the company says is “hello,” Propatic says users can create a dream state, which occurs when the dreamer realizes they’re asleep. The goal is to give people control over their dreams, so they can use that time productively. A CEO can practice for an upcoming board meeting, an athlete can run through plays, a web designer can create new templates — “the limiting factor is your imagination,” says founder and CEO Eric Wahlberg. told good fortune
Consumer devices that claim to induce lucid dream states are not new. Headbands, eye masks, and boxes with electrodes that stick to the forehead all populate the market. Even some supplements claim to do the trick. But there’s still an appetite for new technologies, because creativity and problem-solving skills are high and because many in the market don’t deliver as much as they promise, a visionary expert said. good fortune
The ability to lucid dream is less about overcoming specific problems and more about finding new, creative ways to approach topics that the dreamer could not have previously anticipated. For example, a mathematician cannot arrive at a specific, numerical answer to a math problem while asleep, but lucid dreaming allows them to explore new strategies for dealing with equations while awake.
Prophet
Early mockups of the Halo show a headband-shaped device worn like a crown. It will work by firing focused ultrasound beams — or sound waves that are also used to monitor the health of a baby in the womb — into an area of the brain involved in sleep. The company says the beams will activate parts of the brain that control decision-making and awareness, triggering lucid dreaming. To build the Halo, Prophetic is working with Card79 founder Afshin Mahin, who designed the Neuralink N1 device for Elon Musk’s brain implant company.
Wahlberg co-founded Prophetic, previously making augmented reality art, in March with chief technology officer Wesley Louis Berry III. The two met through a mutual friend. Wolberg previously worked at Gnowbe, a 500 global backed edtech startup, and Praxis, a Bedrock- and Paradigm-funded startup looking to build a futuristic city in the Mediterranean. Prophetic has raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from Escape Velocity, O’Shaughnessy Ventures, and BoxGroup.
‘Control is what we want’
Technology is not without its doubts. “It’s not that simple,” according to Antonio Zadra, a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal who specializes in sleep and dreaming (and is a frequent dreamer himself).
With other lucid dreaming technologies, sleepers are able to enter a dream state, but they may soon forget they’re dreaming or wake up too excited, he said. . Being able to control a dream, which goes a step beyond simply realizing that one is dreaming, is even more difficult and something that dreamers struggle with, he said. It has to be done. Gaining control over the dream is critical for work applications, such as practicing for an interview or designing a building, Wolberg said. good fortune
Halo and other headbands can help induce a lucid dream, Zadra said, but it’s a combination of the device and other mindfulness techniques that can help people get to that point of dream control. These techniques include meditation, writing in a dream journal, and imagining what will happen in the dream before bed.
In response to this claim, Wolburg cited a series of studies linking levels of prefrontal cortex activation with the ability to control dreams. In short, the more motivation, the better ability consumers have to control their dreams. Many studies recommended additional testing to confirm their hypotheses.
Propetic’s products rely on research conducted by the brain research center Donders Institute in the Netherlands. Through the institute’s studies, Prophetic will determine which specific areas of the brain need to be targeted and with what frequency of ultrasound waves to induce vivid dreams. The company expects to receive this data in the spring of 2024 and begin shipping the equipment in the spring of 2025.
Wahlberg estimates that the Halos will cost around $1,500 to $2,000. Customers can reserve a product ahead of time with a refundable $100 down payment. Wahlberg wouldn’t say how many people have signed up, but said that in the first few weeks after the company’s reservation system opened, it generated “several hundred thousand dollars in booking revenue,” indicating that The waiting list is in the thousands.
Credit : fortune.com
