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Johanna Rochegude

May 2015

A playful interaction between

“Dreamers” and “Wakers”

Interactive Dreams

Thesis-project

Interaction Design Master at K3

Malmö University

Sweden

Supervisor: Jonas Löwgren

Examiner: Simon Niedenthal

Examination: 01 May 2015

Interactive Dreams: A playful interaction between “Dreamers” and “Wakers”

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I. CONTENT

I. Content ............................................................................................................................. 3

II. Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 4

III. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5

Context ..................................................................................................................................... 5

What motivates the work ............................................................................................................... 5

IV. Research focus .................................................................................................................. 7

Purpose .................................................................................................................................... 7

Objectives .................................................................................................................................. 7

Knowledge contributions ................................................................................................................ 7

Research question ....................................................................................................................... 7

V. Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 8

Sleep overview ........................................................................................................................... 8

Sleep in playful interactions .......................................................................................................... 12

Position of the project ................................................................................................................. 18

VI. Methodology ................................................................................................................... 19

Phase 1: Experiments ................................................................................................................. 19

Phase 2: Design exploration ......................................................................................................... 21

Phase 3: Reflection .................................................................................................................... 23

VII. Processes ....................................................................................................................... 24

Selecting participants .................................................................................................................. 24

Ethical considerations ................................................................................................................. 24

Phase 1: Experiments ................................................................................................................. 24

Phase 2: Design exploration ......................................................................................................... 29

VIII. Phase 3: Reflect ............................................................................................................... 41

Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 41

Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 42

Further work ............................................................................................................................. 42

IX. Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 44

X. References ...................................................................................................................... 45

XI. Appendix ........................................................................................................................ 49

Headset testing ......................................................................................................................... 49

Dream recollections.................................................................................................................... 55

Concept sketches ...................................................................................................................... 58

Co-creation plan ........................................................................................................................ 67

interviews transcripts .................................................................................................................. 69


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II. ABSTRACT

This thesis aim was to design a new form of playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake players.

In the tested concept, “Wakers” were able to influence and interact with the dreams of “Dreamers” (with

the help of BCI to detect their brainwaves, emotional states and REM phases) by applying external

stimuli on the dreamer (somatosensory stimulation, specifically vibrations). In the concept, the dreamer

was wearing “the stimuli pajamas”, which vibrated in different ways every time the waker would poke,

stroke, shake “the ball”, a prototype displaying the emotional states, sleep stages and movements of the

dreamer. Each time the waker would interact with the ball, feedback would be transmitted to the

vibrating pajamas, thus influencing the dream and state of the dreamer, which would then be transmitted

back and displayed on the ball. A new playful experience was created using sleep as a necessary

component.

The research was experiment-driven (with body-storming and lo-fi prototyping), and revealed touch to

be a powerful and underexplored way to influence dreams. Furthermore, transmitting the emotional

states of the dreamer to “the ball” helped render the abstract notion of someone else’s sleep tangible to

the waker. The co-creation session organized revealed that the particular concept developed in the

context of sleep was tied to interesting notions, such as bringing forward the relationships between the

players, the unbalanced power relations, sensual play, abusive play and more. The concept sketches

explored the design space around the main concept and shaped some of these different scenarios. All

these contributions are aimed to be inspirational material for further research in the field.


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III. INTRODUCTION

CONTEXT

A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it (Damasio, 2011). We are only fully conscious when our self

comes to mind. Thus, it can be surprising that sleep is neurobiologically considered as a state of

consciousness, when it is culturally accepted as a loss of said consciousness. To such an extent that

sleep and death were compared and merged in mythology and art (Hypnos and Thanatos, Greek gods

of sleep and death, and brothers). However what are dreams, if not a form of consciousness, even if

irrational? We owe most of our myths, legends, and bestiaries to our dreams, because we were

imagining things while believing we were awake.

Brief overview of sleep

A brief overview of the last 50 years of research on sleep reveals that it is a phenomenon still widely

misunderstood (Lawton, 2003). Guesses still prevail, with few confirmations over its purpose and

intrinsic mechanisms (Foster, 2013). We do not know that much about it: we ignored it for a long time,

due to its apparent passiveness (Bower, 1999). Moreover, it is a domain largely dominated by medical,

psychological and biological fields of research. In these settings, some researchers started to focus on a

peculiar area of sleep: the sleep cycles and their different phases, particularly paradoxical sleep. Said

stage of sleep is home to the strangest natural occurrences provided by the human brain: namely

dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, and the like (as well as a sub-category of dreams known as lucid

dreams; where the sleeper is aware that he is dreaming, enabling him to control varied parameters

occurring in said dream such as characters, settings and courses of action). This break-through in

dream research was enabled by Michel Jouvet, who discovered the existence of the paradoxical sleep,

and Stephen Laberge, who is well-known for his research on lucid dreams.

Aim

The aim of this thesis is to design a new form of playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake

players alike. BCI (Brain-Computer Interaction) and external stimuli during sleep reveal themselves to

be the most promising tools to achieve this particular purpose. As a result, this project will evolve

simultaneously within at least two different fields of research: sleep research (with a focus on the

peculiarities of dreams and lucid dreaming), and Brain-Computer interaction (BCI, a subsidiary branch of

Human-Computer Interaction, with a focus on playful interactions for the purpose of this project).

WHAT MOTIVATES THE WORK

This project is motivated by several parameters:

Under-researched

The chosen domain is under-researched. One of the early examples of playful BCI is Brain Ball, a

research led by Sara Ilstedt Hjelm in 2000. This research led to the creation of a one-to-one table game,

where each player tried to send the ball to their opponent’s goal to score, using only their meditation

brainwaves. Other researchers followed her lead in the BCI field, by building slowly upon each other’s’


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research. However the most prominent researches led in BCI with a ludic purpose have yet to include

sleep as a parameter. There is hardly any research linking actively sleep and ludic brain-computer

interaction in the way it is intended for this current thesis project. The closest is an academic paper on a

prototype called the Dreamthrower (Kamal et al., 2012). This leads me to believe that the domain is

widely fruitful and not overly-researched.

Viable

The BCI field takes its roots back into the early century (with Hans Berger in 1929), however the actual

expense of the equipment required prevented the field to blossom until the 90’s, where the technological

break-through enabled BCI to attract a wider crowd of researchers and to emerge across several

research fields, design included (Wijayasekara & Manic, 2013). Now, the existence of low-cost headsets

with professional accuracy regarding real-time reading and analysis of the EEG signals

(electroencephalographic signals), like The Neurosky Mindflex device and the Emotiv EPOC headset, is

allowing this project to be technically feasible, albeit potentially uncomfortable for the person sleeping.

Regarding the interaction aspect between a dreamer and an awake counterpart, it is also achievable. In

his research, Stephen Laberge taught lucid dreamers to move their eyes in a particular sequence in

their lucid dreams (Laberge et al., 1981), to communicate with their awake counterparts while being

asleep. Another example is the one with the hackers, who used a Zeo headset to communicate in a

similar manner, lucid dreamer to lucid dreamer, thus “sharing” a dream (Top Coder, 2012). While being

rather extreme, these examples prove that even without diving into the lucid dreaming territory, simpler

interactions should not be a problem (interactions that does not require a lucid dreamer, but could be

performed with a “normal” dreamer). These simpler interactions can be possible by applying external

stimuli on sleepers to influence their dreams. Here, BCI proves itself to be the most suited tool to extract

raw data from the dreamer, and feed it back to the waker.

Relevant

Finally, the project is relevant. Other researchers started to explore this field (although the theme and

execution were quite different), making it clear that it is an interesting subject (Kamal et al., 2012). On

another note, the knowledge produced could improve our understanding of brain cognition, especially

regarding interactions with dreams. It could also change our understanding of sleep as a purely

restorative process: sleep could then be considered outside of its medical sphere, as something that

could offer unexploited possibilities regarding interactions between persons. This project could help

provide new interactions that have yet to be explored. Here the use of BCI is strategic, for the BCI field

is growing right now, and sleep research could be approached from another angle to broaden its

potentialities. On another note, it would be relevant for interaction designers wishing to explore this

design space, for game companies seeking new means of game-play, for early adopters seeking new

forms of interactions, and for dreamers seeking new experiences.


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IV. RESEARCH FOCUS

PURPOSE

Like previously mentioned, the aim of this thesis is to design a new form of playful interaction engaging

dreaming and awake players alike in a form of interplay. BCI and external sleep stimuli reveal

themselves to be the most promising means to achieve this particular purpose. The choice to turn the

interaction playful, as opposed to “basic”, lies in the will to dissociate sleep from its intimidating medical

and biological background, in order to reveal it as a valid state to be explored and used in interaction

design.

OBJECTIVES

In this project, wakers have been able to influence and interact directly with the dreams of their sleeping

counterparts (with the help of BCI to detect their brainwaves, mental states and REM phases) by

applying to them different external stimuli; thus creating an entirely new playful experience using sleep

as a necessary component. This study has been motivated by the fact that sleep is gaining “popularity”

outside of the medical sphere, due to the rising of the quantified-self movement (with small devices

allowing consumers to track their sleep and giving them a sense of control, like the Fitbit, the Jawbone

Up, etc). In addition, the appearance of low-cost and accurate BCI technology is propitious to the

exploration of sleep and dreams outside of the medical scope.

KNOWLEDGE CONTRIBUTIONS

First and foremost, the primary contribution to the interaction design field is the main concept: a playful

interaction engaging dreamers and wakers, tested and analyzed. The findings stemming from this

concept contribute to the understanding of sleep outside of the medical and scientific fields, as a valid

component of a playful interaction. The secondary knowledge contribution is composed of concept

sketches (design proposals) exploring different parts of the design space and aiming to provide

inspirational material for other designer/researchers’ appropriation. These sketches cover different kinds

of interactions: from dreamers to wakers (associating a state of mind to a trigger on screen, mapping of

states of mind while dreaming, etc.), from lucid dreamers to awake counterparts (eyes, brainwaves,

neuro-training...), and more global scenarios. Furthermore, this thesis offers a preliminary analysis of the

influences of diverse external stimuli on dreams (from wakers to dreamers).

RESEARCH QUESTION

As a result, the research question could be summarized as such: how can we design a new form of

playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake players alike in interplay?


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V. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Sleep research is mainly dominated by the scientific, psychological and medical fields: their main

purpose is to try and understand the inner mechanisms of sleep, and help improving it. As a result, a

straightforward literature approaching a subject like playful interaction between dreaming and awake

participants is nearly non-existent, especially one also pertaining to Interaction Design. Therefore I

perused diversified literature, each leaning toward one aspect of my project, in order to stitch them

together and create the necessary framework.

SLEEP OVERVIEW

With a project dealing with sleep and dreams, one need to understand better what is sleep and the

hidden mechanisms of such a phenomenon. However it is not as easy as it may seem to be: Lawton

has reviewed in 2003 over 50 years’ worth of research in the field of sleep and dreams, to stress the fact

that “relatively little is currently known with any great certainty”. We do not know for sure why we feel

this imperious need to sleep, or why sleep deprivation has such a drastic impact on our health, or even

why we dream (Bondke & Persson, 2014). However researchers, anthropologists, psychologists and

others have been able to observe in details how sleep and dreaming occur, as well as pinpoint a

number of occurrences tending to influence it.

A wide range of mechanisms and influences

Sleep may seem passive and uneventful, but it’s not: in fact, there is a wide range of occurrences

happening right beneath the calm surface, influencing our sleep and our dreams. These occurrences

can be biological, social, oneiric, medical, and more.

Our sleep is altered by circadian, ultradian and homeostatic processes (Billard, 2008). These processes

have been explored and altered in research and design: playing with the duration of our sleep, delaying

our internal clock to erase jet-lag, syncing rhythms between humans, etc. Sleep is also a cyclic

phenomenon. It goes through several stages each night, repeatedly (see figure 1). The last ten years,

numerous smartphone applications analyzing these different stages were created. They wake the

person up at the end of their REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement, in paradoxical sleep), which is the most

favorable moment to wake up (the transition is softer, and persons awoken during this stage are

supposed to feel more rested). They also quantify your sleep, number of awakenings, heartrate,

breathing patterns, etc. Users have a feedback spurring them to improve their sleep (the lucid dreaming

application provides tips on how to improve sleep, depending on the sleeper’s statistics).


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Figure 1: Anatomy of sleep

Peer pressure alters our sleep as surely as biology. Sleep is exclusively monophasic (Sciences et vie,

2013) in our Western society. Sailors, night workers and servicemen ought to have a polyphasic rhythm

due to their job, but this pattern makes it harder to fit in society where we sleep for 8 hours straight at

night. The anthropologist Carol M. Worthman complained about the “golden-rules” of medicine regarding

sleep, while nobody studied it in its “natural” environment. After it was done, it was discovered that the

vast majority had a polyphasic sleep (see Figure 2). We discovered that some societies had entirely built

their communities around sleep. In the Northern Dene Settlement (Canada's community) people sought

spiritual knowledge through dreams or altered states of consciousness (Goulet & Miller, 2007). Here,

digital evolution helped collect ethnological data exponentially, to better know our sleep in various

contexts.

Figure 2: Different sleep rhythms. From one block of 8 hours, to 6 power-naps of 20min.

Sleep is also the den of uncontrollable cognitive occurrences, which partly alter it. Dreams,

hallucinations, nightmares are phantasmagorical appearances which make us mumble, cry, toss and

turn. Voluntary lesion of parts of the brain suppress the natural paralysis occurring during dreams

(Jouvet, 1992). We can then witness the dream of someone, because he starts to act them like a

sleepwalker would. Applications like Shadow, an innovative alarm clock, emerge to incite people to write

down their dreams. These applications later offer a time-line to the dreamer, helping him analyze and

review his dreaming wanderings. Objects such as REMEE (a sleep mask with embedded LEDs) help


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people to become lucid inside their own dreams by waking themselves up from the inside, not unlike

Inception.

However, sleep is not only altered by sane occurrences: there are three types of sleep disorders (Hauri,

2005): neuro-psychiatric disorders, dissomnies (insomnia, jet-lag, narcolepsy, etc) and parasomnies

(sleep-walking, sleep paralysis, hallucinations and nightmares, etc). The means to hold these disorders

back are varied: psychotropics, therapies, polysomnographies, diets, changes of habits... With the

connected era, solutions such as auto-diagnostic and mobile coaches are emerging, partly thanks to the

wirelessness and reduction in size of the devices. They track sleep, sleep-quality, vital signs, prevent

sleep apnea, etc. Brain-computer interaction is also developing with the arrival of new, cheaper EEG

headsets able to read brainwaves, notably the ones emitted during sleep.

The sleep research has been proactive regarding the understanding of its characteristics, processes

and influences, especially when it comes to the anatomy of the brain and the different electromagnetic

impulses allowing the detection of paradoxical sleep (and thus dreams). The technological evolution

allowed the proliferation of devices related to sleep, however few of them really focus on dreams and

fewer reflect upon how to influence them.

Dreams

Among all these occurrences in sleep, dreams prove to be the most puzzling. The dreaming state of

mind offers similarities with an alert mind: effectively, findings show that “episodic recollections of

dreaming and waking experience are more similar in their process qualities (e.g., particular cognitive

and sensory) than REM and Non-REM sleep" (Kahan & Laberge, 2011). This closeness to the waking

state is the proverbial door to interact with a different state of mind.

There are different types of dream, classified by the way they are used, and their behavior (premonitory

dreams, creative dreams, traumatic dreams, resolutary dreams, etc). Creative dreams are dreams

exploited in daily life (Michalko, 2012). They are free from the usual rational thinking accompanying

awake behavior. Thinking is altered, logic abolished, giving birth to ideas through unconventional ways.

Premonitory dreams and oracles were highly expected dreams, sometimes provoked (with the use of

specific drugs), to decide of the future of the person or group who sought the advice of the gods.

Hypnagogic dreaming occurs at sleep onset and has a high incorporation rate of memories of the

previous day. They are truncated dreams, slightly more than hallucinations. They are relatively normal

compared to fully bloomed dreams occurring during the REM phase (Stickgold et al., 2001). These REM

dreams occur mostly during the paradoxical phase of sleep, and are the most well-known type of

dreams. Their narratives are usually bizarre, chaotic and complex. It is possible to observe a person in

this state without electronic help: she will have her eyes moving wildly behind her eyelids. In contrast

NREM dreams, which occur during light and deep sleep, are hardly detectable without EEG headsets

(Stickgold et al., 2001).

Finally, one type of dream in particular deserves to be cited: the lucid dream. Lucidity in dreams is

defined as such by Laberge and Holzinger “a specific dream state characterized by the dreamer’s

awareness of being in a dream and the ability to volitionally control its content.” (Laberge & verified,

1990). They are a natural virtual machine, a simulator of real life where every limit is abolished. Lucid

dreaming enables us to explore and actively use our dreams. It can have therapeutic effects like curing

nightmares and sleep paralysis (Larousse medical, 2009). However lucidity in dreams is not a monolithic


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notion: it can be achieved at various degrees, ranging from complete self-awareness to awareness of

happenings outside of the dream, to semi-awareness without any influence on the dream whatsoever

(Noreika et al., 2010). Complete self-awareness is the panacea, and it enables the dreamer to

communicate with persons who are awake and within range: a prearranged pattern of eye movement

can be detected on an EOG (Erlacher et al., 2003). It was a system set-up in order to prove the

existence of lucid dreaming. Inducing a lucid dream can be quite difficult, however it can be achieved

with commitment and a long training. It can be trained by mnemonic techniques learned during the

waking state. These techniques include reality checks like checking the clock, reading one page of a

book, etc. Each of these dreams offers a different set of characteristics, but all of them can be

influenced by external stimuli.

External stimuli and their impact on dreams

In scientific research, several papers have been published on the different external stimuli possible and

their potential influence on dreams. First of all, there are two main categories of external stimuli

applicable: pre-stimuli (when the dreamer is aware of the stimuli being applied) and stimuli applied

directly during sleep, without the awareness of the dreamer. The effectiveness of the stimuli in the first

category can be trickier to test, since the actual awareness of the dreamer can count a lot in the

incorporation of the stimuli in the dream. The different stimuli available are mostly linked with the

different human senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch, etc.

Hearing

A way of influencing the dream is to make the person lucid. Sounds have been combined with lights in

order to reach this goal. “In order to help dreamers realize that they are dreaming, external stimuli given

during REM sleep have been applied (e.g., tape recordings of the phrase “This is a dream,” conditioned

tactile stimuli, and light).” (Laberge & verified, 1990).

Vision

Vision has probably been the most thoroughly exploited sense in sleep research, in order to influence

dreams. Pre-stimuli wise, looking at pictures with positive, neutral, or negative effects during 30 seconds

right before falling asleep (Carpenter, 1988) already influences the mood of the dreams. In another

study, the viewing of rather unpleasant movies right before heading to bed influences negatively the

emotions in REM dreams (Stickgold et al., 2001). Sleep onsets dreams have also been influenced by

playing Tetris and several other video games right before falling asleep (Stickgold et al., 2001).

When it comes to stimuli applied directly during deep or REM sleep, sleep masks equipped with LEDs

on the inside are very common. The LEDs are triggered during REM sleep and flash at regular intervals

(Vos et al., 2009). The dreamer sees then the lights above his eyes, directly incorporated in the dream.

These sleep masks are sometimes coupled with sounds and are supposed to trigger lucidity inside the

dream. Sensory stimuli and light cues increase the probability of having lucid dreams (Laberge &

Levitan, 1995).

Smell

The influence of smells during REM sleep has also been tested. A study has focused on air-dilution

olfactometry with fifteen participants. Rotten egg and rose smells were used on the test-subjects, and

analyzed to see if there were any correlations between the smells used and the content of the dreams.


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The good smells had a positive influence on the content of the dream, whereas the bad ones affected it

negatively. Smells seem to primarily affect the emotions of the dreamer and the mood of a dream, but

they are not directly incorporated in the dream as “smells” (Schredl et al., 2009).

Touch

Somatosensory stimulation has been tested using blood-pressure cuffs above the knees of several

gymnasts. Here the stimuli was pre-applied. Interestingly, the stimuli has been processed in REM sleep

as such (Sauvageau et al., 1998). Regarding the amount of research papers focusing on this particular

topic, somatosensory stimulation seem rather unexplored as a way of influencing dreams.

Other

Finally, other senses have been exploited, such as vestibular motion (the vestibular system is the sense

of balance and spatial orientation) (Leslie & Ogilvie, 1996). They found out that the rocking motion of a

hammock could influence dreams, and enhance or induce lucid dreaming. Electromagnetic stimulation

applied directly on the scalp is another vestibular stimulation, and allow “very precise control of intensity

and duration of the stimulation as well as the fact that the intensity of the electrical stimulation can be

individually adapted for each participant” (Noreika et al., 2010). Another study focused on the possible

influence that body posture could have on dreams: the prone position is more likely to induce sleep

paralysis, hallucinations and lucid dreaming (Yu, 2012).

SLEEP IN PLAYFUL INTERACTIONS

Dreams are rather easily influenced by external stimuli, however all these studies lack a component

needed in this project: the playfulness. Unfortunately, the same can be said regarding interaction design

projects: the ones focusing on sleep are doing so in order to improve it, not playfully interact with it.

Sleep and play

First of all, we need to define what play is, what would play with sleep potentially look like, and why it is

relevant to associate it with sleep. In 2014, Miguel Sicart described playing as a “form of understanding

what surrounds us and who we are, and a way of engaging with others. Play is a mode of being human.”

He suggests that play can be as dangerous, as destructive and as corrupting as any other form of

“being”: play does not necessarily have to be fun. It is pleasurable, but this pleasure can be taken from

hurt, offense, addiction, not only from happiness and enjoyment. As a result different types of play exist,

such as dark play, which pushes the limits between what is play and what is not play. Another relevant

type is abusive play, which aims to “forefront the particular human beings behind gameplay” (Wilson &

Sicart, 2010). A known example is Desert bus (Figure 3, Penn & Teller, 1995) which is a game that

requires the player to drive a bus to Las Vegas in real time, for 8 hours straight, and the game cannot be

stopped. The player who finally reaches Las Vegas earns only one point. Another example of pleasure

drawn from pain is “Hurt me plenty” by Robert Yang (Figure 4), where the player can spank a character

using the leap motion. The player needs to be attentive to the character, and stop immediately if this one

utters the safe word. It takes its roots back into the BDSM communities and try to display how they view

intimacy and consent. Interacting with the dreams of someone might turn out to be a form of abusive

play, at least for the person subjecting themselves to the role of the dreamer. It might also turn out to be

a form of very intimate play, which can turn into a more sensual play.


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Figure 3: Desert bus, by Penn & Teller, 1995.

Figure 4: Hurt me plenty, by Robert Yang.


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Furthermore M. Sicart states that play is a way of freeing people from their moral conventions, while

making them present and raising awareness regarding their weight and importance. Associating a

playful behavior with sleep, especially with a number of participants as low and intimate as two, will

certainly bring up notions like power relations. The dreamer is vulnerable and has to trust the waker with

his sleeping body and his dreams. The notion of relationships will probably be brought up too: the forced

intimacy between the dreamer and the waker could break social conventions, the relations between the

participants being pushed into the foreground. These power relations might be accented by the obvious

roleplaying taking place between the two participants. One is the dreamer, the other is the waker. In

2006 Caillois established a classification of games, with 4 main categories: Agon (competition), Alea

(chance), Mimicry (simulation) and Ilinx (Vertigo). Clearly the playful interaction with dreams intended in

this project belong to the vertigo category; with the possible thrill that being vulnerable might offer.

These power relations will probably also need a set of rules, implicit or not, between the two

participants.

Another notion relevant to this project is the difference that exists between play and playfulness: play is

a contextual and disruptive activity. Playfulness is an attitude which, while lacking certain characteristics

common to play, enables the player to appropriate and occupy the surrounding context, even if it was

not intended for play (Sicart, 2014, Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Associating play with sleep is a way of

dissociating it from the medical and research sphere. A way of extracting it away from its known

boundaries, to explore it from another point of view. It will enable the player (and designers stumbling

upon the thesis) to reconsider the situation of sleep and dreams, thus opening doors to generate a

dialogue where new designs and new knowledge can emerge from.

Rendering dreams interactive in a playful interaction between dreamers and wakers would not have

been possible a few years ago, with the lack of affordable technologies able to capture accurately the

different electromagnetic impulses and brainwaves of the dreamer. However the retrieval of the needed

data to elaborate such interaction is no longer an issue, not with the rise of the BCI field and its growing

expertise.

Ludic Brain-Computer Interaction

If playfulness is not associated with sleep research and dreams, it is fortunately present in the different

artefacts produced in the BCI research, and could offer a starting point to later move on toward

playfulness with dreams. The BCI field is an emerging research area of Human-to-Computer Interaction

(HCI) currently providing promising means of interaction outside of the pool of standard devices:

effectively, its main goal is to use brain activity alone in order to interact with systems, bypassing

physical motor activities (Wolpaw et al., 2002). A great number of works within the BCI community are

focused on the medical side (Kaufmann et al., 2012), taking advantage of the revolutionary improvement

it could make regarding the quality of life of certain people (how to help paralytic persons control

wheelchairs or robotic prosthetic with their own thoughts, etc).

A literature overview of the BCI field proved it to focus mostly on the genesis of the research field, the

scientific understanding of the brain and its different waves and the existing technologies to detect these

waves. While some of the papers are a general survey and assessment of the BCI field for the last

decades and its different purposes, Ferreira et al., (2013) offer a complete analysis of the BCI field and

its diverse expressions, and gives a review of all BCI prototypes in gaming to this day. Some of them will

be more thoroughly addressed later. What is interesting for this thesis is that this research is focused on


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BCI for healthy users, seizing its potential as a new form of game-play control within the ludic interaction

realm (Coulton et al., 2011). However most of these works involve a single player with the computer,

and take advantage of only one or two unique interaction possibilities (using mainly attention and

meditation levels). However, the data retrieved is far more substantial than these 2 outputs: delta, alpha,

gamma, beta, theta brainwaves could be collected, as well as the emotional states, clenching of the jaw,

twitching of the eyes, furrowing of the brows. All this data could lead to richer interactions if it was to be

exploited. Furthermore, it can be collected in sleep, and help differentiate different sleep stages too (like

light sleep, deep sleep, paradoxical sleep and when a person is dreaming). However regarding sleep, as

expected, most of the BCI technology presented in these examples has been used with the purpose of

inducing lucid dreaming, with no gaming component added whatsoever, and no use of the interaction

potential current EEGs offer in terms of data retrieving.

Related works & relevant design exemplars

As stated above, here are several examples worth mentioning. In “analogic” games, the closest we have

to interactions involving sleep and play is “Werewolf”. It is a game where some players are werewolves,

while the rest are villagers. Each “night”, the werewolves shift and kill a villager, while everyone else has

their eyes closed, feigning sleep. Then, everyone wakes up, the dead is announced, and villagers

debate on who might be the killers before agreeing on eliminating one suspect. The game goes on until

there is only the werewolves or the villagers remaining. This game is worth mentioning for the

active/passive mechanics that it displays (even if players do not actually fall asleep), which is similar to

the one that will be enacted in this project: some players are active at night while the others are passive,

vulnerable and at their mercy while sleeping.

Brainball

One of the pioneer work using BCI is the Brain Ball, a research led by Sara Ilstedt Hjelm in 2000 (Figure

5). This research led to the creation of a one-to-one table game, where each player had to send the ball

to their opponent’s goal, using only their brainwaves. Entire control of one’s state of mind was required

to win. What is most interesting in this work is its gameplay mechanics: in order to win the game, the

player has to be (seemingly against all gaming traditions) as relaxed and unfocused as possible, even

nearly on the verge of falling asleep. It makes this project one of the closest to linking BCI, play and

sleep-related states of mind.


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Figure 5: Brain Ball, by Sara Ilstedt Hjelm, 2000. Picture from http://origin.arstechnica.com

Teegi

TEEGI is a tangible electroencephalographic interface built by Frey, Gervais, Fleck, Lotte and Hachet

(Frey & al, 2014). The prototype was presented in a paper published in 2014. Succinctly, Teegi is a

small humanoid object where the brainwaves of the user are displayed in real time, with the help of

augmented reality (Figure 5). Its main purpose is to offer a tangible and intuitive way to learn about the

brainwaves and their associated behaviors, through playful and tangible feedback. The humanoid

comes with other smaller figurines, acting as filters to select which brainwaves are to be displayed on

the main humanoid. They explain in a quite detailed way the BCI field and the evolution of the EEG, as

is accurately described the technology used in the prototype, allowing others to build upon their

research. While not having any close ties to the sleep research field, this project is interesting in its will

to bare the mechanisms of the brain to its user. The brainwaves’ new-found tangibility makes them more

relatable and less seem like abstract concepts with no grounding in reality. Regarding sleep, it brings up

an interesting question: would a person have a better grasp of something as intangible as sleep or a

dream, if one were to have a tangible representation of it and its mechanisms, in the palm of their hand?


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Figure 6: Teegi, by Frey, Gervais, Fleck, Lotte and Hachet, 2014.

Admiral Mind Battleship

This paper presents a thorough compilation of all BCI research games up to this date (Ferreira et al.,

2014). They talk about projects like the Finding Star game developed by (Ko et al., 2009), where the

user is controlling a character using the standard controls (keyboard/mouse). However their degree of

concentration can influence the rendering of the game and make it unstable. When the character needs

to recover, the player has to be relaxed. Other games exploit the potential offered by EEG headsets, like

the recognition of emotions. (Kang et al., 2012) designed a horror puzzle game, where “screamers”

appear randomly, terrorizing the player. In this context BCI allows to catch this fear, and exploit it.

Similar to this game, Basori developed in 2013 a project called the Emotion Walking, an EEG headset

coupled with a glove to detect the emotions of the user and display them visually onto an avatar. Finally,

the Painting Interaction (Huang & Lioret, 2013) takes advantage of the headset’s ability to detect

“thought-movements” (you can train the headset to recognize the action “push”, when you think about


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pushing, and then link this action to an external software). Here, the person can think “paint”, and a

painting will start to appear, as if the person was controlling the brush strokes with his brain.

Dreamthrower

Finally, the Dreamthrower is a project by Noreen Kamal, Abir Al Haira, and Sidney Fels (Kamal et al.,

2012). This project explores how to “create, throw and catch” dreams. Technically, it is a device that

detects the REM stages of the user, before applying a sound and light stimuli to influence the dream.

After having the dreams, users can report them on a special social network, coupled with the stimuli that

they used to influence said dreams. The idea behind the social network is that you can “throw” the

stimuli and dream to another person, in order for them to experience said dream on their own, hence the

“Dreamthrower” name. It is more of a collaborative “gaming” experience.

Some projects outside the research sphere are also worth mentioning for their incorporation of sleep

(most projects tend to be about sleep though, using it as a theme rather than an actual playful

component). There is the experience of the two hackers who “shared” a lucid dream using a Zeo

headset (Top coder, 2012). A few applications are designed to help induce lucid dreaming, and help

themselves by tracking your motion in your sleep, thus detecting your sleep stages (like the Shadow

application which works primarily with voice notes, the Lucid Dreaming App, the sleep mask Remee,

etc.). An RPG was also developed to be used as a patch on top of the Fitbit application, using the data

(how many miles walked, how well you sleep at night) to complete quests and go on adventures.

POSITION OF THE PROJECT

It has been very difficult to find research papers or examples dealing with all the parameters that are

implemented for this study, considering the chosen problem domain. Most of the research describes

single and iterated experiments ranging from playful interaction to actual thought-through games using

EEG in the context of BCI (Ferreira et al., 2014). However only one of these experiments focuses on

sleep and dreams and how it could take part in an actual game or playful interaction. As a result, the

current project could be considered as a rather new ramification of BCI research, focusing only on

sleep-related states of mind and their potential use (here in playful interactions).


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VI. METHODOLOGY

To create a new form of playful interaction between awake and dreaming players, I propose the

following methodology.

PHASE 1: EXPERIMENTS

The first step for this particular project is to conduct experiments. These experiments constitute the

observational phase of the project.

This phase is needed to familiarize oneself to what the brainwaves look like under the different EEG

scanners available, and what each one of them has to offer in terms of potential interactions. Although

valuable, these insights are not mandatory: a great amount of scientific papers in sleep research have

been extensively covering the sleeping brain and its different brainwaves with great accuracy, more than

what will be needed for this project. They will be observed here not for accurate research purposes, but

as inspiration to be used for further development of the interaction concepts during the design

exploration phase.

This phase is also needed to familiarize oneself with the different kinds of external stimuli applicable to a

dream, and how each one of them influences differently said dream. These tests have already been

performed extensively and with great laboratory control in the scientific community (see chapter V:

theoretical framework). Once again here, the accuracy and strict protocol control of these experiments

are not a priority, for they primarily serve the purpose of familiarizing oneself with the technology and the

interaction potentialities for further design concepts exploration.

Sleep self-study

The first need of the observational phase is to learn how to use the tools at disposal (This learning will

be performed throughout the entire project). These tools are for now : the Epoc Headset, capable of

reading basic thoughts (if trained beforehand), emotional states, facial expressions and EEG outputs,

the Mindflex EEG headset, capable of reading 10 different channels of brainwaves (alpha, beta, delta,

theta, gamma, etc), the Mindwave headset, capable of the same thing but with additional software and

mobile-friendly, and other mobile applications offering sleep-tracking methods in a sufficient manner

(such as sleep as android, lucid dreaming app, etc.). These tests and calibrations will be performed on

myself.

Stimuli exploration 1

The second need of the observational phase resides in the testing of the different stimuli able to

influence dreams.

Goal of experimenting stimuli

The main goal of these stimuli experiments is to determine which stimuli has which effects, and which

one has the most impact and is the most likely to be incorporated into a dream. This stimuli will then be

considered the most promising for further interaction research.


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How: main

For this, one participant at a time will be observed. More would be too complicated for just one observer.

Once the participant enters a REM stage, the observer will perform the stimuli themselves (it can be

visual or audio cues, somatosensory or olfactive stimuli, as brought up in the theoretical framework).

The sleeper will then be woken up some time after the stimuli was applied, to measure its impact on the

dream. Here the project relies heavily on the participation of external people willing to let their

paradoxical sleep be experimented with. Effectively, it requires of the participants to spend the night

under my scrutiny, falling asleep, be stimuli tested and then awakened during their dream phase to

account for what happened in the dream and what might have influenced it. Each of these long

observational nights will report 2 to 3 stimuli testing (One per REM cycle, a cycle happening 2 to 5 times

a night depending on the sleeper). Furthermore each stimuli test will result in a semi-conducted

interview during the night, so as to not risk losing the contents of the dream to memory failure. Each

night will, if possible, result in a debriefing in the morning with the sleeper. Due to the rather heavy

settings of these experiments, it is preferred to perform a qualitative testing, with fewer persons

(maximum 2-3) but on a longer period of time, so the participants get accustomed to the observer and

their presence to reduce eventual interferences.

These experiments will scaffold as such:

How: dream diaries

Stimuli experiments can be implemented without the need for a headset. However to prove successful,

all willing participants will need to sustain a dream diary (at least in the beginning) in order to improve

the recollection of their dreams the morning following the observation session. If participants do not

remember their dreams, the observation phase will be greatly hindered.

How: semi-structured interviews

The experiment will have a semi-conducted interview each time the participant is woken up (on each

REM stage, so around 2-5 times a night). The participants, their feedback and dream recollections will

remain anonymous. To determine which stimuli or which combination is the most efficient, several

questions will need answers: did the person notice a difference between this dream and the usual ones?

If yes, how did the stimuli influence the dream? Did it change the overall atmosphere of the dream? Was

it directly incorporated in the dream? Did the stimuli provoke a lucid dream? It needs to be noted that the

presence of the observer will probably influence the results, just by assuming their role next to the

sleeper.

How: qualitative research

The pool of “test-subjects” will be limited to a two persons’ study. Effectively, due to the nature of the

project (on sleep, resulting in invasive and time-consuming experiments), the methodology must favor a

qualitative research: participants are required to be observed for long periods of time, and it involves

them sleeping and dreaming. These instances are subject to tricky conditions that are not always

controllable: testers have to establish a trusting relationship with the observer, they have to get used

enough to the situation to fall asleep with minimal disturbances, they need to remember their dreams

and the observer must be stealthy enough to apply stimuli without waking the testers. As a result, the

project presents a hard learning curve for the participants involved in the project (mainly the test


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subjects) and the observer. Furthermore the use of sophisticated technology prevents a large number of

testers. As a consequence, the design process will reflect these choices and the project will present

traits that are seemingly the opposite of traditional Human-Computer Interaction: it will present a high

learning curve, quite similar to instrument making, with a very high threshold and expectations levels.

How: evaluation criteria

All stimuli will, if possible, be tested on both persons to cross-check results, even if it is obviously not

possible to draw general conclusions from such a low pool of participants and might of course not apply

to other people in the same conditions for the same tests. Pre-stimuli (stimuli applied before sleep, with

the awareness of the tester) and stimuli applied directly during sleep (without the awareness of the

tester) will be tested. A session will be a pass if it can be determined that the dream has successfully

been influenced by the stimuli applied beforehand.

To determine if a dream has been successfully influenced, certain things must be taken into

consideration. The dreams’ results might be biased by the followings:

- What is the person usually dreaming about?

- What did the person do the day of the experiment before going to bed?

- Was it a pre-stimuli or a stimuli applied directly in sleep?

Results have to be carefully considered and cannot be generalized. They have not been realized within

a medical field and have not a scientific purpose.

Ethical considerations

Ethically, it needs trust and the guarantee that the data retrieved will not be leaked, and that the stimuli

applied will respect the person’s integrity. Everything that has been done in the frame of this project has

been done so with the informed consent of the participants: there is no photographs or recordings of the

experiments, and the transcript material has been modified to respect the persons’ wishes.

PHASE 2: DESIGN EXPLORATION

The second step of the methodology for this particular project is the design exploration phase. This

phase will build upon the findings of the previous experiments. It will narrow down the possibilities

regarding how to apply the chosen stimuli and it will focus on researching different interaction design

concepts.


Once an agreement is reached regarding which stimuli would be best suited for the interaction concepts,

this stimuli will be further investigated and several variations of it will be tested, with a clear focus on

how to adapt it to a design concept. The techniques employed here will be the same as the ones used in

the first stimuli exploration.

Concept sketching

Concept sketching is a tool that helps lay down ideas quickly, while retaining the necessary technical

aspects that render the imagined interactions plausible. These sketches focus on technical needs for the


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concepts, and lay out scenarios for the kind of effects I want to achieve, for both the dreamer and the

waker. They will be held simultaneously with the second stimuli exploration, and will aim to find a

suitable concept that will later be prototyped. Beyond this, the aim of these concept sketches (design

proposals) is to constitute a valid secondary knowledge contribution (Gaver & Martin, 2000), along with

the main concept developed. Described by Gaver, the overriding function of design proposals is to

“serve as landmarks opening a space of design possibilities for future work. As such, the concepts are

placeholders, occupying points in the design space without necessarily being the best devices to

populate it […] in this way, the proposals acted as probes into our values and beliefs, eliciting a

conversation about the directions we might take in pursuing the research. […] Beyond serving as

suggestions for development, then, design proposals can also be seen as complex hypothetical

statements for debate.”

Body storming and co-creation

The aim is to have a concept of a playful interaction where someone is dreaming and an awake

counterpart is alerted of their status; they will in return offer a stimuli, triggering a response from the

sleeping person. This concept (or this staging of the concept) will be user-tested and the session

documented.

The actual prototyping process will take the form of a collaborative exercise, with at least 2 co-creation

sessions. Methodologically, these sessions will be divided into three parts:

- Phase 1: The dreamer is falling asleep. I will explain the concept to the waker and ask them to

“play pretend”: body storming around the concept and act it out. All the while asking questions

about their feelings, etc.

- Phase 2: I will wake the dreamer up, and ask them questions on their dreams, how they feel,

on the stimuli, etc.

- Phase 3: I will have a general debriefing with both dreamer and waker, on their general

thoughts on the concept, the co-creation session and how to improve/change the experience.

In a nutshell, I will be the mediator between the waker and the dreamer. I will explain what I will roughly

do, what is supposed to happen, and then start a debriefing session with all participants at the end of

the experience, to refine the concepts, detect mistakes and possible improvements. Such setting is very

similar to the Wizard of Oz method (Dow et al., 2005): I will be the wizard operator, simulating the entire

interaction and the feedback loop between the dreamer and the waker. As stated by Dow, WOZ

technique exists to explore the design space without having to implement time-consuming and

challenging hardware, thus allowing the designer to quickly evolve in the design process and focus on

the user feedback, without technical impediment. The design is evaluated before being actually built.

User-tests

User-tests will be a part of the co-creation process and will provide valuable feedback that will help

shape the final concept up. This feedback will help pinpoint the most efficient way to translate the dream

and emotional state (or communication if lucid) of the dreamer into efficient feedback for the persons

awake, and vice-versa, and how to make the experience exciting for both participants.


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Expected results

Ideally, this project is intended to produce knowledge actionable inside and outside the field of

interaction design research. Inside the interaction design community, the knowledge expected to be

produced is first and foremost a tested concept which would hopefully lead to other projects including

dreams and sleep-related states of mind as valid interaction material. It could prove to be valuable to the

community in the sense that it might shed a new light on how to address sleep and how states of mind

and paradoxical sleep in particular can act and be used as controllers and valid interaction components,

thus opening new doors on how to envision playing and interaction itself with objects, depending on the

state of mind of the user. Part of the knowledge is expected to take the form of concept sketches

(design proposals) as described earlier. Finally, a great part of the expected knowledge is purely

analysis, with the observation sessions of the impact of diverse external stimuli on dreams. These

sessions would appropriate methods from the field of sleep research and adapt them for interaction

design purposes. These methods would lead to propositions of different possible interactions between

lucid dreamers and awake counterparts, and simple dreamers and awake counterparts. This knowledge

would be valuable as it starts exploring the diverse possible ways of interaction between sleepers and

their awake counterparts.

Outside of the interaction design community, these knowledge contributions might have a societal

impact on the way to apprehend sleep and dreams altogether: not as a mysterious regenerative power

anymore, but as something that could be used, playfully. It would redefine our conception that sleeping

people are unreachable and inactive.

PHASE 3: REFLECTION

The third phase will compile the findings and analyze them. It is the conclusion. These findings, together

with the concept sketches, will be aimed toward the design community regarding the introduction of

sleep and dreams as valid entities that can be used as components of potential interactions.


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VII. PROCESSES

As stated in the previous chapters, the aim of the project is to design a playful experience where awake

people (the wakers, for a lack of a better term to pinpoint the role of the alert counterpart) can easily

detect when a sleeping person is in a dreaming state and apply an external stimuli to influence the

dream. The reactions of the dreamer to the stimuli are then transmitted back to the waker, in a feedback

loop.

SELECTING PARTICIPANTS

Influencing the dreams of a person is not an easy feat: it requires a number of conditions which

gathered together greatly improve the odds of success. One of these conditions is the careful selection

of the participants. Effectively, it is crucial for them to have a natural tendency to recall their dreams, so

as to be able to remember and speak about them once awoken. They also need to be able to easily fall

asleep anywhere so as to be hardly disturbed by their surroundings (namely the observer taking notes,

typing, lights in the room, stimuli applied). Finally, a trusting relationship needs to be established

between the observer and the participant.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

By trying to influence the sleeper’s dreams and interact with their general mental states, we are closing

in on taboos such as mind-reading, and manipulation of sleep. Although we’re still far from such

technology being operational, it still raises inquiries that have to be kept in mind regarding concepts like

privacy, morality, and the potential vulnerability of the sleeping person. However the participants were

educated on the nature of the experiments and were entirely willing. They considered the experiences to

be thrillingly fun, even if some of them might seem rather “violent” for the outside world. As a result,

proper psychological safeguards is needed for further research, as is the enlightened consent from the

testers. On a side-note, no pictures of the testers have been taken during the experiments, to respect

their privacy.

PHASE 1: EXPERIMENTS

Learning the tools

Before starting the stimuli experiments, I performed a series of tests using varied technologies, to grasp

the mechanisms of sleep. From there, I had a better understanding of the gathered data, and the

possible ways to exploit it in an interaction scenario.

I tested different EEG headsets available on the market. Briefly, the Epoc headset was able to track

movements, facial expressions, brainwaves, mental states, and to associate “actions” to these mental

states (as done by Huang & Lioret, 2013). However to achieve this level of precision, the device

required an extensive cognitive training from the user to associate their brain patterns to the actions.


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The headset also needed to be handled with care, being fragile and ill-fit to be used for sleeping (Figure

7). The Mindwave, another headset of inferior standard, could track the brainwaves, the attention and

relaxation threshold, and blinking (the equivalent of this headset was used in BCI games like the Brain

ball). This device could also be worn in bed, if careful (Figure 8). Both devices were accurate in their

measure, and could be hooked up to a third party software to detect sleep stages (such as Lucid

Scribe). In terms of feasibility for the final design concept, the Insight headset appear to combine the

wearable easiness of the Mindwave with the professional data collection of the Epoc+ (allowing a wider

range of possible interactions, Figure 9). (Appendix 1: Headset testing).

Figure 7: Epoc headset, Emotiv.

Figure 8: Mindwave headset, Neurosky.


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Figure 9: Insight headset, Emotiv.

In parallel, I asked my soon-to-be testers to keep a dream diary in order to prepare for the stimuli

experiments. They kept it for a week in order to train their brains to recall all dreams that may have

occurred throughout the night (Carpenter, 1988). On a side note, lucidity is better achieved if the

dreamer has trained his memory for the recollection of his dreams. The more you remember your

dreams, the more you are familiar with your “dreamscape” the more you can recognize you actually are

in one (Noreika et al., 2010). Each entry of the diary were composed as such: the nature of the dream,

the personal reactions/emotions to the dream, what could have influenced the dream before going to

bed (TV show, music, etc).

Finally, I tested diverse applications to track my sleep: Fitbit (a pedometer that also tracks sleep, which

proved to be very inaccurate), smart alarms (tracking sleep in order to wake you up at the best possible

time), and finally an application called Lucid Dreaming, which proved to be really technical and really

thorough (Figure 10 & 11). Designed to induce lucid dreaming, it used the accelerometer on the phone

to pick up movement on the bed and thus tracked down which sleep stage I was in. From there, it

triggered light and sound cues to make me realize I was dreaming. I confirmed here that sleep was

divided between several cycles, which repeated themselves 3 to 5 times each night. Each cycle were

roughly 90-100 minutes in length, and went through different sleep stages: light sleep, slow-wave sleep,

deep sleep, and finally paradoxical sleep (chapter V: sleep overview). In paradoxical sleep, REM

happened, as well as micro awakenings, before entering another sleep cycle. The REM phase is

generally very noticeable because the eyes of the person are moving wildly, and the face becomes very

expressive. It can occasionally be accompanied by sounds and mumbling (Stickgold et al., 2001).

Interestingly, paradoxical sleep occurs in greater quantity in the last hours of the night, which might be

why we seem to more easily remember our dreams in the early mornings. These tests gave me a

foundation to build my stimuli experiment: wait around 90 minutes for the person to fall asleep, check

periodically the eyes and the face, as well as eventual sounds they might emit and only then, apply the

stimuli.


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Figure 10: Lucid Dreaming app, sleep tracking.

Figure 11: Lucid Dreaming app, advices.


For this first phase of experiments, 2 participants agreed to be observed at night. The experiments that

were conducted were low-tech: I sat down next to the sleeping persons, and used myself as a “home-

made” REM detector (WOZ, Dow et al., 2005). It prevented me from worrying with the time-consuming

elaboration of a prototype using an EEG headset, and thus allowed me to spend more nights at the

bedside of people. I waited for them to start dreaming, before testing different stimuli. I tested the

efficiency of different stimuli delivered before and during dreaming. This first phase of experiments was

a wide stimuli exploration (light, touch, sound, etc), which purpose was, in conjuncture with the readings,

to determine which stimuli would be best fitted for a more elaborate interaction concept.


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Findings

Experiment n°1

Person A was observed Thursday 19 until 3 in the morning through a Skype call.

She went through one REM stage, during which she was visually and aurally stimulated by this

particular website (staggeringbeauty.com). This was made possible by sharing my screen on her

computer, enabling me to influence her. After her REM stage, she was woken up and asked to recall her

dream. Although she was not able to remember what had happened, she distinctly remembered a

“really harsh change in rhythm”. The dream was normal and then “it wasn’t”. At the end of the

stimulation, she knew that the sound was external, but she kept dreaming and did not wake up. The

combination of light and sound thus triggered some degree of awareness of her surroundings, without

evolving into a fully grown lucid dream (see different stages of lucidity, Noreika et al., 2010). The stimuli

had distinctly influenced the dream.

Experiment n°2

Person B was observed Friday 20 until 5 in the morning, in her bedroom.

She went through 2 REM stages. During the first one, she underwent somatosensory stimulation (since

it was the first experience with this person, I started with a pre-stimuli to put her at ease). She went to

sleep fully aware of her ankles bound together by a soft piece of clothing (similar to the gymnasts in

Sauvageau’s paper, 1998). After the REM stage, she was woken up and asked to recall her dreams.

Interestingly, the stimuli was directly incorporated within the dream, along with the observer, who

“tortured” the sleeper and forced her to walk around with a cable around her ankles. The sleeper was

begging me in her dream to “take it off”, she felt like it was cutting her blood circulation and that she was

going to faint. She then rushed into a bar to borrow scissors to cut the rope, but it turned into hair. The

somatosensory stimulation proved to be very effective and directly incorporated into the dream. Part of it

may be due to the fact that this was the first experience with this person, that the stimuli was applied

when the person was awake, thus building anticipation and excitement on what would be the result of

the experiment.

During the second REM period she was stimulated by the smell of vinegar. Here, the stimuli was not

directly incorporated into the dream (it mostly influenced the mood of the dream, like in the experiment

of Schredl et al., 2009). Although the dream had a distinct morbidity into it and something was

“bothering her”, we could not really pinpoint if the vinegar was at fault. In the morning, a debriefing was

done regarding the events of the night. The tester was really enthusiastic and surprised by how powerful

the somatosensory stimuli was.

Next experiments

Before beginning this first phase, I thought about testing stimuli on a pool of 4-5 people. In light of these

first two experiments (time-consuming and energy taxing), I decided to focus on only 2 persons (as

stated in the methodology), but for a longer duration. This allowed me to detect the existence of a

learning curve in the participants and how they adapted to this new situation.

In regard of these preliminary experiments and the literature perused, I decided that the next

experiments were going to focus on the different interactions possible with the dreamer using touch.

Effectively, even though it seems really promising, few papers discuss of somatosensory stimulation to


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influence dreams (Sauvageau et al., 1998). All “design interactions” with dreams are focusing on lights

or sounds (mainly to induce lucid dreaming, see vision part of theoretical framework). This second wave

of experiments were going to help decide what kind of somatosensory stimulation is the most efficient,

and how slight modulations could differently affect dreams. Each of these experiments were going to

help conceive an interaction concept.

PHASE 2: DESIGN EXPLORATION

Figure 12: Feedback Loop from waker to dreamer, enumerating different ways to interact.

Body-storming

The next performed experiments followed the same patterns as the previous ones: observe a sleeping

person, then apply a stimuli when the person is dreaming to influence the dreamscape. Although in

appearance these experiments may seem to be more related to scientific research on sleep than to

interaction design, I fully consider them to be design experiments: each of them were, on their own, a

very lo-fi prototype (or a body-storming session) designed to explore the design space, step by step,

and to refine the interaction from waker to dreamer (Figure 12, upper part). Each experiment were built

upon the conclusions of the former, and the result was later integrated into a grander scheme.

Findings

Experiment 3

Person C was monitored April 1st until 4 in the morning, in her bedroom.


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Since it was her first experiment, the stimuli applied was a pre-stimuli, taking the form of a strip tightly

wrapped around her left forearm (Figure 13). Once again, the pre-somatosensory stimulation proved to

be really efficient. The stimuli was incorporated in the dream, but not directly though: the person felt like

her entire left side was paralyzed and she had to drag it around. Again, my presence as the observer

was negatively perceived, as I was again incorporated in the dream as a villain, chasing the

handicapped dreamer around. Given the efficiency of this stimuli, I tested it again in experiment 5, but

this time directly in sleep, so the dreamer had no way of “self-influencing” themselves by knowing in

advance the stimuli.

Figure 13: Somatosensory stimulation with bind

Experiment 4

Person B was monitored April 3rd until 6 in the morning, in her bedroom.

Here the person went through 2 monitored REM phases. Another type of somatosensory stimulation

was applied, voluntarily less invasive and “violent” to see if the use of another medium would differently

influence the dream. Wet wipes were applied to the arm, along with tickles (Figure 14). The person

showed signs of being aware of the stimuli, but kept on dreaming, without really reacting or including it

in the dream. It is perfectly possible that I caught the dreamer too late in the REM phase (since she had

a micro-awakening before turning and going back to sleep) or that the stimuli was not strong enough.


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Figure 14: Somatosensory stimulation with wet wipes

Experiment 5

Person C was monitored April 13th until 3 in the morning, in her bedroom.

Here the person went through 2 monitored REM phases. To build on top of the results of the previous

experiments, I tried tying a strap of clothing around her arm when she started dreaming. Touch can be

powerful, especially if it’s a pre-stimuli. However directly applied during sleep, both persons (referring

also to the previous experiment) felt the stimuli, woke up, or were on the verge of waking up when I

applied pressure directly during both REM sleep and deep sleep.

For her second sleep cycle, I tied the cloth beforehand on her arm and snuck in a pedometer with an

alarm set to vibrate during the next REM phase (Figure 15). She was not aware of the way the

pedometer would vibrate. When I triggered the device, her dream recollection was a nice chat between

friends when the buzzer signifying the food was ready started to make the table vibrate. This way, the

testing of the stimuli was successful, while minimizing the chance of waking the dreamer up by the

movements of the observer. Interestingly, even though I was once again incorporated in the dream, I

was not an evil person anymore. The panopticon feeling worn off after a couple of experiments with both

participants: they got accustomed to being watched. (Appendix 2: Dream recollections)


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Figure 15: Somatosensory stimulation with the vibrations of a pedometer

Next step

To conclude, vibrations applied directly in REM seem to have the same level of impact as pre-stimuli

when it comes to influencing dreams. As a result, it should be taken into account when comes the time

of the test of the interaction concept. A “vibration-suit” kind of device (that apply pressure on any part of

the body, without the knowledge of the dreamer) might be a way of applying a satisfying stimuli without

fear of waking the person up. Such a suit has already been crafted on a chicken, by Adrian Cheok in

2012. A chicken was equipped with a jacket embedded with vibrating elements. Connected through the

internet to a chicken doll, the jacket vibrated every time the owner would pet the doll (Figure 16). The

person will know something will happen wearing the suit, but not pinpoint in advance where it will

happen, letting space for anticipation and surprise. Furthermore, vibrations can be applied in different

intensities, thus triggering different responses in the dream.


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Figure 16: Adrian Cheok testing the link between the doll and his chicken jacket

Concept sketching: generating novel interactions

Along all the experimental phase, I produced concept sketches and design scenarios of possible

interactions exploiting the experiments’ findings (see Gaver & Martin, 2000). Would the final concept use

only pre-stimuli to influence dreams? What kind of dreams would be targeted (hallucinations at sleep

onset, NREM, REM (Stickgold et al., 2001)? These concept sketches helped me explore the design

space and discover what it had to offer. The main purpose of these concepts was not for them to be

“good” or “desirable” design proposals. It was to explore the possibilities, play with the potential

scenarios and produce a decent quantity in order to establish a “perimeter”. These sketches can be

used to start a dialogue or can be used as inspirational material on what a playful interaction using sleep

can look like. (Appendix 3: concept sketches).

The chosen concept is the “Voodoo Sleep Pet” (Figure 17). In this concept, the physical object is divided

into 2 parts: one is “the stimuli pajamas”, worn by the dreamer. The second part is “the ball”, held by the

waker. It is a tangible representation of the sleep of the dreamer, and emits sounds and visual feedback

based on the emotional states and sleep stages of said dreamer. The ball tells the waker when the

dreamer is dreaming, and in turn the waker interacts with the ball, which transmits the feedback directly

to the stimuli pajamas. The pajamas vibrate accordingly, influencing the dreams of the dreamer. Due to

the remaining time for the thesis and my programming skills regarding such a complex prototype, I

decided to use some variation of the wizard of Oz technique to test it (Dow et al., 2005). It allowed me to

play a game of “Let’s pretend” with both testers, leaving the concept open to changes and suggestions

from both testers. The user-testing session turned into a co-creation kind of session. It also allowed me

to gather intel from the waker’s point of view, after so many experiments focusing only on ways to

interact with the dreamer.


34

Figure 17: Voodoo Sleep Pet concept

Co-creation session

The testing was divided into 3 main parts: one with the waker while the dreamer was sleeping, one with

the dreamer, and one with both of them to discuss the experience, findings, and retrieve feedback. I

acted as a mediator during the whole test, explaining how the prototypes would react depending on the

actions of the waker and the dreamer. I created visuals to help me for the occasion. The set-up was akin

to a collaborative experimentation with the help of lo-fi props. (Appendix 4: Co-creation plan.)

Phase 1: Waker

I first sat down with the waker and asked her some questions about how she viewed sleep. We then

proceeded to test the lo-fi prototype of the ball (Figure 18 & 19) while the dreamer was sleeping in the

adjacent room. I conducted a loose interview regarding the appearance, materiality, functions of the

prototype, letting the waker get accustomed to it and share her opinion. Due to some timing issues

regarding the dreamer’s sleep (upon checking on her, she was barely asleep), I asked the waker to

imagine the actions she would do if the dreamer was dreaming, right now. I proceeded to give her


35

incentives like “she is frowning right now” “look at the nice colors, she’s feeling surprised now”. What

kind of actions would she do, depending on the emotional state of the dreamer? When the dreamer

started dreaming, we both headed into her room. It was more convenient to have the waker with me in

the room, to minimize my coming back and forth, which might risk waking up the dreamer. However our

stealth was dubious at best, and we did not manage to go undetected. We woke the dreamer up without

having time to act out the second part of the session. We started to wait for another sleep cycle,

however it was really late and the waker fell asleep in the other room.

Figure 18: Prototype of the sleep of the dreamer. Balloon with fake candle

Figure 19: Prototype of the Sleep of the dreamer. Evolution depending on the sleep stages: light, deep1,

deep2, dreams.


36

Phase 2: Dreamer

When the dreamer finally entered another REM cycle, I could not risk waking her up once again by

fetching the waker sleeping in the other room (I was also feeling really guilty since she could barely stay

awake during the first phase). I carried out the experiment by myself, aware of the loss of valuable data

by not having the waker by my side. I remotely triggered a vibrating device first on the arm, then the

stomach, then the elbow crook, during 5 minutes (Figure 20). I used the insights of the previous phase

to carry out this experiment: if the dreamer is happy, do not do anything, if the dreamer is frowning,

tickle, if the dreamer is stressed, squeeze. I did not have any particular algorithm in mind to translate

these different gestures: tickles turned into very low intensity vibrations, squeezes became very constant

mild vibrations. Here I noticed the limitations of the lo-fi prototype: with only one vibrating device, it was

impossible for me to translate squeezes into full-body vibrations like the actual pajamas would. After a

while, the dreamer woke up on her own, looking really confused about the stimuli, which was still being

applied. She was not aware that the stimuli was being applied to her, and could not believe she

withstood it for so long without waking up. Even though she could not entirely recall her dream, she

distinctly remembered being tattooed. Interestingly, she was not aware of the stimuli in her dream: for

her, being tattooed was the result of her brain wanderings. Here, the integration of the stimuli was

seamless and went undetected.

Figure 20: Vibrating device remotely triggered on the dreamer


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Phase 3: Waker & Dreamer

We sat together and talked in a loose conversation. I explained in details what had transpired the night

before, and tried to fill in the gaps as much as possible. I explained to the waker the kind of vibrations I

applied on the dreamer, following her own remarks in the first phase. I explained to the dreamer what

happened with the waker while she was falling asleep. We then discussed of their feelings, how they

would react if the roles were reversed, and tried to expand the scenarios to include other people and

different settings. (Appendix 5: Interviews).

Findings

On a general note, the feedback from this user-testing and co-creation session was rather positive, even

if it could have been better prepared and equally better carried out (mostly the second phase that was

crippled). Both participants were on some level aware that the brain is not inactive in sleep, having

experienced dreams, sleep paralysis and the like (chapter V: sleep overview). However after the

session, they both had a much more tangible idea of the extent of the hidden activity inside sleep,

especially for the waker. They did not expect sleep to be this lively (chapter V: sleep overview). Even if

they occasionally noticed that they incorporated external sounds in their dreams, they had no idea that

said dreams could really be influenced (chapter V: External stimuli and their impact on dreams),

especially this deeply, and certainly not through touch.

Sleep becomes a tangible entity

The waker felt that the low quality of the prototype helped trigger creativity (WOZ, Dow et al., 2005): the

elasticity of the balloon and the lamp moving inside (which was not premeditated and fortuitous) offered

an intriguing haptic feeling and a great experience of what holding someone else’s sleep could be (its

roundness, its soft glowing, and its suppleness, Figure 21) (Tangilibity notion, Teegi by Frey et al.,

2014).

Figure 21


38

The abstraction of its shape helped consider it as an entity in itself, relegating the presence of the

dreamer to the background. The softness of the material and its pliability under pressure was enticing

enough to incite mindless play (gentle rocking), thus forgetting that the person at the receiving end of

the haptic feedback might not find the touch as pleasant through the pajamas. Even so, the shape and

material incited a certain level of carefulness, as if it was really fragile.

Regarding the feedback that the ball offered, the waker related much more to the emotional states of the

dreamer than her sleep stages (to check if the dreamer is indeed dreaming) (Chapter V: Sleep in playful

interactions), which revealed itself to be a faraway concept for a person who was not familiar with the

way sleep operates. As a consequence, the visual importance should be given to the emotional states of

the dreamer, which are more appealing to the waker. The soundscape (which can get really annoying)

could also be replaced by a haptic feedback. Every time the dreamer moves in her sleep, the sleep

could be moving beneath the surface of the ball. Finally, the sleep stages were not considered as a

valuable information: just stating that the person started dreaming to incite playful behavior was more

than enough.

Vibrations confirmed

The dreamer wore her own pajamas, which retrospectively proved to be a mistake. Even if the

prototypes were intended to be lo-fi, with my acting the actions, it would have been helpful to at least

disorient the dreamer by putting her in a full-body suit with stitched prominences (for the vibrators).

Nonetheless, describing the pajamas to the person led to interesting questions. The main feedback

focused on the placement of said vibrating technology on the pajamas. Touch being really potent in

humans, a full-body suit with vibrations triggered somewhat randomly (although she controlled the

intensity, the waker had no way of knowing where the vibrations would be triggered on the suit) is bound

to hit either unpleasant, neutral or erogenous zones depending on the dreamer. This concept offers a

dual play, where the interaction can easily turn sensual, as well as punishing (Chapter V: Sleep in

playful interactions).

Regarding the actual vibrations, they offered a wide range of influences when triggered at varied timings

with different intensities (this flexibility in timing and intensities is what makes them so interesting when it

comes to translating the haptic feedback from the waker to the dreamer). Last experiment was a

continuous buzz which got interpreted into a food buzzer. Here the repeated, uneven vibrations got

interpreted as the dreamer being tattooed.

Role-play inception

As expected, although being the waker is a role in itself, the personality of the person assuming this role

has a great impact on the possible interactions with the dreamer. Some would tend to act like a care-

taker; checking from time to time on the emotions of the dreamer. If said person was feeling positive

emotions, the waker would be curious as to what is going on in the dream, even disappointed to not be

able to sneak into the dream and see for herself. However, she would not try to intervene, for fear of

“breaking” the dream. On the contrary, if the dreamer was experiencing negative emotions, like, stress,

anxiety, frowns, clenching of teeth, the waker would try to soothe her by gently squeezing, hugging,

shaking, poking, tickling her sleep. The Caretaker is afraid of hurting the dreamer, and do not know how

to enhance the dream: she would rather agree beforehand with the dreamer of what she will do, and be

very careful with setting boundaries. Although the test has been performed with only the caretaker


39

personality, it is not a stretch to assume that other types of wakers would feel more adventurous, maybe

even mischievous towards their dreamers’ sleep. This side of the experience relates directly to the

potential roleplaying dimension raised in the theoretical framework (Sicart, 2014).

On the dreamer’s end, when the stimuli is applied at the right time, they will not wake up no matter how

strong the vibration’s intensity is. She did not remember feeling it, even though her sleeping mimics

clearly stated otherwise. She had high expectations of the experiment (having been through it twice

already), and was really excited about it, which was rather counterproductive, since she took a really

long time falling asleep. Here again, different personalities would shape differently the dreamer’s role:

some are really excited and enjoy the loss of control, whereas others would be really afraid to be this

vulnerable to someone (Chapter V: Sleep in playful interactions).

Interestingly, the role-play expended way beyond the scope of testing the concept between waker and

dreamer. The participants were accustomed to my presence and my work. Unbeknownst to me, they

assigned me a role as well, the observer. The testing session was just a part of a much bigger

playground, namely my thesis (appropriation of context, Sicart, 2014). The whole set of experiments

was considered a game, one with a clear purpose at the end: that I would get a final concept to test, and

talk about it in my thesis. The participants swapped the original purpose of the concept (influencing

dreams) and replaced it with mine. This way, the dreamer knew something fun was going to happen,

and she would get enjoyment out of finding out what later, in the fun setting of my experiments. This

proves that the original purpose of the concept is not self-sufficient. Doing this “just for fun” is not

motivational enough (play vs playfulness, Sicart, 2014), especially with just a friend. In a realistic setting,

the situation seems to become too intimate to attempt it with anyone else than the life-partner. The

roleplaying becomes really attractive in a relationship context but it still lacks a purpose.

Different scenarios

Although the concept sketches predicted some of the possible scenarios, this session strengthened

them and revealed a lot of other parameters that would influence them greatly.

The proximity of the waker to the dreamer is a source of changes: if the waker is in the same room as

the dreamer, she would probably just use the ball as a mood indicator and touch the dreamer directly.

The ball would have a minor role then, and not be as enticing. On the contrary, it could prove really

beneficial in long-distance relationships, who are possibly in different time-zones. Each partner would

then have the other’s sleep, and be awake when the other is asleep. Such a vulnerable and intimate

setting could bring some intimacy back in the couple.

These different scenarios can also be heavily influenced by the relationship between the waker and the

dreamer (power relations, Sicart, 2014). The interactions would change drastically if the persons are

lovers, friends, acquaintances or strangers. With a friend, the interaction would be more playful,

seemingly like rough-play between siblings. In the waker’s case, if the sleep was her boyfriend’s, she

would not try to reassure him, but squeeze his sleep to reassure herself. She would be gentler with him,

for fear of waking him up, or do something wrong. The vulnerability and intimacy of such situation has a

distinct sensual connotation, and linked with such intimacy, could easily lead to more “adult” play (play,

Sicart, 2014). As previously stated, the personality of the person is also a strong agent in the way to

apprehend the playful interaction.


40

To go further, some unmistakable comparisons were made between my project and the mechanisms of

BDSM relationships, with an emphasis on the dominant/passive roles. Be it the participants joking about

needing a safe word or considering signing a contract, the playful interaction seemed to be resting on

more serious grounds than previously thought (Chapter V: Sleep in playful interactions). These grounds

include the need to establish a proper safe environment for the dreamer, to have a solid trusting

relationship with the waker, and indeed to potentially have an agreement beforehand on what both

participants are comfortable with.

It brings up my last point, which is temporality. Is it a special situation that happens once in the passing,

or on a regular basis? This question defines the actions of the participants. A regular basis might lead to

more disinterested and clinical actions, which will eventually lead to tiredness and boredom without a

purpose. However, regular basis is highly unlikely, due to the preparation and implicit care that are

needed in the set-up of such an event. The rather noticeable set-up makes it a special event that needs

to lead to something more than just play for the sake of play. As stated before, the concept is still lacking

a strong enough purpose. In the current set-up, what the participants gain from the experience, even if it

is impressive (dreams drastically influenced), is not yet enticing enough.


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VIII. PHASE 3: REFLECT

CONCLUSIONS

To conclude, designing a new form of playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake players can be

done in various ways. This thesis focused on an experiment-based methodology. Testing a wide range

of the technology at disposal is very useful to shape up feasible scenarios of potential interactions

afterwards. The body-storming combined with very low-fi prototypes (they could even be considered as

props in a play) offer more freedom when it comes to the actual experiments. By not having to produce

a hi-fi prototype, I gained the ability to iterate quickly between sessions. That is what enabled me to do 2

to 3 experiments in a row in a single night, and this several nights. Beyond the experiments, the co-

creation session is also a powerful tool when it comes to shape an interaction as unexpected as one

between a dreamer and a waker. Again, combined with lo-fi prototypes, the participants are not so

focused on the fact that the prototype is working or not, thus allowing their mind to drift onto scenarios

they would relate to, encouraging them to poke holes in the concept and share their own personal

experiences to feed the project.

The concept sketches (design proposals) proved to be a rapid and efficient way to explore the chosen

design space. They greatly helped in choosing which stimuli to test and how, and to envision the

scenarios and situations in which these interactions would be embedded. As a secondary knowledge

contribution, these concept sketches are not intended to offer “good” or “desirable” design propositions

to be implemented, but to offer a glimpse of the different potentialities residing in the design space,

hence their number.

The chosen concept among these different proposals successfully managed to render sleep and some

of its inner mechanisms tangible. It revealed the presence of a learning curve in the participants: the evil

sensations faded, and they grew accustomed to another presence influencing them while they were

sleeping. In response, the dreams slowly became less violent, and the integration of the external stimuli

more seamless, undetected by the dreamer when he woke up. The vibrations worked so well that it was

nearly unsettling for the dreamer. This concept and the research surrounding it are to be seen as a door,

an inspirational stepping stone for other designers and the like. Their purpose is to encourage others to

view sleep through a new lens, one not focused on sleep as a health necessity, but as a new source of

potential scenarios, interactions, and more. More than considering sleep differently, using the unfamiliar

notion of sleep as a lens itself to look at other known notions enables us to shed a new light on said

known notions and concepts. This particular concept of playful interaction between dreamers and

wakers proved to be linked with unforeseen notions such as BDSM, endorsing very distinct dominant

and submissive roles. As a consequence, said playful interaction exercises a certain duality; leading to

either adult/sensual or abusive/punishing play (in this context, making the dreamer really

uncomfortable). It also brings a new context to explore scenarios surrounding notions such as

relationships and power relations. These notions have been linked with sleep before, especially in

children’s play settings and drunken games (pranks and the like: drawing on the sleeper’s face, tucking

the person in the sheet so she is unable to get out, etc).


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DISCUSSION

Regarding practicalities: Such a project is not easy to implement when it is depending so heavily on the

willingness of the participants. The project has been delayed for several weeks due to the unavailability

of key participants and had to be re-organized in consequence. Furthermore, the thematic of the project

in itself add another layer of difficulty. People are rather reluctant to accept being watched at night, even

more so if “experimented” on. Finding the perfect combination of willing easy sleepers who remember

their dreams takes time. So is finding people willing to stay awake in the middle of the night to

participate in a co-creation session. Furthermore, there is the limitation of experimenting and testing at

night which sometimes altered the quality of the experiments and the session, since all participants were

tired. This impediment has not been well-enough considered.

Regarding the methodology: the user-testing/co-creation session, even if successful, could have been

more prepared. It would have allowed me to make a lo-fi prototype of the pajamas, and play-out different

scenarios (waker in the room with the dreamer, etc.) instead of just a single one. It would also have

proven valuable to organize another test/co-creation session with the same participants to iterate on the

findings of the first one.

Regarding the prototypes: as stated in the previous pages, lo-fi prototypes offer a quick and efficient

way to test a concept, however what constitute their strength is also their weakness. The low quality of

the vibration device had great limitations. I could not test full-body vibrations with only one device. Even

if it was not a great set-back in itself, it certainly prevented me to test another range of vibrating

stimulations that could have been relevant and interesting to test.

Regarding the concept itself: one of the main differences between play and playful is that the play’s

purpose can be just play whereas playfulness need a strong motivator not linked to play. Here, the main

weakness of the concept is that its purpose is not able to sustain itself on its own, at least for now.

Influencing dreams appears to not be a strong enough motivator to engage people (at least people

outside the life-partners sphere) in the intended playful behavior. For now, what they gain from the

experience is not enough.

FURTHER WORK

Regarding the continuation of the research, the next immediate step would be to define the purpose of

said interaction, namely narrow down the different possibilities and “market” them so to speak: is it a

situation destined to help (caretaker scenario) get rid of nightmares? Is it to give an ounce of intimacy

back to long-distance lovers? Is it to be considered as a preliminary game in a wider adult play? The

secondary knowledge contribution, in the form of sketches, gives incentives on what these different

scenarios might be. The second step would be to iterate on the first user-testing session and its findings,

this time developing more hi-fi prototypes, in harmony with the chosen purpose. After that, the research

could expand in several directions: finding ways to enhance the positive emotions felt by the dreamer?

Ways to exploit the modified dreams after the stimuli is applied, beyond the feedback that the waker

gets?


43

The concept in itself has the potential to evolve from playfulness into actual play. It could very well lead

to a fully developed game for players seeking the thrill of losing control, with a concrete set of rules and

a more defined distributions of roles, as in the werewolf game. Expanding the play and concept outside

of the interaction, and considering the environment surrounding the play (play space) is another design

opening. Furthermore, as stated earlier, this concept and the research surrounding it are meant to be an

inspirational stepping stone for other designers to continue on this path. The design proposals are here

to offer a glimpse of the design space available and allow others to discuss their hypothetical existence

and propose concepts of their own.


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IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincerest gratitude to everyone who has supported me and offered their assistance, without asking

for anything in return. Thanks to:

Jonas Löwgren for his thoughtful guidance and laughs. Michelle, for all your nice references and moral

support. Kamil, for taking the time to read and correct me. My friends and classmates, for proposing

themselves to be experimented on and asking the right questions. Simon Niedenthal for giving me the

opportunity to attend this course, meet all this wonderful people, and submit this work.

The waker for her inspirational conversation and insights. Person A for allowing me to skype with her out

of the blue to observe her an entire night. Person C for allowing me to stay in her room and try out

different external stimuli on her sleeping self, without a single second thought.

Special thanks to:

Person B for her unwavering enthusiasm about my project, which would not exist without her

participation. A heartfelt thank you for withstanding all these experiments, for being curious about it, and

for putting up with it until the end.

Thank you.


45

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Wilson, D., & Sicart, M. (2010, May). Now it's personal: on abusive game design. In Proceedings of the

International Academic Conference on the Future of Game Design and Technology (pp. 40-47).

ACM.

Yu, C.K. 2012, "The effect of sleep position on dream experiences.", Dreaming, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 212.

XI. APPENDICES

1 : HEADSET TESTING

Epoc+ Headset

Figure 22: Training the headset to recognize “thoughts”: here push. Around 10 actions can be trained.

Figure 23: Facial Expressions recognition: frowns, blinks, smiles, clenching of teeth, displayed directly

onto an avatar.


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Figure 24: Emotions performances

Figure 25: Emotions performances


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Mindwave Headset

Figure 26: The mindwave headset is accompanied by a “brain reader” application. It displays the

different brainwaves on the left and top right of the screen. Furthermore, it provides a meter for the

attention (focus levels), and meditation (relaxation levels).

Figure 27: Diverse games are offered together with the headset. One’s purpose is to reach a high

threshold of attention in order to blow up a barrel.


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Figure 28: The other is to reach a certain level of relaxation, in order to make a ball levitate.


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The Mindwave headset can be linked to a third party software (here Lucid Scribe). This application

enables us to track the sleep stages of the dreamer and to trigger sounds if he enters REM stage. The

purpose of this application is to trigger lucidity in a dream.

Figure 29: This is the EEG of a person awake and watching a movie.

Figure 30: This picture shows the EEG of a person in light sleep.


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Figure 31: The EEG of a person in a REM stage would show features similar to both awake and sleep

states, with a high REM. Picture of a project by bcowgi2 where a cue was triggered during a dream.

Retrieved on http://lsdbase.org/2014/01/11/2014-01-11-possible-dream-slide/#comments


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2: DREAM RECOLLECTIONS

Experiment 1: person A

00:30: the dreamer went to bed.

FIRST REM CYCLE: 02h40

Stimuli applied: music and flashlights (www.staggeringbeauty.com).

What do you remember?

“It was strange... It changed in rhythm. Before, it was normal, and the music...It was a little

loud at the end. I knew it was coming from outside. Outside the dream.”

Even though she heard the music and knew it was external to the dream, she did not wake up.

Experiment 2: person B



Pre-stimuli applied with the awareness of the dreamer: binding of two ankles together with a piece of

clothes


“I was with you and others, we were walking around the city. I was wearing this stupid shit on my

feet... You were torturing me. I was saying Please take it off, you were No. You were ignoring me.

Claudie was here, maybe she’s... We were in a betting bar, you had to put your name under the

wheel. I asked the bartender if I could have scissors, he said No, he put them away. The scissors

to cut the rope. He gave me the scissors, but it was hard to cut the rope. But then it was hair, and

the bartender was pissed and told me your hair are dirty, they dirtied the scissors. I was saying I’m

sorry. And then he said that kids were not allowed to wear perfume in the bar… Actually I was

walking around with a plastic string. It was cutting my circulation, I felt as if I was gonna faint. Then

someone started a twitter rumor. And then I took it off, but I kind of wanted to kill you.”

When she woke up, she begged me to take the bind off and exclaimed loudly: freedom!

SECOND REM CYCLE: 04h40

Stimuli applied: the smell of vinegar.


“There were Germans, jumping with me... We were a circle. There were four girls. We were going

to die. There was a waterfall on the concrete. But we were at the hotel, we were gonna leave.

There was this elderly couple, they’ve been together for 5 months... No, 3 months. It was wrong,

every month is a new year. We were having shrimps for breakfast, there was my dad. We were

going inside the pool and try to test the waters but I would only swim and then dry my hair... I could


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tell something was bothering me, but I don’t know what. There was this high german techno, and if

you don’t fall straight you...”

Experiment 3: person C



Pre-stimuli applied, with the awareness of the dreamer: pressure on the left arm (binding).


“I felt like I was being chased. I was nervous all of a sudden. My whole body was limping, I couldn’t

control it. The screen of your computer flashed (it did not), and I panicked. I tried to run but I

couldn’t. I was trying to think... I was kinda lost, I was alone there and it was really quiet. My left

side was heavy, the right side was trying to drag it. You were there, you were looking at me the

whole time! It was you! You were the one chasing me, it was foggy, I think I was scared of you.”

She kept grabbing, clawing at her arm in her sleep during the whole REM phase.

01h50: the light of the screen seems to annoy her, she keeps turning away from it. She is putting her

hands and forearms on her eyes to shield them from the light. It is making it harder to pinpoint if she

started dreaming again or not.

Experiment 4: person B



Stimuli applied: wet wipe applied to left arm and slow scratching on said wipe.


“It was feeling kind of nice. Maybe I dreamed of something, I don’t know, I can’t remember. I was

startled when you touched me. I was already half-awake. But it was feeling kind of nice, like-human

putting something on you-kind of nice.”


Stimuli applied: arm tickling with the wet wipe.


“I was at a bar, I was going to go get something, but everyone is too old, there was a cat. Mama.

We took the wrong route, we were there to find a pub. We had a sandwich and a drink. Dad was

sitting and making friends, while Mom was staying at the table. I know what you did: it was some

kind of wet tissue, but not really wet. I knew it wasn’t in the dream. We came back, and dad

asked…would be here. There were scientists building things with one hand. And you needed two

things to control the hands. It was a super-robot, super tall.”


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Experiment 5: person C



Stimuli applied: bond on the right forearm, real tight. Applied directly in sleep.


“Maybe. I don’t remember. I kind of felt like I was feeling what you were doing, and I was really

pissed.”

There was an important delay between what she felt (stimuli) and what she claimed to feel emotionally.


Stimuli applied: bond on the right forearm with a pedometer inside. The dreamer was aware of the bond,

but did not know when or how the pedometer would vibrate. It was remotely triggered during the REM

phase.


“You were in the dream. We were siblings, we ordered a sandwich. And…There were vibrations.

The vibrations were the buzzer of our food. We were arguing which one of us should take the food,

and the buzzer buzzed on the table.”


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3: CONCEPT SKETCHES

The next pages will display the sketches with a small description.

Dream communicator

What if you could converse with someone lucid dreaming?

An eye morse code specially designed for lucid dreamers, to be able to communicate with awake

persons you care about, directly from within your dreams. Your eyes movements are tracked, and

translated into words to your friends, who can reply to you. You’ll receive light feedback (thanks to our

sleep mask with blinking leds) in the same morse code: you’ll be able to see their answer flickering

directly in your dream. What’s more? You can use this system to communicate with another lucid

dreamer! You can finally share dream adventures with someone in real time!


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Your heart on their sleeve

What if you could wear someone else’s sleep, and everybody could interact with it?

If you are a thrill seeker, put on your vibrating shirt, your EEG headset and connect to our platform

before going to bed. Your sleep will immediately be displayed on one of our “agent”, who will roam his

city, allowing passersby to interact with your dreams through him. Each interaction will trigger different

vibrations on your shirt, influencing your dreams. Enjoy the wild ride!


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Social Dreaming

Social media are everywhere, let them get a hold of your dreams too!

Share with your friends the fact that you are going to sleep, and invite them to influence your dreams!

Your EEG headset will be able to detect your emotional states, transmitting them to your friends and

followers on your favorite social platforms (facebook, twitter, etc). They will be able to cheer you up,

calm you down and much more, thanks to our sleep mask which will give the feedback to you through

light and sounds.


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The dream weaver

Have complete control over someone else’s sleep.

Horror movies do not make you break a sweat? If you are looking for new ways to entertain yourself with

your friends, why not use their subconscious as your new playground? You have entire control over the

stimuli applied to the person while they are sleeping and dreaming, thanks to their stimuli suit. Induce

nightmares, give them some respite, calm them, get them excited, talk to them, with our selection of

stimuli (lights, sounds, sets of vibrations and much more). After the dreaming phase, wake them up, so

that they can share the manufactured dream with you! And if you feel like you’re up to the challenge,

switch places and become the puppet dreamer!


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Voodoo sleep pet 1

What if you had someone else’s sleep as a pet?

Your friend sleep has become a tangible entity: a soft ball sensible to pressure. You can poke it, stroke

it, talk to it and much more. Each interaction you have with it is transmitted back to the dreamer through

different vibrations on his “stimuli pajamas”. You can admire what your friend’s sleep looks like and

sounds like (when you interact with it or not).


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Voodoo sleep pet 2







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The care-taker

Care for the sleep of others.

Imagine you are in a long distance relationship, in different time zones. What if you could have a part of

your partner with you? Namely, their sleep? With wristbands connected through the internet, you could

feel what they feel when they are asleep (with the help of an EEG headset retrieving the emotional

states), and soothe them when they start to have a nightmare.


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Voodoo sleep pet 3







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The whisperer

Confide all your secrets to your friend’s sleep, and see in return how your confessions influence the

dreamscape of your friend when he wakes up.


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4: CO-CREATION PLAN

“Prototype co-creation session”

2 to 4 hours depending on the time taken to fall asleep.

Explain how the session is going to unfold (The roles they are going to play, what I am going to

do)

o One Dreamer, One Waker, One Mediator to help mimic the prototype actions

o Ask preliminary questions to know what they know about sleep, how they view sleep (is

it eventful? A complete black-out where nothing happens? Etc.)

1 – Waker acting:

o Wait for Dreamer to fall asleep (they go to bed with “the stimuli pajamas”: half of the

prototype)

o Waker with me, possibly in a separate room, reacting to “the ball”; the other half of the

prototype (which is giving sound and visual feedback based on the emotional states

and stages of sleep of Dreamer):

What is it like to “hold” someone else’s sleep? (Feels like an annoying pet

maybe?)

Do you find it interesting to know what is going in their brain?

Did you expect sleep to be that “lively”?

Etc.

o When Dreamer enters the REM stage, it is displayed on “the ball”; Waker can then act

out the interaction with “the ball” and try to influence the dreams of Dreamer (by

poking it, stroking it, shaking it, and the feedback will then be transmitted to “the

stimuli pajamas”, which will in turn give the feedback to Dreamer. Dreamer’s

brainwaves will then react to the stimuli, and be displayed on “the ball”).

What does Waker feel? Was it awkward? Fun? Cruel? Like being a sleep

keeper?

How do they feel about being away from the person with the prototype acting

as a representation of them (Long distance interaction)?

Would it improve if they were directly next to the person? Make it awkward?

What they think about the interaction? The concept?

How could the experience be improved for them?

What would they want to be able to do?


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What would happen if it was implemented on a wider scale?

2 – Waking Dreamer:

o Debriefing with Dreamer:

How do they feel?

Did they feel something before falling asleep? Anticipation? Other?

Do they remember their dream?

What did they dream about?

Did they notice something unusual in their dream? Did they pinpoint the

stimuli? Knew it was external?

How do they feel now?

Anything to say about the experience?

o Debriefing with Dreamer and Waker:

How was the experience?

How did they feel (troubled, creeped, etc.)?

How could it be improved/changed?

Could they see themselves in this situation with a total stranger? A friend?

Did they find something relevant in this experience?

Did it shift their way of viewing sleep?


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5: INTERVIEWS TRANSCRIPTS

Waker’s interview

-How do you view sleep?

-I really love to sleep. I’m lucky because I don’t normally have any trouble falling asleep. Most of the

time I also get the amount of sleep I need. My body is regulating itself, it’s pretty cool.

-Would you say your sleep is eventful?

-I don’t know. It really depends. I hardly sleep like a stone, this feeling when you fall asleep, and

you wake up immediately afterwards. I normally never have this. I turn, I move, I think I wake

up at night 2 or 3 times to turn, but it’s not bad, I actually like that. So yeah I guess I move a lot.

-So you are aware that something happens?

-Yeah.

-You wouldn’t qualify sleep as a complete black-out?

-No, not at all. Because I know that I’m dreaming, and most of the time I remember my dreams in

the morning, and I’m very aware of what happened, and sometimes it influences my mood

during the day, a lot. I hardly view sleep as a black-out or a stone.

-Let’s go to the prototyping part {showing her the balloon with the candle, explaining to her

how the pajamas and the ball are linked together, and the different interactions}. The

dreamer is wearing a suit with tiny vibrating devices inside of it. The suit is communicating with

the ball, and the ball is giving feedback to the suit as well. The dreamer would wear an EEG

headset. The headset will pick up her emotional states like excitement, stress, relaxation,

focus, frowns, clenches of teeth, surprise, smiling. I can also detect which stages of sleep you

are in: light sleep, deep sleep, paradoxical sleep. {showing her the prototype} Here, the light

would represent the different stages of sleep. Different colors for each stages, light sleep being

bluer, and deeper sleep being redder {showing her images}. And in the end, you have

paradoxical sleep, where letters and words would appear randomly to signify that the person is

dreaming, and that it is your cue to interact with the dreamer through the ball. The emotional

states of the dreamer are communicated through sounds. If she’s feeling distressed, the sound

emitted would communicate the distress. I picked a set of sounds I would like you to listen to, it

would be helpful to discuss with you what kind of sounds are the most effective to translate an

emotional state {making her listen to sounds}. I would put this music to signify stress {plays

music}.

-Actually I wouldn’t have expected something to be very melodic, this is almost a song. I would

have thought of something more ambient.

-I had a hard time picking up sounds: should I try choosing music? Or maybe actual ambient

sounds like you said? Or more personalized? I f the 2 people actually know each other,

personalized just for them? Or just the voice of the person saying “I am anxious” “I am

surprised”.


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-I think I would go for ambient sounds. Because I think people are able to identify the mood of

ambient sounds pretty well, whereas when you have something personal, I don’t know, they

would pick something really weird.

-Basically, when the EEG is connected, it would play continuously. The brain states, the actual

colors would change and move all the time, and the sounds would never always be the same,

with all the different brainwaves, alpha, delta, and beta. One moment you’re excited, the next

second you’re becoming stressed and it changes all the time, and there would be so many

sounds blending together. It would become some kind of soundscape.

-Or maybe just by changing the tempo/speed of the ambient sounds to communicate emotions, but

same sound patterns.

-Basically, this thing would be very colorful, and very noisy {handing her the prototype over,

encouraging her to familiarize herself with it}. It’s her sleep! Look at her sleeping! This is

her sleep, and she’s not dreaming yet. She’s in light sleep.

-Right now, I feel a little bit the edge of the lamp, and it’s moving a bit as I move it, and I find it really

interesting. I don’t know if you can do that. A slight movement underneath the surface could be

extremely nice. What’s inside? It’s intriguing, really subtle. Noisy, lighty thing.

-What does it feel like, holding someone else’s sleep?

-It’s very interesting. When you were talking about the pajamas, I thought it would have made sense

to have like a voodoo puppet, in the shape of the dreamer’s body, but I think it’s actually really

good that it’s just a ball, like something abstract. Sleep is something abstract. Something

fragile. I’m very careful. Something very intimate for the person. I’d be afraid to hurt her in a

way, interrupt her. It’s something really personal, when you see someone sleeping you start

becoming really careful not to wake them. It’s not sacred, but respected.

-If you had a voodoo puppet instead of the ball, would you be more inclined to poke her around?

-I don’t know. It would certainly be different. It would relate more to the person. Like I touch the arm,

the pajamas squeeze her arm. Like I’m affecting her body. This being a ball, it can actually be

the sleep, an entity in itself. It is the representation of a state rather than of a person.

-Do you find interesting to be able to see what’s going on in the brain of someone’s sleeping?

-I think I don’t really… It’s relatively hard to relate to what’s going on, because I myself am not able

to identify this phases of sleep as well as you. So even if it would tell me now which stage she’s

in, I don’t recognize it when I see it. The stages are something abstract. Cause I’m not able to

experience it myself. So it’s interesting, but I think emotions speak to me better. If it tells me

okay now she’s in pain, I could related, because I know how it feels to be in pain.

-So you would relate more to the sounds relaying emotions than the light relaying stages?

-Yeah. Maybe okay, now she’s surprised, I would be interested to know what she’s dreaming about

so that would be interesting, cause it’s something I can relate to.

-Regarding the actual feedback, would you actually prefer to have the visual for the emotional

states?


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-Yeah. The sleep stage would be more in the background, as sounds, and the emotional states

monopolize our vision. It’s more relatable that way.

-Did you expect sleep to be that lively?

-I don’t think I expected it to be this lively. I knew something was happening, but not on that scale.

-Okay, she’s still not dreaming, let’s just play pretend she’s dreaming, how would you interact with

the ball? There would be some kind of relatively loose mapping on the ball, so if you just poke

a small surface, only a tiny portion of the pajamas will vibrate on the dreamer. The way you

touch the ball determine where and how the vibrations will be triggered. Different way of touch

instead of where.

-The way it is right now, I would definitely squeeze it. Poke it.

-Then it would be tiny localized vibrations on the dreamer.

-But yeah, since I don’t know right now how she feels, I wouldn’t know how to interact with her. As

long as I don’t know how she feels, I wouldn’t do anything. If she’s not fine, I would try to calm

her down.

-If she’s feeling excited?

-I think I wouldn’t do anything. I think it’s a good dream. I wouldn’t want to interfere. I would be

curious about what is actually going on in the dream.

-Enough to try to wake her up for her to tell you?

-No, because I wouldn’t want to interrupt it. It would be like breaking something in order to

understand it. But it’s broken. It’s not the purpose. I would just really hope she wakes up by

herself and still remember, and tell me.

-Would you feel frustrated to not know what is going on?

-Ah, I would be a bit disappointed yes.

-And if she’s feeling stressed?

-I would try to calm her down. I would try to squeeze her gently, hug her.

-You said her! Instead of her sleep! Is the ball becoming the dreamer? And if she was feeling really

really relaxed?

-I guess that’s a good thing… But I just thought it might be funny to tickle it. But I actually wouldn’t

want to do it if she’s feeling relaxed. I want to do it when she feels tense.

-So basically when she is feeling positive emotions, you would not want to interfere, but if she is

feeling negative emotions you would interfere?

-Yeah

-So you would be more willing to take the role of the guardian angel?

-Like a care-taker.


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-I guess it depends on people’s personality.

-I think I’m just way too nice to…

-I would have the god complex like in the Sims: I would try to poke it, shake it, etc.

-I normally try everything, but now, when there are actual people affected, then I would be very

careful.

-And if she was feeling really focused? Like concentrating really hard?

-I think I would also not interfere.

-You would not try to improve the focus?

-I wouldn’t know how! That’s the thing, I would not know how, for positive emotions, I would not

know how to enhance them.

-You would not be curious enough to try to figure out how to enhance them?

-I don’t know, maybe. I think if the dreamer agree beforehand, I would be okay, this time, I’m going

to try and test around what happens when she’s happy, and affect it. I would be careful to not

overstep any boundaries. I think I would also be a little bit afraid. For example, they’re having a

good dream, it’s nice, and then I do something, and I screw it up. And I would be “Why would

you do that?” Why would you interfere if someone is feeling relaxed? I wouldn’t want that to be

done to myself. But if there is stress, I would try to calm her down, even if it makes it worse, I

would have at least tried to make it better when it was bad.

-And if she was starting to frown?

-I would probably stroke it a little bit, like poking, smooth her face out. Try to take her focus away

from what’s bothering her in her dream.

-And if she was feeling surprised?

-I would be very curious about what’s happening.

-If she was clenching her teeth?

-I would do the same as frowning. Stroking her and shaking and tickling her.

-When you hold it, do you think of it as the person’s sleep? Maybe as a tiny animal? What does it

make you think of?

-No. The glowing ball makes me think of fireflies. I’m not sure I would give it a character like a pet.

Maybe more like a plant. It’s not dead, but it’s not alive as well. It’s more like a luminescent

plant. But you know right now, even though I know it’s the dreamer’s sleep, I can’t help but

gently rock it.

-Why is that? Is it because of the shape? The texture?

-Yeah, because it’s so nice and round, and because of the light moving inside. I can’t help but rock

it like a baby. But for the haptic feedback, not for the dreamer.


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-You do it for your own benefit. You would want to have haptic feedback instead of sounds?

-Yeah. It would work better. The tangible action with the vibrations. You should definitely keep the

object. It is really intriguing.

-And instead of the sleep cycles, it could just talk to you? Or vibrate depending on the movements

of the dreamer.

-Yeah! That’s interesting too!

-Retrospectively, the EEG headset isn’t that useful: it can grab a lot of data, but I feel like most of it

is really technical and you don’t relate to it. Like what does it mean “Alpha 12985”?

-Yeah, the emotional state is the only thing I connect with.

-So the EEG is just here to say if the person is happy or not. {Waker’s falling asleep}. You are going

to sleep with dreamer’s sleep? Do you think that is something that could happen?

-I wouldn’t want to? Maybe with my boyfriend. Since I’m away from him, I probably would sleep like

that.

-Different relationships, different interactions?

-Yeah.

-Would you be afraid of squeezing him too much and wake him up?

-Well actually no, he would just know that I squeezed him so hard I woke him up. So it would be

feedback for him as well. Like I’m having a nightmare, suddenly he knows it.

-It’s interesting, you found a way to give the dreamer feedback that you were having a nightmare!

And if the sleep was in a different material?

-No. Here, it reacts to the pressure, it’s warm, you can put your finger in, and it reacts.

-How does it feel to interact with someone else’s sleep?

-As I said, I would be really careful. I would feel like I have a lot of power to interfere on something

really vulnerable.

-How do you feel about being away from the person?

-In the beginning, I was be really aware, but now I’m kind of forgetting that there is a person, and

then I do something that I don’t intend to do, I don’t think about it, but it wouldn’t maybe be so

nice for the dreamer.

-Do you think it would improve or change the actual experience, if you were directly next to the

dreamer?

-That would be weird! I think I would touch the dreamer directly, I would use the ball as just and

indicator as to what’s going on, but then interact directly with petting or stroking the dreamer. It

would have a minor role (the ball).

-And, what do you think about the interaction, the concept?


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- It’s very intriguing and interesting.

-Does it changes your idea of sleep?

-A bit I guess.

-Did you think it was something you could do (influencing dreams)?

-Not before I met you.

-How do you think the experience could be improved?

-The haptic feedback! That’s the main thing!

-Is there other things you would want to be able to do?

-No.

-What do you think would happen if it was implemented on a very wide scale?

-It would lead to very abusive situations, and very intimate for relationships. It has high potential for

both sides.

Interview with the dreamer and the waker

-I have no idea what happened. I remember I went to sleep and I could hear you outside still a little

bit in the beginning. And I feel like I was kind of… agitated, I guess, cause of the whole thing,

so I didn’t fall asleep that fast.

-You had anticipation.

-Yeah. I was really tired, but still, when I actually went to bed, I was too awake I think. And then

finally I fell asleep, and the next thing I remember is hearing the two of you whispering in the

room. It was really annoying actually. There was something bothering me, and then I turned

around. I fell back asleep. And the next thing I remember, is that I opened my eyes and you

were sitting right next to me, I was saying something about tattoos and you had the vibrating

thing… But I don’t remember feeling the vibrations! But that’s all! I remember also you were

trying to wake me up and get me to talk, but I was dead, I was just dead.

-Yeah, basically that’s what happened. But what did happen also is that the vibrating device, I used

for, maybe 5 minutes. And I did different vibration intensities, and just put it in the crook of your

elbow, then on your arm, and then I put it on your stomach…

-REALLY?

-Yeah!

-WOAH!

-And then I used the biggest intensity possible, and then I used short sharp burst of vibrations

-REALLY? But I remember that I was getting a tattoo. I mean, that makes a lot of sense! Haha,

that’s super creepy!


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-At the beginning, I could not pinpoint if you were dreaming or not, because your eyes were not

moving, but you were not moving so I told myself: I’m going to try anyway, maybe she is

dreaming.

-It’s possible that if you had waited a little bit longer I would have had a more complex dream that I

would have remembered. Because I remember it was something about tattoo, but I don’t

actually remember the dream.

-I think I caught you in deep sleep, just right before your paradoxical phase, and you don’t

remember as much when you’re in deep sleep. But it is okay, you did remember enough. But in

the beginning, I was really afraid of waking you up, us whispering woke you up the first time, so

I really thought that even the lowest intensity of the vibrations would wake you up immediately.

But you didn’t!

-Did I like, made any noises?

-No! But your face started to scrunch up on its own, it was really funny.

-Yeah? But even when I woke up, I don’t remember feeling it! I suddenly woke up.

-But you totally felt it! Even if you don’t remember! You face proved it!

-That’s super funny!

-But in the end, you somehow got used to it and kind of relaxed, and then you woke up, and you

looked at me really confused.

-Yeah! I was like what on earth is going on? What are you doing here? [deleted for privacy

reasons]

-We had this discussion with the waker. Like the difference in relationships…

-Yeah, if it’s your mom doing this.

-Yeah but also, she would react completely differently if it was her boyfriend’s sleep, instead of a

stranger’s.

-[deleted for privacy reasons]

-Honestly, I started writing a conclusion with the parallels with bdsm. I mean, I can’t avoid it,

everybody keeps joking about having a safeword, making a contract/agreement beforehand

“what can I do, what can’t I do”. 50 shades of sleep.


-I would rather be creeped out. I would not try with anybody else but my boyfriend.

-I’m sure there is people who enjoy being in the dominant role with the device, and others who

would prefer the passive role. There is a thrill about letting go.

-There is totally the psychological side of it: the BDSM stuff has power relations, it is grounded on

psychological needs.



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-How did you feel about it, the whole experience? You were kind of opposites!

-I was very careful!

-I was “yeaaah, experiment with meee”

-She kept asking me these questions like: what if she’s happy? What would you do with it? Nothing,

she’s happy, why would I do anything? Okay now she’s relaxed, what would you do with it?

Nothing, she’s relaxed! Why should I do something?

-Haha!

-“Okay, she’s stressed. Now I would try to help her relax. Okay now she’s relaxed, what do you do

next? Nothing. She’s relaxed.

-But that’s really interesting that the different personalities… Like a personality would only be to

soothe the person. But I’m sure that some people would be like “haaaha, she’s happy? Let’s

poke her!”

-Yeah! When I did all the previous experiments on you, I was not as careful as her. And I had the

role of the waker back then. Like she’s happy? Let’s try to enhance it, and if it goes wrong, too

bad!

-Yeah, but in your position it would be different because you needed to know what was going to

happen. If I actually think about the realistic situation that I have someone’s sleep in my hands,

and I could interfere somehow… With all this relationship layer around it… I wouldn’t do. I

would just try to soothe her.

-I was more acting like “the person agreed, we have an agreement, so I have permission to do what

I want to do”.

-But that’s the thing, it also depends on the relationships.

-Yeah.

-Like if it was someone that I really love and care about, I would be happy to see that they’re happy,

and I would just relax them when they’re stressed. But if it’s like… Like a friend or something,

that would be rough, more playful. But of course, even if it’s someone that you really love and

you really trust, but you want to try it in a more sensual way, then of course you try out different

things.

-Maybe it’s also different if you try it out just once, or all the time. I was thinking: Okay I have this

thing, and I have it most of the time, so this is what I would regularly do with it.

-Yeah.

-Maybe if it’s like a special situation where you have it… I would maybe beforehand agree with the

person on what I want to try out.

-But imagine you have a long-distance relationship, like with different time zones, so that you each

have these balls, and you’re awake when the other is asleep, so then you probably have to

worry about other stuff, and you’re not paying attention, but then at some point you’re warned


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the person is stressed, son now you do something. But most of the time? Okay happy, not

doing anything.

-Yeah, that was more the situation I imagined.

-Did it change your way of thinking about sleep? Your experience of sleep?

-Yeah. I think this is super interesting because I’ve always thought that of course, external stuff can

influence your dreams, I’ve had that you wake up with the radio and I heard the song in my

dreams, but I’ve never thought about the touch, exactly, how it can influence dreams. I mean, I

never even stopped to think about it, I mean, at least with the binding and the tattoo thing it was

super clear that something changed, so for sure, it’s super interesting. I mean also everything

we talked about, this idea of trusting someone, losing control, I never thought about it in a sleep

state. And it’s also very interesting. So for sure yeah, it makes you think.

-Could you see yourself in this situation with a total stranger? Someone you’ve never met, you just

have the ball?

-No.

-I think that would actually be really weird. Like to give up control, like you said, but also I wouldn’t

like to take control.

-I wouldn’t like to lose control to a stranger. Like not even to a friend. Like this is fine, it’s a test

setting, but to really allow somebody to… Only in a relationship.

-It’s so intimate you can’t… At some point, there is something really sensual as well. And it’s quickly

linked to sexuality. So when you have sensuality and intimacy, it leads to sexual behavior.

-I think it depends of the person. I mean you’re not a total stranger of course, but I was never really

scared of your experiments. I was like yeah, something fun is going to happen while I’m not

aware and then I’m just going to find out what. But… more curious.

-You find enjoyment out of finding out what happened?

-Yeah it’s nice. Even with friends, it’s actually nice. But I think it’s because if this setting of

experiments. But just for fun? I think I wouldn’t really understand why my friend wants to do

this? But in a relationship, I would totally, yeah.


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