Network Whitepaper | Part 10 — Virtual Dreams

By Link Daniel

Original Publication Date: January 21, 2021

Standing at the beginning of a new decade that will enable things most would not deem possible, we must have the courage to do the impossible and dream a new dream. Let us ask how we can achieve what was never done before. What are things that we can invent that never existed before and will improve life? To create something that will allow us to see ourselves and the world from a new light.

Our ability to communicate enabled many inventions. Words in a way represent a source of magic. Language was foundational for everything else that followed. Writing enabled us to transfer ideas and knowledge on a more permanent basis. The printing press and publishing in general democratized that process while digitization centuries later made it accessible and global.

Everything starts in our mind and we need to believe that we can achieve what we set out to do even if the odds are against us. Even if the probability of success is low, if it is important and worthwhile, we must have the courage to do it.

We introduce virtual dreams, a novel medium to experience ourselves and the world in an alternative reality of our own mind at first and connected to other minds later. It is inspired from the concept of lucid dreaming, which occurs when we are conscious while dreaming. In other words, when we are awake in our dreams and explore the nature of our own mind. In the Western world, lucid dreaming has been a scientific reality for almost half a century. In Tibetan Buddhism, dream yoga has been practiced for over a thousand years. As of today, we already have virtual reality and the rate at which games progress is astounding. It bears repeating that games have become more like reality itself. Even at a modest rate of improvement, games in the future will be more real than reality.

This revolution will enable us to build technology to empower others to help themselves and break free from the mind games they are playing with themselves. Throughout history, we have embarked on a journey to create more material abundance for everyone while expanding outward that has created tremendous

progress for mankind. We shall not forget the journey that awaits inward and the liberty that we must search for to be truly free from the many loops that run through our mind and govern our lives. There are many types of freedom and the liberty of the mind is certainly an important one to keep in mind.

When Galileo established the foundation that science was built upon, he ordered the telescope from the Netherlands. The telescope was a tool to empirically probe into the scientific principles that Galileo was investigating. Similarly, we will soon be able to build tools that will enable us to investigate the nature of reality at a deeper level than was previously thought possible.

We discussed the history of other media such as motion pictures or video games. The media we have today did not always exist and today we cannot live without them. They have become an integral part of our culture and represent a way of communication we rely upon. Through them we can see ourselves and the world differently.

We discussed lucid dreams and meditation as tools for individuals to break free from infinite mental loops. Virtual dreams will exist as a vehicle to explore the mind. They will have similar properties to lucid dreaming and meditation in that they can empower individuals to help themselves.

We already live in a world of virtual reality and augmented reality. The next step is to send our avatar into the virtual world and experience virtual reality directly. We already have virtual reality gaming, even if that ends up as the analog version of virtual reality. While the gaming industry is fixated on a screen today, virtual, augmented or mixed reality represent the stepping stone for what is to come. In the future gamers will figuratively step into the screen and through virtual dreams control their digital avatar as they control their body.

Virtual dreams will feel similar to lucid dreams except that we may use brain computers to experience it on demand. As previously explained, lucid dreaming is the recognition and awareness that we are dreaming while we are dreaming, which typically occurs during REM sleep phase. The moment we have the realization that we are dreaming is the moment we become lucid. The reality that we experience inside a lucid dream feels just as real as the reality that we experience when we are awake. In some way it feels even more real than reality. In some ways we cannot do what we can do during waking reality, but in many other ways we can do things that we could never do in waking reality.

Even though there are tools to help people lucid dream, this paper is focused on creating synthetic lucid dreams using brain computer interfaces resulting in the creation of virtual dreams. There are going to be different stages to virtual dreams. The first advanced iteration will be one in which we will be able to experience a virtual dream without being able to share it with someone else. It will only be a single player game at first. It will be a telescope to introspect the subconscious mind. Then, we will have virtual dreams that can be recorded and shared with others. Virtual dreams will become social in that we can share the dream that we experienced with others in such a way that the other person can be an observer of our dream. Finally, we will have virtual dreams as part of multiplayer virtual world and we will be able to experience them with others simultaneously. Others will be able to join in and the dream can be shared by multiple people at the same time, each person being able to influence the dream.

Virtual dreams need to become a cryptographic medium that individuals own running on an open, permissionless network that will connect brain computer links to the virtual world. The data that will flow between the brain and the computer will be in the hands of the individual. The network must be decentralized in order to guarantee it is open and permissionless. When an individual enters a virtual dream, they experience the dream knowing that they own the dream, and they would only share it with others through consent. No company mines data from the virtual dream unless there is explicit consent by the individual for a specific purpose to share data. That is why it is so important that the data that will flow between brains and computers need to be on a network that is decentralized, open and permissionless.

As we embark on this journey, we are aware that the technology for virtual dreams does not exist yet. We are working on early prototypes that resemble virtual dreams in their spirit in order to demonstrate that we are capable of building this medium that also has the property to empower individuals to break infinite loops. It is paramount to set the foundation and create the possibility first. Ultimately, our promise for virtual dreams is only worth as much as our ability to bring it to life. Thankfully it will be up to all of us to shape this world of virtual dreams.