Halo AI Headband That Lets You Control Dreams Could Affect Cognitive Abilities, Experts Warn

Lucid dreams are when you know you're dreaming while asleep, and we rarely reach that stage. However, a new device offers the opportunity for you to achieve lucid dreams.

Halo AI Headband For Lucid Dreaming

An AI tech business intends to replace your regular dreams by developing a new headband that allows you to manage your overnight wanderings in a clear, dreamlike state. Prophetic, a start-up company, is set to release a $2,000 Halo AI headband in 2025. The device will allow people unmatched control over their dreams, potentially assisting them in resolving issues they are dealing with in their waking lives.

The headband employs functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which monitors brain activity by monitoring blood flow, and electroencephalography (EEG), which captures electrical activity in the brain.

To elicit lucid dreams- a dream state in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming while asleep-- the EEG and fMRI combine to provide a comprehensive brain map.

The company uses the EEG data to determine when the wearer has entered REM sleep and then uses the fMRI to induce lucid dreams and "pursue the answers to life's biggest questions," according to its site.

Rapid eye movement (REM) is the deep sleep stage that occurs before a person begins to dream. A headband that uses high-frequency noises to stimulate brain activity can help induce, maintain, and impact lucid dreams.

"It is plausible that the sound stimulation could induce the high-frequency brain activity that is associated with lucidity," said Professor Mark Blagrove, a sleep scientist based at Swansea University and the co-author of The Science of Art and Dreaming.

"Sound stimulation has been used to induce low-frequency slow waves in slow wave sleep, so the method proposed is credible."

According to CEO and cofounder of Prophetic, Eric Wollberg, explain how the Halo works in a sample video. He said the device will autonomously induce lucid dreams when one wears it. He stressed that the wearer won't need to do anything to trigger the lucid dreaming.

The problem with the new AI technology is that its effects are unknown. For example, scientists are unsure of the long-term effects of repeatedly zapping the brain with high-frequency sounds.

ALSO READ: Sleep Might Help Us Remember False Memories [Study]

Experts Warn Against AI Headband

Although the AI Halo headband is promising, experts have warned against using the said device. Blagrove notes that "We are very rarely lucid in our dreams." He also emphasized that not being in that state is probably not required for the practical function of dreams.

Scientists claim that dreams play essential roles in our cognitive development, helping us process emotional experiences. Some people are concerned that altering dreams would negate their intended function.

Lucid dreams have the potential to affect a person's reality negatively, just like nightmares and sleep paralysis do.

Prolonged and severe lucid dreaming may overstimulate the dreamer, which can reduce sleep and raise stress, per the Sleep Foundation.

According to Nirit Soffer-Dudek, a clinical psychology researcher at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, everyone talks about how lucid dreaming changes one's life and how great that is. However, they failed to discuss its dangers or warn people about the risks.

"I think that more carefulness is needed, in terms of thinking about who this is good for and who it isn't," Soffer-Dudek said.