Alexandra Kitson - Virtual Reality Researcher focusing on Lucid Dreaming

If you are interested in the potential intersections between lucid dreaming / dream yoga and virtual reality, I recommend keeping an eye on the work of Alexandra Kitson. On her website you can find titles like “Going Beyond: Lucid Dreaming as a Lens into Transformative Experience Design for Virtual Reality” and “Are You Dreaming? A Phenomenological Study on Understanding Lucid Dreams as a Tool for Introspection in Virtual Reality.”

I’m particularly interested in a project she announced recently on her Twitter feed:

I’m very curious to see where that project goes.

~ Arthur

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Hi Arthur! I’m so thankful to meet you here, I’m so excited to check these VR dream experiences out.

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Thanks, nice to meet you here. I’m excited to see how Night Club evolves over time. :grinning:

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I had brief contact with Alexandra last summer, and hope to include her in our Club – maybe a future interview. She’s doing cool stuff.

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Excellent! I hope it works out for an interview at some point. I’d love to find out more about her work. :smile:

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This just in: Alexandra Kitson has published a preprint of a paper she is presenting soon, that gives more detail on the Lucid Loop project; you can read it here: Lucid Loop: A Virtual Deep Learning Biofeedback System for Lucid Dreaming Practice

ABSTRACT

Lucid dreaming, knowing one is dreaming while dreaming, is an important tool for exploring consciousness and bringing awareness to different aspects of life. We present a proof-of-concept system called Lucid Loop : a virtual reality experience where one can practice lucid awareness via biofeedback.Visuals are creatively generated before your eyes using a deep learning Artificial Intelligence algorithm to emulate the unstable and ambiguous nature of dreams. The virtual environment becomes more lucid or “clear” when the participant’s physiological signals, including brain waves, respiration, and heart rate, indicate focused attention.Lucid Loop enables the virtual embodied experience of practicing lucid dreaming where written descriptions fail. It offers a valuable and novel technique for simulating lucid dreaming without having to be asleep. Future developments will validate the system and evaluate its ability to improve lucidity within the system by detecting and adapting to a participants awareness

This sounds fascinating. I’d love to try it if I get a chance, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.

a.

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This is great. I’m deeply into VR. I’m a retired optometrist and LDer. I don’t see any reference to quality judgement from LDers or if LDers do “better” with the apparatus. There are some fascinating set-ups for feedback and VR that yield “unusual” OBE type experiences. I’d love to be involved in research like this!

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On her Twitter feed Alexandra Kitson recently posted a lovely short video that illustrates how her Lucid Loop project is intended to work. You can view the tweet at this link (whether you are on Twitter or not). It’s about 2 minutes long

~ArthurG

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