Control your dreams
Lucid Dreaming is the discipline of consciously controlling your dreams. The idea has been attested by great minds such as Aristotle and has been written about extensively in the Hindu Upanishads. However, it was Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik (Willem) van Eeden that first coined the term Lucid Dreaming in 1880. Yet, the awareness of the concept remains relatively unknown to the average person. It seems so visceral and hard to comprehend that no one has dwelled into understanding the experience, even though these days, there’s more information on the science behind it, and modes and methods of experiencing it than there ever has been. Maybe it was that gap that needed to be bridged that led two entrepreneurs in Brooklyn to experiment and create a way for all of us to experience Lucid Dreaming.
Bitbanger Labs, started by Duncan McCloud Frazier and Steve McGuigan, decided to bring Lucid Dreaming to our world by creating the Remee Sleep Mask. The gadget is a comfortable and affordable mask designed to help us control and sometimes even customize our dreams.
We sat down for an interview with the Bitbanger crew to get more familiar with the gadget and how it went from being a dream to a reality.
How did the concept come about, what’s the story behind it? We came up with Remee after a chance conversation, where we realized we were both interested in Lucid Dreaming. We’ve known each other for years but had never discussed it. Once we traded a couple lucid dream stories, we also talked about how there weren’t a lot of products for lucid dreamers, and the ones that were available tended to be expensive and not designed for comfort. That was the beginning of Remee.
How long did it take for you to design the concept? Remee’s design was in flux for months before we were truly happy with what we had. Even after that, small things were tweaked constantly.
If you had to describe in the most basic manner what Remee does, what would you say? At its most basic level, Remee is a specialized sleep mask that can help people lucid dream more often, by showing light patterns while the user sleeps. When one of these patterns occurs during a dream, it can lead to recognition and lucidity.
What kind of information would people have to supply to Remee, in order to have their own personalized version? The personalized versions of Remee were only available during the Kickstarter campaign. We had about 100 custom masks.
Is Reeme something, someone with a sleep disorder should be buying? Will it help them? It shouldn’t hurt them but it won’t help either. Personally, we feel people with sleep disorders should concentrate on figuring out how to get some rest before bothering with lucid dreaming. Sleep is important!
When will Remee be in production and how can one go about purchasing it? Remee is currently in production and pre-orders for estimated August delivery are being taken at sleepwithremee.com!
What’s next in the pipeline? What other projects/concepts are you working on? We have at least three products in the pipeline that we will definitely develop, and a whiteboard full of other potentials. The next one deals with photography, but in a way that will get even non-photographers excited about the product. It’s very cool!
To learn more about Remee and Lucid dreaming please visit the Kickstarter website, thanks to which the concept was funded and is now a reality for all Lucid dreamer enthusiasts. _
By: Tanvi Chug
Follow me on Twitter: @Chimerical_T
