Arabnet Arabnet

“Scientists understand the neurology of sleep, but not the content of dreams.”

Shadow is an alarm clock / dream diary mobile app but with a much bigger picture in mind. The founders hope to create a global dream database that can be used to plot and analyze the collective subconscious thoughts of people around the globe.

It is difficult to remember dreams, although it is a skill that can be honed with practise. At least 95% of all dreams are lost. That is due to the fact that certain brain chemicals necessary for converting short-term memories into long-term ones are suppressed during the REM phase of sleep.

The app uses an escalating alarm that gradually transitions you through your hypnopompic state from sleeping to waking. That process supposedly makes you more likely to remember your dream when you wake up. You will be then automatically prompted to enter your dreams into the app either in writing or verbally. Dreams are then stored and can be accessed as part of your own dream journal. That same data, stripped of your personal info, would plug into a larger common database on the cloud from which global dream and sleep patterns could be derived.

There are a couple more features in the app. If you’re having trouble recalling your dream, the app will ask you a series of questions designed to refresh your memory. Naturally, you can go back and view your dream history. As your input increases over time, the app will be able to plot patterns in a more accurate and meaningful way.

To give you an idea on where this might lead, listed on their kickstarter page are a few exmaples of questions they are hoping to answer: What do we dream about during a thunderstorm? After an election? Before a disaster? Do celebrities really dream differently than the rest of us?”

Additionally, you will be able to compare your dreams to other groups of individuals in your vicinity or anywhere on the globe. You might find out that you and your neighbors share them same worries or hopes. You might discover that you’re not so attached to your local happenings.More interestingly though, the app will be able to connect your dream data to your daily activities. Not just dream data, but sleep patterns as well.

So you might know that talking a night jog you are more likely to doze of faster. A late heavy meal might mean that you’re more susceptible to more somber thoughts in your slumber. And so on…

The app is being conceived and developed by 2 designers, Hunter Lee Soik and Jason Carvalho. The former had thought up the app during a musical tour for artist Jay Z and Kanye West, for whom he built apps and other digital materials. During the tour, he slept less and dreamt less. After the tour was over he was finally able to get ample sleep time and as a result had more vivid and memorable dreams. That was when he decided to design an app meant to help us better track, and more importantly understand, our dreams.

And it seems that there are enough backers to make this work. The project is getting funding from kickstarter and so far has been able to raise $35+ thousands, 15 or so short of its 50 thousand target, with 43 days to go.