Prophetic, a tech startup, has come up with the concept of the world's first wearable device for stabilizing lucid dreams, called the 'Halo.' Collaborating with Card79 - the firm who made hardware for Elon Musk's Neuralink - Prophetic recently gained $1.1 million from BoxGroup and a16z's Scout Fund. BoxGroup is the VC renowned for being the first to back Plaid, the fintech firm.
When Eric Wollberg and Wesley Berry connected in March, Wollberg was examining how lucid dreaming could be used to investigate consciousness and Berry was teaming up with the musician Grimes to convert neural signals into art. Both were keenly interested in how brain-imaging techniques could offer a representation of someone's thought processes. On the same month, the duo, aged 29 and 27, respectively, founded Prophetic. This is a tech startup creating what it dubs the "world's first wearable device for stabilizing lucid dreams," which takes the form of a headband-like device that discharges concentrated ultrasound signals. Lucid dreaming happens when someone sleeping realizes they're dreaming and can potentially control parts of the dream. The startup has amassed a previously unidentified $1.1 million fund, with involvement from a16z's Scout Fund, and directed by BoxGroup, the VC fund popular for being the first to invest in fintech firm Plaid. To mock up the noninvasive device, called the "Halo," Prophetic has collaborated with Card79 — the company that designed and made hardware for Elon Musk's brain-computer interface firm, Neuralink. Prophetic's hardware bet is coming at a time when a few artificial intelligence companies are investing in devices or wearables. Humane AI, a business established in 2017 by ex-Apple personnel, revealed its wearable — the AI Pin — on the runway last week at Paris Fashion Week. Moreover, the illustrious iPhone creator Jony Ive and OpenAI's Sam Altman are also purportedly discussing an AI hardware venture. Wollberg and Berry, Prophetic's CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, plan to reveal a semi-functional prototype either this month or in early November. However, the thorough assessment of the prototype, they state, must wait until the third or fourth quarter of 2024, after the end of a yearlong study on brain imaging conducted in collaboration with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, part of Radboud University in the Netherlands. The co-founders are harboring the kind of lofty dreams that characterize a modern-era tech startup, with Wollberg likening the company to OpenAI. Its mission is to act "collectively towards understanding the nature of consciousness" and its LinkedIn page reads, "Prometheus stole fire from the gods, we will steal dreams from the prophets." However, a year out from a fully operational prototype, with plans to ship devices commencing in spring 2025, Prophetic is still a ways from fulfilling its assurances.
For decades, people have been captivated by lucid dreaming, resulting in references to the phenomenon in pop culture such as films "The Matrix" and "Inception," as well as a Reddit community (r/LucidDreaming) with over 500,000 members. Neuroscientific studies on the matter can be traced back to the 1970s, according to the National Library of Medicine. Recently, interest in the topic has increased due to the growth of the cognitive neuroscience field. Wollberg experienced his first lucid dream at 12, although he does not recall the details, and described it as "the most profound experience" he has ever had. In college, he started to have lucid dreams twice a week and realized he wanted to use the practice to explore consciousness in greater depth. Meanwhile, Berry was familiar with neurotech prototyping and feeding EEG data into a transformer neural network (a AI model developed by Google) to analyze what people visualize in their minds. He and Wollberg believed the current technology was insufficient to induce lucid dreaming. Therefore, they focused on stimulating the prefrontal cortex with ultrasound waves while someone is already dreaming. This idea was supported by research showing that focused ultrasound stimulation can improve working memory, similarly to not knowing how one got somewhere while dreaming. As such, Berry is hopeful that their prototype will be successful.
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