the cheapest, easiest to build dream goggles EVER!

an update and a post i just posted at dreamviews:

here’s a second version of the goggles:

and here’s a small program i wrote to do what’s been mentioned earlier in the thread (signaling at 90 minute intervals):

hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/FLASH90.BAS

HOW IT WORKS
it will ask you for the port settings (888, 956, etc)… see the hackcanada.com instructions page for how to get the number (mine is 956).
then it’s going to turn all the leds on.

it will then ask you for a number of variables, and i’ll explain all of them:

SETTING UP THE SIGNAL
turn LEDS on for (seconds): - here you have to specify for how long do you want the leds to be on… you can say 0.1 seconds to… whatever, 30 if you want. experiment with that.
turn LEDS off for (seconds): - this is where you say for how long the leds should be off (same value, or different than above, if, say, you want the leds to be on for one second and off for half a second)
number of led flashes: - this is how many times to repeat the on-off signal (say you want the leds to flash 5 times for one second on, half second off, this would be 5).

At this point you’re done setting up the way the lights will flash.

SETTING UP THE TIMERS
Number of signals: - if you want the signal to be repeated more than once after each cycle, this is where you specify it. I’ll explain how it works after i explain all the timers.
Delay between signals(minutes): - this is the delay between the signals… NOT the delay between the cycles, keep that in mind.
Repeat cycle every (in minutes): - THIS tells the program when to repeat each cycle (once every 90 minutes for instance, in which case this would be 90)
How many cycles?: - 4 for instance will repeat the entire loop 4 times and then exit.

so the way the timer works is pretty simple. say you want the signal to be given every 90 minutes, but at the same time you want 2 signals at 5 minute intervals every 90 minutes… this is where the number of signals and the delay between signals comes in, repeating the signal and the time delay between the second signal. if you just want one signal every 90 minutes, you just have to put 0 in these two fiels (number of signals and delay between signals)

i know it may sound complicated, but it’s really intuitive. if you try it once you’ll see it doesn’t take that long to set up and it’s really not complicated at all.

so possibilities of signal are:

start<----------x minutes------------->XXX(flash)<-pause->XXX(flash)<-pause->XXX(flash) go back to start and count x minutes again

or just

start<----------x minutes------------->XXX(flash) go back to start and count x minutes again

(keep in mind if you add a 5 min delay between signals and you repeat that 3 times, the 15 minutes that makes will ADD to the 90 minute cycle, so the REAL cycle will be 105 minutes, even if you entered 90 minutes for the cycle… so if you add the delay between signals, be sure to take it out from the cycle timer… if you want 3 signals at 5 minute intervals every 90 minutes, be sure you enter 75 for the “Repeat cycle every (interval in minutes):” value.)

the good thing about the little program is that it’s all variable based, so it’s very customizable. the bad thing is that it takes some time and you can’t save/load the settings (yet). another bad thing is that the signal only uses 2 leds (using all 8 leds was WAY too bright) and this is not customizable (unless you change the program yourself). Also, there may be bugs in the program (if you use 0 values here and there, or smaller than acceptable values or stuff like that, i’m not yet sure where these are)… so yeah, keep in mind i wrote this last night pretty quick and i didn’t consider exceptions and all that.

in the future i might try to set up a load/save function and maybe use preset signals (where you’d control the frequency of the signal in times/second but not how the leds light up).

anyway, i don’t know how to make an exe out of it, so you’ll have to use qbasic to run this :smile: it’s easy for me cause i use an old laptop running dos, but i don’t know how well this will work in say windows xp so i’m sorry about that, i know it’s a pretty nasty issue.

if anyone decides to use this let me know if it works for you.
i used it last night and the signals worked perfectly… the only problem being i take off the glasses while i sleep, so it so happened that every signal sent the glasses were probably on the floor (i’d wake up, see the timer had signaled, see the glasses on the floor and then put them back on… and the next time it would be the same thing, the glasses would be on the floor and i’d put them back on and fall back asleep) …

what i’ll probably add is also a key function that cuts the time of the next loop down to 5, 10 or 15 minutes or so… so if you wake up at 6 in the morning and there’s 60 minutes till the next signal, you can just push the button and fall back asleep, knowing the mask will signal in 15 minutes instead, when you’ll probably be in REM.

so yeah… i’m talking too much for nothing, the program is really small so i’m making it sound more complicated than it really is.

props go out to MeusOpusMagnus

you have done an amazing job, well done. This is the revolution…

to stop the glasses from falling off during the night, you could put the led’s into a sleep mask. Also is thats a printer port cable hooked to the glasses right?

Is there a way to strip this cable down to it’s raw wires and then perhaps make the cable thinner, as small as a cable from a headphone cable?

Or even i had an idea, is it possible to ge the LED’s to flash from hooking them up to a mobile phone, and porting this software you have made?

hmm, i assume a phone could make the leds flash, but i don’t know anything about those.

and yes, the cable could be very thin, which may be good, but may also be a bit more dangerous: a thicker cable doesn’t wrap around your neck as easily as a softer one would (i got headphones cable around me once, not pleasing to wake up because you’re breathing hard).

and yes, the printer cable is hooked up to the glasses, you can see where it hooks up at the arrow in the lower right corner of the picture.

also,

if anyone’s getting inspiration from these glasses and wants to embark on something a lot more serious, i found a thread at dreamviews and i jumped right in.

the idea is to design a pair of glasses that detects REM in other ways than eye movement (heartrate, ECG, GSR, etc)… We’re getting closer and closer to a computer software driven pair that would measure GSR through sensors probably attached to the fingers (galvanic skin response, which changes significantly in REM)… eventually it might even break from the computer and become free standing, but for now we’re planning to do the data acquisition thorough a serial/lpt port.

as always, the price is the issue here and what we have could be built for about 15$ and doesn’t require programming PIC microcontrollers or anything fancy.

here’s the thread:

dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.p … sc&start=0

so if anyone’s willing to help out with the electronics, it would be greatly appreciated. for now i’m trying to build a simple GSR unit that already switches the signal from analog to digital… we’ll figure how to connect it to a computer later :wink:

someone should start making these in mass, and sell them on ebay for like 20-30 bucks with instructions

i would pay since i dont know anything about LED/etc

hey, i could teach you if you really want a pair… better than wasting 20-30$ on something worth under 5. :grin:

it’s really not hard… but i guess if you don’t know much about leds you wouldn’t happen to have a soldering iron lying around either would you ?

maybe you know someone who does ? it’s really ridiculous how easy these are to build, all you have to do is drill 8 holes and do some soldering.

anyways, if someone really wants to build these but doesn’t know how let me know. you’ll need

  • a power drill + bits
  • soldering iron
  • a printer port (easier if you just buy the metal port instead of the printer cable)
  • 8 small red leds (or red+green, but i suggest you stick to red if you’re to use them at night, green light out of nowhere on your eyelids, ESPECIALLY when you’re eyes are adjusted to the dark is NOT FUN!!!)
  • thin wire (coated in plastic)… enough to cut 9 lengthy bits and have some leftover, so for a 5 feet cable from computer to glasses i’d suggest 50 feet of wire… you do the math.
  • cheap (but comfortable) plastic glasses

(if you want to use a printer cable you need to figure out which wire goes to which pin, so be sure you’ll buy one were you can pull back the plastic on the port back so you can see where they’re soldered… else you’ll need to measure some stuff (get a friend, two 1.5v batteries and a friend and i’ll tell you how to figure out which goes where if you don’t have anything to measure conductivity with)… it’s a bit more tricky, but it’s not hard)

so yeah, if you have all of the above and you want to build them but you’re a bit lost, i’ll gladly provide step by step instructions.

even better if you could please provide a video tutorial, not too long, then that would be sweet, even a tutorial on how to go about and setup the software. I would be up for sending you a donation and i am sure everybody here would.

video tutorials = not so very good.

they

1- need to be long to explain the entire process
2- get big as they get long
3- take lots of time to transfer over at slow internet speeds.

so unless you assume everyone has dsl or cable… yeah, not a very good thing to do. what i CAN do however is draw some simple illustrations that would explain the process. i think that would be enough, because you really don’t need to SEE how i drill 8 holes, everyone knows how to do that.

and, as i mentioned before, no need for any kinds of donations, copyrights, etc… ever
i’m not doing any of this for money… besides, i got most of this information for free, charging for it would make absolutely no sense.

okay then fair enough, i think it’s still amazing.
pictures would do fine, Keep up the good work.

well a little off topic but have you tried these yet?

are they increasing your ability to have LDs?

i worry that i would roll around at night and the wires/glasses would fall off.

AH! Yes, that’s exactly what happens :smile: I only tried them one night though, so i can’t say anything much about that.

You could add an elastic to them, or mount the whole thing on a sleeping mask and see how that goes. They work perfectly as a light machine so far (and have been effective with the sleep induction, which may help with WILD, but i didn’t have time to try that out). I’ll keep toying with them for the next week (i have a break)… so we’ll see how they go…

That’s why it would be fun if people would test these out, considering the ammount of time it takes to make them.

Also, I’m starting work on the new GSR device i mentioned earlier (i just bought mostly everything i need and then some). I just ordered the missing parts from Texas Instruments and in a few weeks from now I think the unit will be ready for software testing… I’ll post a diagram of the objective soon, so that people can follow up if they want.

Get this: GSR REM detection (live computer monitoring) —> Light or Vibration signaling (or possibly both or maybe even sound) + Software programmable 3 led/eye Light Machine for about 20$… (downpart = wire hanging from your face)

Then you wonder why wellness tools would charge 1000$ for the same thing. Sure, most $$$ from the Nova Dreamer went to the research, but wellness tools has no excuse.

i used these again last night and i’m getting real close i think. I had a dream ABOUT lucid dreaming, we were a whole bunch of people talking about lucid dreaming and masks you can use to induce them and stuff like that.

What happens is that i fall asleep as lot easier without the mask on than WITH the goggles on. I woke up at 5 this morning and i was REALLY tired… it took me 15 min nonetheless to fall back asleep after setting the mask and putting it on, and by that time the LEDS went off and woke me back up (i was JUST about to fall asleep).

So i’ll try setting the timer to 30 minutes this time (rather than 15, which was a bit too fast) and see how that goes.

(and here is the diagram for the new device: hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/design.bmp - If anyone has any ideas or sees anything wrong with it please let us know. It uses 2AAA batteries)

so this latest one is supposed to be stand-alone, not needing a connection to the coputer? or what?

eventually it might be. For now we’re using the computer to gather data because we don’t know exactly how accurate GSR will be. Most chips don’t have much flash memory and the ones that do are more expensive and need fancy programmers. We’ll make it computer operated for the time being and if there is a need for stand alone we’ll figure something out… Though under best circumstances we’d like a wireless connection to the computer… Having a device software operated offers much more flexibility and less hardware, so yeah, we’d like to keep the computer in and maybe eventually go wireless (blue tooth is not a very expensive option, it can be implemented for some 60$ and it’s probably going to go down, as many computers nowadays come with a blue tooth port (the new apple notebooks for instance))

for now, we’ll be using wires.

this gsr unit, when it is released will you release the plans for us to build them or will we have to pay for this and how much will it cost?

we’ll release the final plans (what we have so far is actually already out hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/design.bmp ) and the software will be open source and nothing will be charged.

right now you can build it, but there’s no software to operate it. and i got some help so i’ve made a few changes to the plans since i couldn’t find some of the parts around here, but that’s no big deal, both designs work the same.

there are some issues with LPT communication under win XP so we’re considering scraping the LPT altogether and going for a serial, or both. I’m hoping with this new driver i found we’ll be able to use the LPT.

I don’t know much about all this, but do you think it would be possible to use very light electric shocks as signals. It could potentially keep everything very compact.

I was thinking about it as an alarm to wake me up when I tried polyphasic sleeping. It’ld be a good alarm because no-one would be able to hear it.

btw, How exactly do the goggles work? Can you see when you are asleep?

Thanks

electric shocks could very well work to signal lucid dreaming, the problem is the voltage that you feel an electric shock is quite high (for instance if you touch the ends of a 9V battery you won’t feel anything much, so you need more than 9v on the skin)… This means the device wouldn’t be powered by batteries anymore, so instead of reducing the size it actually adds to it… You’d probably have to plug it in the wall with an adapter and I wouldn’t trust anything home made that uses wall power, i’d be really scared of getting shocked and killed.

vibrations though are just a small motor that you offcenter… when it spins, it vibrates. You only need to attach it to the batteries and that’s about it. Leds as well, you just shove in a resistor, attach them to the battery and that’s it. so it doesn’t take that much space to begin with.

and do you mean the new goggles we’re working on how do they work or the ones i posted at the beginning of the thread?

the ones at the beginning of the thread just flash lights constantly at different hz for a light machine, or, if you use my qbasic program, when you tell it to. there’s nothing big there, though i read in some parts you should attach resistors to each of the LEDs to reduce strain of the LPT port… i’m using them with a computer i picked from a trash can, so i don’t care much about that and it seems the “strain” is not much, but a bit more research would be good.

the other ones i mentioned, the GSR ones have REM detection and will (hopefully) work in the following way:
there will be a small box attached to your printer port containing the device. coming out of it will be a wire, splitting in two at the goggled. One will stay there and power the 6 LEDS for a light machine/rem signaling… the other will go to your shoulder or maybe even lower to your finger (along the arm so you won’t be bugged by it) and have a small probe (two wires stuck to your finger basically).
These two wires will measure conductivity in your skin, which drops during rem. When the drop is noticed, the computer signals the goggles and voila, REM detection. it will be a bit more complicated than that, in that the computer software will probably have a light machine with biofeedback (GSR) incorporated, so the software part can expand a lot.

You can use the back voltage from an inductor. Connect a 1.5volt battery to an inductor and it builds up an emf cut the power supply rapidly and you get yourself a very high voltage that is able to supply a high current over a very small time. That’s how I think it works.

I think I’ve got how the computer side works. I’m more interested in how the brain side works. What do you see when you are asleep and the goggles turn on?

yeah, i guess you could build up current, even with a capacitor/transistor based circuit like the ones in solar engines… it’s worth a try, but i don’t think i’d appreciate small electric shocks when sleeping… there also might be potential health risks involved.

as for the brain side, i don’t know what to tell you… for the light machine you close your eyes and it looks the way it does when you’re lying on your back under a tree and the sun shines through the leaves and they move around… after a while you start seeing geometric shapes or patterns appear and after that i fall asleep. i haven’t tried higher frequencies yet, and i haven’t tried visualization sets either…

as for the dreams part, the only time i remember seeing the clue in a dream was a few nights ago when i had a dream about talking with my cousin over a webcam. at one point it all went red and the screen flickered… i didn’t think about the mask though so i didn’t become lucid… i guess it depends on what you’re dreaming about or how your subconscious interprets the signal.

This is very interesting. I would be interested in the serial port version if the LPT really is that incompatible with XP. If I were to create a boot disk, boot to MS-DOS, and run the QBasic program from there, would that fix the problem? I am a QB programmer myself, but as soon as I got XP, I figured QB might not have a practical application anymore. Well, I was wrong! :cool: I think I will build a pair of these and experiment with them myself. :om: