the cheapest, easiest to build dream goggles EVER!

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

the cheap microcontrollers you mention seem a good way to go for wireless. The sd is interesting but i wanted to completely eliminate the use of a pc. like the remspeaker from the remdreamer it has a microphone. I think the idea of an sd card would be greatr as well for putting audio like you said on it but also to record all sleep data on to it for playback on a pc like the zeo does.

I don’t understand how your getting to work with zeo soon, i thought it’s a closed system and so that means the makers are not going to release their sdk?

i was googling and found 2 other rem devices one of them a piece of software for an iphone and the other a wrist watch rem device. perhaps we could adapt these into a sleep mask type device.

wakemate.com/about/
lexwarelabs.com/sleepcycle/howitworks.html

Glad you liked my suggestions. I’m not sure how easy/hard adding a microphone aspect would be, but it is certainly possible. I like the idea of using the SD card for data storage as well.

Yes, Zeo is currently a closed system…but I may be getting a chance to work with them regardless. I’d keep an eye on them for the next year or so for many improvements. From talking with them I know that they are a great company eager to listen to and help out their users.

The problem I have with the two sleep detecting devices you cited is that they are pretty inaccurate. They use body movement to detect a general idea of how awake you are. One of the most exciting things about merkzu’s design was that it has direct access to actual eye movement. This allows for things like signaling in your sleep back to the real world. I also personally think EOG is a more direct and reliable method.

Coming to think of it now I too do believe EOG to be more accurate and it would be more affordable as those 2 links I provided require an iphone as well. I have created a post in this sub forum where I have some pretty incredible ideas which I thought deserved a new thread. If the ideas could be implemented into a new type of LD sleep mask it would be revolutionary, I am currently typing this up and will post the link here.

here is the link to my write up

[Revolutionary idea for documenting a dream within a dream!!!)

Please post replies in that thread

Anymore updates on this?

I believe this is very possible. I looked into some mini wireless optical mice and found them costing under $15 on amazon. The dimensions are 9.5CM x 5.5CM x 3.5CM that’s pretty small. Once you remove the plastic casing and get right down to the PCB you could easily fit that snugly in a sleep mask and it would be light and small enough to be comfortable to wear during sleep. This really is an excellent idea and even with this we can do two way communication like the rem dreamer. Of course we would need a PC by our bed but it could probably be modified to work without one somehow, possibly even work with a mobile phone which nowadays we all have.

Removing the computer from the equation is easy with many mice. The mouse sensor most commonly used uses a pretty standard protocol, i2c if I remember correctly, and thus is easy enough to communicate with using a microcontroller, though this will remove some of the simplicity of this solution. The main problem I’ve had with this idea in the past is that the stock lens used in most mice have a very narrow range of focus, requiring you to keep it at a constant short distance from your eye. A different lens could probably be used, but then, once again, we are removing some of the simplicity of this solution.

yes but if we go down the route of a mini mouse then the PCB is obviously smaller, and a lot of mice have unused space left on the PCB, so you could cut away that which should make the mice even smaller. Then as it is already a mini mouse you could probably get it very close to the eyes. Well that’s how I imagine it. Couldn’t we even desolder the components and resolder onto a strip board that’s precut to the required shape to get the stock lens very close to the eyes? or what about cloning the mouse, buy the exact components of that mouse and soldering them to a stripboard or working a prototype first on a mini breadboard?

In my experience the problem isn’t so much getting it small enough to be close to your eyes… it is getting it to stay(comfortably) the correct distance to get reliable readings. Tighten/loosen the mask, move in your sleep, etc, could easily shift it enough to get inaccurate readings. Also, in terms of cloning the mouse…I believe for the cost of the parts to duplicate the mouse, admittedly not that expensive, you could create a better more accurate method, such as what merkzu was working on.

With goggles that also allow the lucid dreamer to signal back to the device (such as the new REM Dreamer and NovaDreamer) , it is possible, with the right mask/software and a website controller program (such as multi-player game sites and chat sites use), to coordinate two or more LD masks with computer connections and allow very simple communication between dreamers; a multi-player dream game, if you will.

The ingredients for multi-player lucid dream connectivity are:

  1. A lucid dream cuing device such as a dream mask or audio device with dreamer response detection and interpretation.
  2. Computer software (LD program) that has two-way, real-time communication with the cuing device.
  3. Computer software (LD program extension) that has two-way, real-time communication with a remote host site.
  4. A multi-player host website program that receives input from the LD programs and issues messages to them.

Here are a few scenarios that could be fun for dreamers in a multi-player environment:

  1. Two players register and log onto the LD multi-player website, selecting the other player to communicate with that night and which player is to be the guide player (first dreamer cued). The respective local LD programs monitor the eye movements during the sleep of the players and upon REM detection send a message to the website that the respective dreamer is in REM; the website host program waits for both players to reach REM, then the host sends a command to the local LD software to signal the guide dreamer via audio/visual cue that she is dreaming. When (if) she becomes lucid, this lucid dreamer now signals (via eye movement) the mask/program to stop cueing and, in addition, send a message to the host program to notify the other dreamer that he is dreaming by audio/visual cue (could even be a pre-recorded audio cue in the guide’s own voice). The signal to the recipient’s to become lucid is now coming directly from the guide dreamer and may carry more meaning than a neutral cue (and lots more fun). For those folks with an interest in mutual dreaming, this may prove also to be a useful initiator for such a dream, coordinating the timing for lucid dream sharing.

  2. A lucid dream race: players log on and join the race, then go to sleep. The host site waits until all the respective LD local programs indicate REM state for all the players (hopefully at some point all REM’s coincide). The host site sends commands to all the local programs to cue all the dreamers more or less at the same time. The dreamers, upon becoming lucid, signal to stop the cue and, in addition, send a message to the host site that they are lucid. The winner of the race is recorded on the host site and the players can view the results–just for fun, of course, but competition can have a strong motivational effect, as many psychologists know.

  3. This multi-player scenario would require a mask with various colored lights or audio cues and dreamer feedback variability. The dreamers, upon both becoming lucid, signal different eye movements to the other dreamer (via the local LD programs’ connection to the host website) which result in varied cues, the meaning of which is agreed upon beforehand when the players register for this ‘game.’ A “hello” signal from one dreamer can result in a ‘blue’ cue to the other; an “I am flying” signal from the other dreamer could result in a ‘yellow’ cue to the first, and so on. Audio messages could be used as well.

  4. Masks or other cuing devices with multiple cuing options such as varied colors could also be used to enable more than two dreamers to send messages to the entire group in the same session. Dreamers sign up for the night’s session and assign themselves a color cue or audio cue. As the dreamers become lucid, the host software sends that dreamer’s cue sign to the rest of the group. A dreamer, for example, recognizes the ‘red’ cue as “Mike has just joined us” and the ‘blue’ cue as “Sally’s lucid now too.”

While the lucid dreamer communication described here is very rudimentary, the exciting thing is that such dream games as outlined above are technologically feasible right now. We are at the point with inter-dream communication that Alexander Bell was when he spoke “Mister Watson, come here! I need you!" And we saw where that led.

Nice post, but I already posted the link to where you got all this information in another thread of mine. But it’s good you posted here, helps for people wanting to read it directly on this site.

I think multiplayer dreaming sounds awesome but I am not sure how well it works. We will have to see where it goes.

The ideal mask for multi-player games is one that has very little logic; just transmits eye movement data to the computer and receives commands back to flash a light or sound (or different colored lights or sounds); the computer and the website do all the logic to determine REM and deliberate eye movement signals and coordinate the lucid dreams.

Hello everyone,

I am very interested in getting access to any information that you may have gathered through your experiences at making your own kvasar, i am in the process of making one too. Computerman i think gmail allows you to transfer large files, eventually i would like to get a copy of the circuit etching, and any other info you may have. I am using the HLC2701 sensor, its the one i could get and the PIC16F84A. the IR sensor has 4 contacts, an A OUT and B OUT. Which one do you use? I’m also having a little trouble programming my chip, i got a programmer from sparkfun that is compatible with my chip and i was using ICProg, but i keep getting programming failed messages. Could it be due to using a friend’s old laptop to run the serial cable from? maybe its not enough voltage.

Did anybody get those Cadsoft Eagle files from Computerman? Is there an upload/download section to this site? I’d really like to have those board schematics so I can have a PCB printed.

If any of you guys working on the EOG ever get to the point of having a working device and detailed instructions I’d be interested in that too, but for now the kvasar is the only thing explained in enough detail I think I could build it.

Hi, I’m building the kvasar, I’ve got all the components, the only thing I couldn’t get right was the photosensor, I’m in Mexico so I went to the store and showed them all the possible sensors specified in the kvasar site and they can get me the honneywell sensor but I have to order it for $7 and it takes a week or more to arrive, etc.

Instead I bought just a random photosensor, they told me it doesn’t have a brand or something, its like a 5mm black led with two needles, I mean kvasar instructions give like 4 possible photosensors, but does the model and brand really matters? can this random photosensor do the job?.

I even have the programming module. and im just planning to take the whole thing to an electrician for him to assemble it, looking at the posts im a lil worried about it not working or the thing not detecting eye movement, ive spent $30 on components and i also heard that thediagram of the kvasar was wrong or something like that, pleasehelp me make the investment functional.

If you do so I can teach you so much about lucid dreaming and astral projection, im an expert at this, ive been to egypt and done many amazing things in the astral cuz that is what i do for a living basically, im a meditation teacher.

I can get about 2 lucid dreams or astral projections in a good month without any device, bu what im trying to achieve with this is absolute lucidity, i want 8 hours of lucidity per night, i could achieve it with a good device, i made a cheapo one that had a timer but the battery was so small so the voltage would vary between days and so the intensity and timer would change etc. But the times it lit it did the job. Please help

From the sound of that, just wait for the honeywell sensor. That’s a simple piece of the project, but it is one of the most important … and if you don’t have any idea of the model and brand then fiddling around with it could be considered a waste of time. To make it work at all with your ‘random’ sensor you would might have to change the circuit. That will prove to be … hmmm … difficult? … if you have no idea what you are supposed to change and why …

Unless you know how to change the design of this device properly, only use one of the recommended sensors.

That’s not much advice, but I hope you can make this project work.

you’re right, I just figured it out, the sensor I bought is a photodiode, just a black like 5mm led with two legs, the original sensor has 3 legs and looks like a rectangle with an eye.

I ordered the Honneywell sensor and I should get it in a week, there’s a problem though, how do you addapt its 4 legs to the schematics?, the original sensor uses 3.

anyone good at electronics?

Looking at the datasheet for the honeywell sensor, it has two outputs. Only one is used, so one of the pins will not be used. I will post instructions later.

I am in the process of correcting my Eagle files. Found errors in them. I will let you all know when I am done. Stay tuned.

Schematic is complete and error-free. Layout should be done in no more than a day. Stay tuned.

Schematic and board is complete. Zip file size is 26.2k. Anybody who wants it, PM me - or is there a downloads section here?

Also…Somebody please check the schematic and verify that it is error-free. I checked it carefully, but it can’t hurt to have another electronics guy look as well.

Enjoy!

Thanks so much for your help computerman. While I finish the kvasar, I’m using my “cheapotron” which is a LED mask with flashing Leds connected to a current converter and to a digital timer.

It is working nicely so far, but since we are in crescent moon then I’m not sure since it is always easy for me to astral travel in crescent moon with or without masks.

I was in the astral this morning and the leds turned on, I had to make an effort not to abbandon my astral vision and wake up, in the astral I could see the red lights flashing.