The Brain and Sleep

In 1998 I was in Portland, OR talking with a fringer about various ways to avoid wasting time sleeping. One hypothesis that came up involved using an EEG biofeedback machine to record your own brain patterns while sleeping and then later attempting to match your REM patterns with meditation and other mental exercises. The end goal being that, with enough practice, one could concentrate in a certain manner to achieve the same benefits for the brain that REM sleep provides.

I checked on eBay at the time and the only machines available were used and somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000USD. I quickly moved on to other ideas which mostly involved all coffee and cigarettes.

I recently revisited the idea while walking to the gym with a friend. When I came home I did a quick google search and game up with a project entirely devoted to DIY biofeedback with homemade EEG devices and OSS applications.

Wicked!