Interactive Dreams A playful interaction between “Dreamers” and “Wakers” Johanna Rochegude May 2015 Thesis-project Interaction Design Master at K3 Malmö University Sweden Supervisor: Jonas Löwgren Examiner: Simon Niedenthal Examination: 01 May 2015 Interactive Dreams: A playful interaction between “Dreamers” and “Wakers” I. CONTENT I. Content ............................................................................................................................. 3 II. Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 4 III. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 Context ..................................................................................................................................... 5 What motivates the work ............................................................................................................... 5 IV. Research focus .................................................................................................................. 7 Purpose .................................................................................................................................... 7 Objectives .................................................................................................................................. 7 Knowledge contributions ................................................................................................................ 7 Research question ....................................................................................................................... 7 V. Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 8 Sleep overview ........................................................................................................................... 8 Sleep in playful interactions .......................................................................................................... 12 Position of the project ................................................................................................................. 18 VI. Methodology ................................................................................................................... 19 Phase 1: Experiments ................................................................................................................. 19 Phase 2: Design exploration ......................................................................................................... 21 Phase 3: Reflection .................................................................................................................... 23 VII. Processes ....................................................................................................................... 24 Selecting participants .................................................................................................................. 24 Ethical considerations ................................................................................................................. 24 Phase 1: Experiments ................................................................................................................. 24 Phase 2: Design exploration ......................................................................................................... 29 VIII. Phase 3: Reflect ............................................................................................................... 41 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 41 Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 42 Further work ............................................................................................................................. 42 IX. Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 44 X. References ...................................................................................................................... 45 XI. Appendix ........................................................................................................................ 49 Headset testing ......................................................................................................................... 49 Dream recollections.................................................................................................................... 55 Concept sketches ...................................................................................................................... 58 Co-creation plan ........................................................................................................................ 67 interviews transcripts .................................................................................................................. 69 3 Interactive Dreams: A playful interaction between “Dreamers” and “Wakers” II. ABSTRACT This thesis aim was to design a new form of playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake players. In the tested concept, “Wakers” were able to influence and interact with the dreams of “Dreamers” (with the help of BCI to detect their brainwaves, emotional states and REM phases) by applying external stimuli on the dreamer (somatosensory stimulation, specifically vibrations). In the concept, the dreamer was wearing “the stimuli pajamas”, which vibrated in different ways every time the waker would poke, stroke, shake “the ball”, a prototype displaying the emotional states, sleep stages and movements of the dreamer. Each time the waker would interact with the ball, feedback would be transmitted to the vibrating pajamas, thus influencing the dream and state of the dreamer, which would then be transmitted back and displayed on the ball. A new playful experience was created using sleep as a necessary component. The research was experiment-driven (with body-storming and lo-fi prototyping), and revealed touch to be a powerful and underexplored way to influence dreams. Furthermore, transmitting the emotional states of the dreamer to “the ball” helped render the abstract notion of someone else’s sleep tangible to the waker. The co-creation session organized revealed that the particular concept developed in the context of sleep was tied to interesting notions, such as bringing forward the relationships between the players, the unbalanced power relations, sensual play, abusive play and more. The concept sketches explored the design space around the main concept and shaped some of these different scenarios. All these contributions are aimed to be inspirational material for further research in the field. 4 Interactive Dreams: A playful interaction between “Dreamers” and “Wakers” III. INTRODUCTION CONTEXT A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it (Damasio, 2011). We are only fully conscious when our self comes to mind. Thus, it can be surprising that sleep is neurobiologically considered as a state of consciousness, when it is culturally accepted as a loss of said consciousness. To such an extent that sleep and death were compared and merged in mythology and art (Hypnos and Thanatos, Greek gods of sleep and death, and brothers). However what are dreams, if not a form of consciousness, even if irrational? We owe most of our myths, legends, and bestiaries to our dreams, because we were imagining things while believing we were awake. Brief overview of sleep A brief overview of the last 50 years of research on sleep reveals that it is a phenomenon still widely misunderstood (Lawton, 2003). Guesses still prevail, with few confirmations over its purpose and intrinsic mechanisms (Foster, 2013). We do not know that much about it: we ignored it for a long time, due to its apparent passiveness (Bower, 1999). Moreover, it is a domain largely dominated by medical, psychological and biological fields of research. In these settings, some researchers started to focus on a peculiar area of sleep: the sleep cycles and their different phases, particularly paradoxical sleep. Said stage of sleep is home to the strangest natural occurrences provided by the human brain: namely dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, and the like (as well as a sub-category of dreams known as lucid dreams; where the sleeper is aware that he is dreaming, enabling him to control varied parameters occurring in said dream such as characters, settings and courses of action). This break-through in dream research was enabled by Michel Jouvet, who discovered the existence of the paradoxical sleep, and Stephen Laberge, who is well-known for his research on lucid dreams. Aim The aim of this thesis is to design a new form of playful interaction engaging dreaming and awake players alike. BCI (Brain-Computer Interaction) and external stimuli during sleep reveal themselves to be the most promising tools to achieve this particular purpose. As a result, this project will evolve simultaneously within at least two different fields of research: sleep research (with a focus on the peculiarities of dreams and lucid dreaming), and Brain-Computer interaction (BCI, a subsidiary branch of Human-Computer Interaction, with a focus on playful interactions for the purpose of this project). WHAT MOTIVATES THE WORK