...
By Sheridan Hanson
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Recent research suggests the old advice to “sleep on it” may have more scientific backing than previously thought. Neuroscientists at Northwestern University reported that they successfully nudged participants’ dreams toward specific unsolved problems during REM sleep using subtle sound cues. Around 75 percent of participants dreamed about the targeted puzzles, and those individuals were significantly more likely to solve them the following day, adding to growing evidence that dreams may play an active role in creative thinking.
As findings like these accumulate, they are reshaping how researchers and technologists think about the sleeping brain. Rather than viewing sleep solely as a passive restorative state, some have begun exploring whether it might also function as a dynamic cognitive environment. Wesley Berry, co-founder and CEO of Prophetic, is among those examining this shift. “Sleep has long been framed as restoration, but we’re beginning to explore whether it may also function as an interactive brain state people could engage with more actively,” he says.
This evolving perspective has opened space for new research tools, including neurotechnology designed to study how awareness and cognition operate during sleep. Prophetic’s work fits into this broader movement by developing non-invasive wearable systems intended to help researchers investigate the conditions under which dream awareness occurs. Lucid dreaming—becoming aware that one is dreaming while still asleep—has long attracted interest across neuroscience and consciousness studies, particularly as researchers explore how waking cognition and dreaming cognition may overlap.
Read More on Essays
Two of the company’s experimental designs reflect different approaches to studying interaction during sleep. According to Berry, both headband-style systems are being developed to test whether low-intensity focused ultrasound could influence brain activity in ways relevant to lucid dreaming research.
“The concept draws from observations suggesting that changes in activity across parts of the prefrontal cortex may be associated with increased self-awareness during dreaming,” Berry explains. He emphasizes that the work remains exploratory, aimed at investigating whether targeted stimulation might interact with neural processes linked to lucid dreaming rather than demonstrating any specific outcome.
The research program includes multiple prototypes that vary in complexity, reflecting a broader trend in neurotechnology toward iterative experimentation. One design focuses on basic ultrasound-based stimulation, while another incorporates additional sensing tools such as EEG (electroencephalogram). Berry notes that the goal is to test different methods for studying sleep-related brain activity, not validating predetermined results.
This experimental mindset parallels developments across personal technology, where wearables have normalized the idea of tracking physiological signals and generating estimates about recovery, sleep timing and bodily patterns. Berry argues that this cultural familiarity with quantifying internal states has created space for technologies that move beyond measurement toward potential interaction.
His view is that emerging neurotechnology may represent a next phase in that progression. “We spent years building tools that help us observe ourselves,” he says. “Now the question is whether certain technologies may eventually help people engage with those states more intentionally.”
In this context, neurotechnology becomes a category concerned not only with recording signals but also with examining whether wearables can influence experiences related to sleep quality, dream awareness, cognitive performance and well-being. Lucid dreaming research has similarly expanded, increasingly focusing on real-time interaction with dreaming and treating lucidity as a multidimensional experience involving awareness, memory, perspective and varying degrees of influence.
Similar research published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition has explored methods intended to encourage lucid dreaming outside laboratory settings, including cue-based techniques adapted for home use. Berry sees these developments as part of a broader shift toward treating internal experience as a space where people may eventually have more ways to participate.
He states, “We’ve built extraordinary systems for interacting with the external world: interfaces, controls, environments. Internal experience may become another space where people experiment and explore.” Prophetic’s work contributes to that emerging conversation by focusing specifically on dreaming. Through its wearable designs and exploration of focused ultrasound, the company offers one example of how researchers are beginning to investigate whether sleep might become an experience people engage with more consciously rather than simply observe after waking.
Ultimately, a broader wave of research suggests that sleep is not merely a passive biological process but a dynamic state that may influence creativity, learning, memory and conscious awareness. While technologies aimed at interacting with dreams remain experimental and many questions about effectiveness are still being studied, advances across neuroscience and neurotechnology continue to expand how researchers understand the sleeping brain. As that work progresses, sleep is increasingly emerging as a frontier for exploring how human cognition may be shaped during the hours individuals spend asleep.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines