http://abcnews.go.com/He...s-mind/story?id=14573442

"Researchers from UC Berkeley were able to reconstruct YouTube videos from viewers' brain activity -- a feat that might one day offer a glimpse into our dreams, memories and even fantasies." ...And maybe one day, hyperspace?

Ah yes, I forgot the practical applications for this. Imagine what we could do for people in comas with this technology.

WOW!! that is absolutely amazing! thank you so much for sharing. McKenna's 'Visual Language' idea will soon become a reality i'm sure. Furthermore, this will completely redefine the very essence of our Imaginations

I try not to be dismayed about discoveries like this, astounding advances that should be thrilling to me. I fear that we as a society can't be trusted with this kind of capability.

But, it is wildly cool!

Something like this could change art forever. People do great thing by recreating something from just a memory, but imagine if you could copy a thought straight onto canvas.

Pretty cool

Would be handy to record a video of a trip so you can analyse it later, there's so much that's just too fast to see.

Alex Grey did a good job. Seen this yourself? This is such a classic spice vision.

I forsee hard times for the classic pr0n industry.


Oh, and of course you will see this back in airports, companies, etc. Before you are allowed to enter you will have to answer a few things and they will of course scan your brain for the real answers.

"Did you use drugs?" *whoops*


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Hehehe sure thing. Another version of that piece is my avatar.

This is really cool. It is still a ways away from showing what people actually see. At the moment it is just layering all the various youtube videos in the survey group that match certain MRI readings. Still, it is kinda spooky.

You can see that with more advanced technologies and expanding the process to include other areas of the brain used for recognition... we just might get there.

I always wished we could show other people what we see. Just might put ol' Alex Grey out of business.

Let's hope they won't start projecting images into our minds as well because before we know it we'll all be drinking pepsi all day.

I think the hype of this research far exceeds the reality. In order to construct images, each individual had to spend hours in an MRI machine viewing videos. The researchers then worked backwards in an attempt to reconstruct the videos from the mountain of MRI data generated. It’s not clear from the article if any novel videos were presented.

It’s a bit like having a sculpture, smashing it to pieces, and then gluing it back together. That’s a feat in itself, but relatively easy since we know what the original sculpture looked like. A much harder task would be to take a pile of sculpture fragments and reassemble them into the original sculpture without any knowledge of what the original sculpture looked like. I’m not sure if this is what they’re doing in their research.

"A much harder task would be to take a pile of sculpture fragments and reassemble them into the original sculpture without any knowledge of what the original sculpture looked like. I’m not sure if this is what they’re doing in their research."

That's the next step. Findings from science end up getting prototyped then improved upon mercilessly. Wherever this is headed, things are going to get wacky. Minorityreportception.

Either actual sensory experience is directly stored or the brain's representations of experience. By scrutinising how the fragments assemble what you suggest may perhaps follow.

Nah. This is baby time here. Like you said, they are only working backwards from a limited set of YouTube videos. And even still, they can't get the exact image back yet. They are still superimposing multiple possibilities for these ghost composites. The only thing that seems relatively sure are the size and shape of the main object and its basic movement.

Still, it is a start. Throw in the other brain regions and they might start getting somewhere.

Don't hold your breath for mind TV anytime soon though.

Check out the patterns in the images peeps

becomes

Can you see the geometric symbols that come out? They're an artifact of the experiment but they remind me so much of the symbols I see on DMT e.g. like these or these.

It feels like to me that the fractal backgrounds we observe on hallucinogens are probably already there already but brought into the visual field by the substance's action on the brain. The patterns in the image resemble the patterns of HPPD quite accurately.

Ha! That's Steve Martin in The Pink Panther.

But seriously, fractals are indeed hardwired into the brain... just read up on migraine headaches. A good starting point would be the classic "Eye and Brain", by R.L. Gregory:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6016.html

This is impressive considering they only had to use an MRI. However, getting visual data from the brain is alot more advanced than this already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLb9EIiSyG8

Don't watch this video if you love cats.

^ LOL, poor kitty! Exciting stuff, though.

On the very few occasions Ive vaped about 50mg in the GVG then hit it in one breath I have seen images which have the clarity of HD TV , rapidly sequencing and with the odd flash of 'normal' psychedelic imagery one usually sees.Has sweet FA to do with YouTube, as far as I can tell.

This is so amazing!

Amazing. Can't wait till this is perfected and we can review our Dreams, DMT-journeys, Ayahuasca and Mushroom experiences in HD.
Then again the downside would be that government agencies seeking to squeeze confessions out of people, would probably use & abuse this
type of Technology just for that purpose. You win some, you lose some.