<p>As @AaronWeinberg stated in the comments, <a href="http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-583-19-things-science-fiction-promised-and-what-we-got-instead/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">just like many other technologies within Science Fiction</a>, the Science Fiction of viewing dreams on screen has started to become Science Fact.</p>

<p>Rebecca Morelle, a science reporter for the BBC World Service wrote an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22031074" rel="nofollow noreferrer">article about researchers in Japan</a> who used MRI scans to reveal the images that people were seeing as they entered into an early stage of sleep.</p>

<p>From the articles I have seen, it looks like the research has been led by <a href="http://researchmap.jp/y_kamitani/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Professor Yukiyasu Kamitani</a>, from the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto.  It seems that the research started in 2005 with an article titled <em>Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain</em> (<a href="https://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v8/n5/full/nn1444.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kamitani &amp; Tong, 2005</a>) followed by the article <em>Neural Code Converter for Visual Image Representation</em> (<a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5961315" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Yamada, et al. 2011</a>), follwed then by <em>Decoding visual experience from the human brain</em> (Kamitani, 2012) and then the source of the first linked article <em>Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep</em> (<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/340/6132/639" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Horikawa, et al. 2013</a>)</p>

<p>The results of the first study within the 2005 article demonstrated that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>fMRI activity patterns in early visual areas, including primary visual cortex (V1), contain detailed orientation information that can reliably predict subjective perception.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The 2011 article says</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>[T]he neural code converter may provide a basis for brain-to-brain communication of visual images.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The 2012 article says</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Despite the wide-spread use of human neuroimaging, its potential to read out, or "decode", mental contents from brain activity has not been fully explored. In this talk, I present methods for decoding visual representations from fMRI activity patterns based on machine learning techniques.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>and the final article in 2013 says</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Our findings demonstrate that specific visual experience during sleep is represented by brain activity patterns shared by stimulus perception, providing a means to uncover subjective contents of dreaming using objective neural measurement.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>References</h2>

<p>Horikawa, T., et al. (2013) <em>Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep</em>. Science 340(6132): pp. 639—642<br>DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1234330" rel="nofollow noreferrer">10.1126/science.1234330</a></p>

<p>Kamitani, Y. &amp; Tong, F. (2005) <em>Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain</em>. Nature Neuroscience 8(5): pp. 679—685<br>
DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1444" rel="nofollow noreferrer">10.1038/nn1444</a></p>

<p>Kamitani, Y. (2012) <em>Decoding visual experience from the human brain</em>. <a href="http://www.acmmm12.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Proceeding MM '12</a> (Proceedings of the 20th ACM international conference on Multimedia). New York:Association for Computing Machinery pp. 5—6 <br>DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2393347.2393353" rel="nofollow noreferrer">10.1145/2393347.2393353</a></p>

<p>Yamada, K., et al. (2011) <em>Neural Code Converter for Visual Image Representation</em>. 2011 International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in NeuroImaging: pp. 37—40<br>DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/PRNI.2011.13" rel="nofollow noreferrer">10.1109/PRNI.2011.13</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-19T08:46:20.910Z
2017-07-19T08:46:20.910Z
Chris Rogers
<p>There are many SF-films in which dreams of people can be seen by others on a TV-screen. Don't you have to put so many information gathering devices in a person's brain for this to accomplish, that dream can't enter your brain anymore?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-15T20:41:58.203Z
This has already been done several years ago (crudely, but it's a start), and fMRI technology does not require installing anything in a person's brain, it's just a scanner: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22031074
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-17T12:05:31.760Z
@ArnonWeinberg I think that's a legit answer
Seanny123
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-18T23:46:18.180Z
@ArnonWeinberg - think so too. Go for it as is.
AliceD
<dreams>
Will some people ever be able to make our dreams visible on a screen?
Deschele Schilder
# Will some people ever be able to make our dreams visible on a screen?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-02-15)

There are many SF-films in which dreams of people can be seen by others on a TV-screen. Don't you have to put so many information gathering devices in a person's brain for this to accomplish, that dream can't enter your brain anymore?

**Tags:** dreams

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This has already been done several years ago (crudely, but it's a start), and fMRI technology does not require installing anything in a person's brain, it's just a scanner: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22031074  
> **username_2**: @ArnonWeinberg I think that's a legit answer  
> **username_3**: @ArnonWeinberg - think so too. Go for it as is.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2017-07-19. Score: 2

As @AaronWeinberg stated in the comments, [just like many other technologies within Science Fiction](http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-583-19-things-science-fiction-promised-and-what-we-got-instead/), the Science Fiction of viewing dreams on screen has started to become Science Fact.

Rebecca Morelle, a science reporter for the BBC World Service wrote an [article about researchers in Japan](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22031074) who used MRI scans to reveal the images that people were seeing as they entered into an early stage of sleep.

From the articles I have seen, it looks like the research has been led by [Professor Yukiyasu Kamitani](http://researchmap.jp/y_kamitani/), from the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto. It seems that the research started in 2005 with an article titled *Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain* ([Kamitani & Tong, 2005](https://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v8/n5/full/nn1444.html)) followed by the article *Neural Code Converter for Visual Image Representation* ([Yamada, et al. 2011](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5961315)), follwed then by *Decoding visual experience from the human brain* (Kamitani, 2012) and then the source of the first linked article *Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep* ([Horikawa, et al. 2013](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/340/6132/639))

The results of the first study within the 2005 article demonstrated that

> fMRI activity patterns in early visual areas, including primary visual cortex (V1), contain detailed orientation information that can reliably predict subjective perception.

The 2011 article says

> [T]he neural code converter may provide a basis for brain-to-brain communication of visual images.

The 2012 article says

> Despite the wide-spread use of human neuroimaging, its potential to read out, or "decode", mental contents from brain activity has not been fully explored. In this talk, I present methods for decoding visual representations from fMRI activity patterns based on machine learning techniques.

and the final article in 2013 says

> Our findings demonstrate that specific visual experience during sleep is represented by brain activity patterns shared by stimulus perception, providing a means to uncover subjective contents of dreaming using objective neural measurement.

## References

Horikawa, T., et al. (2013) *Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep*. Science 340(6132): pp. 639—642  
DOI: [10.1126/science.1234330](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1234330)

Kamitani, Y. & Tong, F. (2005) *Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain*. Nature Neuroscience 8(5): pp. 679—685  
DOI: [10.1038/nn1444](https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1444)

Kamitani, Y. (2012) *Decoding visual experience from the human brain*. [Proceeding MM '12](http://www.acmmm12.org/) (Proceedings of the 20th ACM international conference on Multimedia). New York:Association for Computing Machinery pp. 5—6   
DOI: [10.1145/2393347.2393353](https://doi.org/10.1145/2393347.2393353)

Yamada, K., et al. (2011) *Neural Code Converter for Visual Image Representation*. 2011 International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in NeuroImaging: pp. 37—40  
DOI: [10.1109/PRNI.2011.13](https://doi.org/10.1109/PRNI.2011.13)


---

