The Dream Makers

In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 blockbuster Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio’s protagonist is paid to implant an idea into a target’s subconscious. If you look the film up, its genre is listed as being ‘science fiction’ - but could that soon have to be revised?

Dream engineering is an experimental new field - with scientists, dream researchers and engineers pursuing the goal of influencing our thoughts as we sleep.

In The Dream Makers, Anand Jagatia travels to Massachusetts in the US to explore the fascinating potential it’s hoped dream engineering could hold.

On the journey, he discusses the history of dreaming with Dr Deirdre Barrett from Harvard University, and hears how a video game was behind the first ever study showing it is possible to influence dreams with the author of the research, Professor Bob Stickgold from Harvard Medical School.

Anand is also invited to a sleepover at the MIT Museum in Boston to take part in an interactive sleep experiment with dream engineering researcher Dr Adam Haar Horowitz.

He also meets the writer and artist Will Dowd, who has been using dream engineering technology to try to recreate some of the experiences he’s been missing since losing much of his mobility and eyesight due to a rare genetic degenerative condition.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia
Producer: Dan Welsh

With special thanks to The MIT Museum, The Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard Library, The Trustees of the E. E. Cummings Trust, Dr. Suzanne Fairless-Aitken at Bloodaxe Books

Credits:
Tomas Tranströmer, New Collected Poems, tr. Robin Fulton (Bloodaxe Books, 2011)
E. E. Cummings, Xaipe (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1997)