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| The technology "dream incubation" has shown the potential to advertise products. (PHOTO: VCG) |
What happened in Christopher Nolan's movie Inception is fast becoming reality. U.S. soft drink company Molson Coors has successfully planted commercials into human dreams.
In late 2021, Molson Coors designed an experiment, inviting 18 participants to watch a specific movie repeatedly before sleeping. The film's content is mainly natural scenes of mountains and rivers, but interspersed with introductions to their own products. In addition, the company also created custom BGM to guide dreams, and even asked a Harvard psychologist to collaborate throughout.
Although the result was not a total success, it still surprised the company. Five people claimed that they could collectively see visions of Molson Coors' beer or soda in their dreams. In other words, their dreams had been hacked.
The technology used in Molson Coors' experiment was named "dream incubation," and people have tried extensively to improve on it. Earlier, Burger King and Microsoft's Xbox made similar attempts. Undoubtedly, more and more companies will be involved in similar trials, especially when it has shown the potential to advertise products.
However, not everyone wants this experiment to be more successful. Just after Molson Coors' experiment, 40 researchers signed a joint letter appealing to the U.S. government to regulate the commercialization of dreams. After all, nobody wants to be forced to watch advertisements that they cannot skip, especially in their dreams.