Dream Police

There’s an ad agency in Japan called Hakuhodo with a "Future Technology Works" department, and its first aim is to infiltrate your dreams. Using their app Yumemiru, you choose from a selection of seven dream scenarios—among them flying, being rich, and lying on a beach—and leave your phone next to your bed. The app claims it can recognize when you enter “dream state,” which triggers it to play a soundtrack that supposedly influences your subconscious.

When I first heard of it, I was curious, like, how the fuck are they going to do this? I'm very skeptical about the phone scanning the sleeper and knowing when REM state is reached. I'm too scared to delve too deeply into dream interpretations, seeing as that would mean I'd have to confront my problems in real life, and that sounds exhausting. But, in any case, I decided to give it a five-night test spin using the scientific method, just to see if it works. At the very least, maybe it’d temporarily cease my recurring dreamscape of running from faceless mobs and being backed into razor-sharp corners by ex-girlfriends.

Night One

Before bedtime: A night of drinking and watching my friend’s doo-wop-esque band.
Sleep time: About 2 AM.
Dream option: Walking through a forest.

The dream: An unknown, faceless partner and I drove through the streets of a metropolitan area with an attaché suitcase between us. While we never looked inside, the general feeling was it was full of shining gold light, like in Pulp Fiction, which means we’d either been entrusted with Marcellus Wallace’s soul, or it’s just some nonsense Tarantino threw into my dream because it looks “cool.” Halfway through the trip, we discovered we were driving through a forest with extremely tall trees (think: Vertigo), but we didn’t feel out of place. Until people started shooting at us. Then we tried to seek cover, bark shattering all around us, and I woke up.

Effectiveness: The forest showed up just out of nowhere, which is certainly creepy. Although the tranquility of said forest was at a minimum, seeing as I was dodging bullets.

Night Two

Before bedtime: A free museum night featuring an exhibit by an old Hollywood photographer; a night walking tour of downtown L.A.; drinking a good amount of wine and champagne; reading a chapter of Peter Biskind’s retelling of 90s independent film, Down and Dirty Pictures, which means if I have a nightmare that a sweaty, cigar-stomping, hoagie-throwing Harvey Weinstein is chasing me, it’s probably from that.
Sleep time: Around 2 AM.
Dream option: Flying.

The Dream: Most of it’s hazy, but I was definitely standing on the steel skeleton of a building-in-progress. And then I was falling. At some point, either a strong gust or some unseen force (Harvey?) pushed me off the beam I was balancing on and I fell, presumably to my death. But you know, you wake up before then, so I didn’t feel the impact.

Effectiveness: It worked if you want to extend the definition of "flying" to include "falling," which no one should ever want to do because those are two distinctly different fucking feelings.

Night Three

Before bedtime: Re-watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; reading another chapter of Down and Dirty Pictures and half of a story by David Foster Wallace about L.B.J.; not drinking a drop of alcohol.
Sleep time: Around 2:30 AM.
Dream option: Romance (for Men)

The dream: I walked down the bustling streets of a city that was a mash-up of San Francisco and Rome. Someone had a yard sale set up, but it was left unmanned, so I stole a board game and started to make my trek across the city. No one was manning the sale because the entire city was glued to the TV, to watch the first public execution in years. I walked with my newly plucked board game and stumbled onto the actual execution scene. The to-be-executed party was a high school teacher who said something nasty about religion in his classroom, and the executioners were a mix of Catholic bishops and Muslim leaders, putting aside their differences for a brief moment. They said they’d let the man go if he apologized, but he refused. All the major TV news stations were covering it, including CNN, on which Anderson Cooper started yelling at John King that “he should start acting like a goddamn reporter!” King ignored him and rambled on about America being great or something. A man in a bishop’s hat pulled the large electric chair knob, the teacher fried to death, and the ravenous mob took his body and stampeded it through the streets. “Americans sure love their souvenirs,” rambled John King. I walk/ran out of there and found my locker in the city’s public gym, where I wanted to store my board game. The locker was busted open but none of the contents were stolen.

Effectiveness: You can sort of give a pass to the crazy symbolic fever dream mess, seeing as I chose "Romance (For Men)" and the dreamy Anderson Cooper did make an appearance.

Night Four

Before bedtime: Going to a screening of Chinatown in a newly-renovated LA bar space, walking out halfway because people wouldn’t stop talking; drinking two alcoholic beverages; eating a taco truck quesadilla; possibly being around some illegal substances that may have worked their way into my system.
Sleep time: 2:30 AM or so.
Dream option: Riches, although in this case my girlfriend chose the dream without my knowing which one it was, to hopefully take out the possibility that I was triggering it myself with subconscious hope.

The dream: Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. For neither my lady friend nor myself. Although, to be honest, that could very well have been that I was never able to get into REM sleep mode, as evidenced by my actually being awake when my phone delivered the dream-influencing soundtrack.

Effectiveness:  At the very least, I did discover the app actually does produce sounds, which is something, I suppose.

Night Five

Before bedtime: Watching two episodes of The X-Files, downing half a pizza, bunch of reading, bunch of writing, bunch of Words With Friends playing.
Sleep time: Roughly 2 AM.
Dream option: The nebulous “thumbs up” sign, whatever that means.

The dream: Once again, nothing. Not even a vague sense of accomplishment or a mob of Japanese people bowing and giving me thumbs-ups.

Effectiveness: Oh, just forget it. This is getting boring now. It's probably best this app is free. Science over!