From PinkTentacle:

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.

They predict that within “10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”

I don’t know about you, but that idea freaks me the fuck out. We’re looking at one messy future kids. Imagine police equipped with such a device, able to pull from your brain exactly what you’re thinking. All the more reason to start fixing the world now, before such a device can be abused by some totalitarian government. Mental discipline will ever more become a survival tool for the future.

The total flip-side being this is just the tool one needs to capture the genius thoughts one has just as they drift off to sleep.

thanks for the tip-off Marc Starecky!