Dreaming as Virtual Reality
In the chapter on virtual reality in my Future Imperfect I suggested that if we could crack the dreaming problem, figure out how dreaming works, we could create a much richer form of virtual reality, sending sensory signals to the brain instead of merely beaming photons at the eyes and sound waves at the ears. Implicit in this idea is the assumption that dreaming really is a rich form of virtual reality, creating a full illusion of real sensations.
I woke up from dreams several times last night and tried to remember what they were like. It is hard to be certain, since my dream memories fade rapidly, but I do not think they were full sense VR or anything close. I remember only one color from any of them, and it was wrong, a more intense version of the color of what I was dreaming about. My overall impression was that dreaming is more like reading a book than like watching a movie, that in the dream you know certain things are happening but you are not actually seeing, hearing, feeling those things in the way you would if they were happening in real life.
Is this consistent with other people's observations? Anyone aware of research into the nature of dreaming along these general lines?