ok so im taking a digital electronics class in school this year, and I recently found how cheap i can get all the components for online, so I thought it would be cool if i designed some lucid dreaming glasses.
They will use a flashing strobes and binaural beats, maybe isochronic tones as well, simultaneously for maximum brainwave entrainment results. I think I can get all the parts compact enough to fit on a pair of sunglasses. I’ve been thinking about the design somewhat so far. You will be able to adjust the frequency of the beats, switch between strobe, binaural beats, isochronic tones, or any combination of the 3. I’m thinking it might also be nice if i could set it to remain off and turn on at certain intervals during the night. Just thought id share, and I would really appreciate any feature ideas (keep them simple enough though), and if any of you are experienced with digital electronics some technical pointers would be nice too since im just getting into this stuff.
ps sorry if this is the wrong place to post, i wasnt sure where to put this.
Sounds like a good project. Are you going to use a PIC or similar microcontroller at the heart of it or just do it with discrete digital logic? Whichever you choose, if you have questions about technical stuff PM me, I’m sure I might be able to help with the techie side. Good luck!
The microcontroller route seems the best and most flexible, but i dont know anything about that at the moment. I know C and understand the key concepts behind working with registers and whatnot for assembly, which I guess would be useful for that way. As of now I’ve played with using digital logic with a 555 timer for the strobe and potentiometers to control frequency, but if doesn’t feel precise enough for me. Plus I like working with code rather than circuits which I gather the microcontroller option would let me do.
Are you going to do microcontrollers later in the course? If so have a word with your tutor, they’ll have a development board /kit which he might let you play with. 555’s are actually pretty accurate (within a few percent which should be good enough), but MCU would be easier to get to do all the things you want, and you can program it with push buttons, rather than have bulky pots.
I think we are going to cover them later, but I don’t want wait for the class (which is full of umm… not so smart people) to get there. I am going to talk to the teacher about it, but I’ll probably be doing a lot of self teaching. Hey, I taught myself to program computers, this can’t be to hard to learn. You mentioned programming with push buttons, which is doable, but i thought I thought I read you could program them from a computer and write it to the chip, which would be nice. Well anyway atm I’m looking into which MCUs are the best option since there seem to be a lot of choices.
When I said program, I meant for the end-user to select between modes, flash speeds + such on the glasses, not actually programming the chip code as such. I’m sure you won’t have too much trouble, you’re clearly pretty bright, MCU’s are pretty straightforward, if you know a bit of assembler, you won’t have any trouble picking it up. As for choice, the Microchip PIC’s are pretty cheap, very common, easy to program, and quite powerful for what they are. They even do little 8-pin ones (12Cxxx series) which might be all you need, and only cost about 50p. TBH I’m not a microcontroller guru, but have played with these and also the SGS-Thomson ST62 series, which again is cheap, but a real pain to program. National Semiconductor COP is another tricky one, not sure if they still make it. No doubt if you research some, you’ll find something ideal.
so when will it be finished? cuz you should copyright the blueprints. and have it put into production. if you do im positive theres plenty of us here that will invest in your product. you could become rich because this would help people who have never had a ld. i have them naturaly but i would still buy one if it increased the chances of having a ld . keep me informed.
I probably have a while till i finish them, because i have a lot of school stuff going on preventing me from doing much work on them, but it looks like ill get some time soon. i doubt ill be copyrighting it. its not that original of an idea, and i don’t mind if people steal my idea all that much, but that said, if it works pretty well I do plan on selling them. I might sell the built versions, or the parts with instructions, or both for different prices.
in reply to tkrulewich post to making better lucid dreaming glasses.The nova dreamer
sounds good but uncomfortable.Rather than using shades to make your lucid dreamer
you might want to try using a sleep mask made of cotton , fabric,or sponge .your chip could be sewn in place.Rather than an REM sensor you might try using variable
timers.
Hi everyone. Its been a while since I made this post and I had kind of abandoned the project, but I’ve started back up again. In the next week or so I’ll be buying all the parts I need to prototype and test a design. Any I thought I would give you guys an overview of how I imagine it will turn out and ask for any suggestions you might have. Also if anyone knows anything about electronics and specifically pic microcontrollers and would be willing to offer me some advice, that would be great. I am just getting started with microcontrollers, but I have successfully made LEDs blink in a simulation. Anyway here is how I am imagining the “glasses” right now:
As lucid-jam suggested they will not actually be glasses, but a face mask made of cotton or fabric. LEDs will be on the inside of each eye cover. Running down from the mask will be a cord that connects it to the main part of the device. This will be a rectangular shaped piece with buttons to adjust the entrainment frequency as well as other options, and it will have a head phone jack. The device will probably be using sine wave isochronic tones, and maybe monaural beats, but no binaural beats because from what I’ve read and experienced they are not nearly as effective. I have decided not to build speakers into the device, but to allow headphones to be attacked since nearly everybody has a set of ear buds they can use. This leads me to my final comment.
If this device is successful, I may sell them online, probably though e-bay, for low costs. I am not trying to advertise or anything right now, considering I dont even have a working product, but I was also wondering if anyone would possibly be interested when I do, so I can get an decide whether I want to bother making more than my personal one. If so it will probably cost around $20-$30, because that’s only slightly more than the parts are going to cost, keep in mind this is a very rough estimate. I will also provide the design available for free, in case somebody wants to build there own.
but won’t it be uncomfortable when going to sleep?
. keep me informed.