It sounds like science fiction: Imagine being able to control your thoughts and actions while you're dreaming. The process is called lucid dreaming and entrepreneurs Duncan Frazier and Steve McGuigan hope to take it mainstream with their creation called the Remee, an REM (rapid eye movement) enhancing mask.
Quite possibly the hardest thing about lucid dreaming is recognizing your control over a dream state, which is akin to reconfiguring the way you’ve dreamed your entire life. With Remee, a series of flashing red lights on your sleep mask will appear within your dreams, reminding you that you’re in a dream state. Once those stimuli are acknowledged and understood, a user can begin lucid dreaming as they say see fit. From person to person, lucid dreaming can be a great many things -- a means to fly, teleport or meet famous people.
The Remee mask will target the parts of your sleep pattern -- typically toward the end -- that fall under REM, where dreams occur. It is then that the six red lights under the mask will begin their work. If you’re not in REM, the lights will not effect your sleep, but if you are, it will present the opportunity for the user to become lucid. The mask allows customization for the timing of the lights (so you can have a "quick lucid siesta") and the strength of the lights, depending on how thick or thin your eyelids are.
The founders of Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Bitbanger Labs are currently raising money for their project on Kickstarter. They have 29 more days of fundraising at the time of this writing and have already blown by their initial goal of $25,000 with nearly $220,000 raised. Backers of the project for $80 or more can receive the Remee mask, while higher end backers can customize their Remee masks design or get limited edition interstellar space-themed prints. Their page also offers a listing of lucid dreaming resources for those curious to learn more about the process.