Virtual Lucidity: A Media Archaeology of Dream Hacking Wearables
communication +1 November 17, 2021 Aleena Chia
A movement called 'consciousness hacking' emerged in 2014 when engineers and entrepreneurs in San Francisco began using virtual reality and lucid dreaming headsets with electroencephalography and biofeedback to stimulate altered mental states. Unlike Quantified Self practitioners who optimize health and productivity through self-tracking, these hackers turn perception inward to gain immediacy to their consciousness, attempting to displace technological mediation. The essay uses media archaeology to examine how these practices reconcile New Age assumptions about the sacred self with biopolitical views of the self as a database serving late capitalism. It traces connections from Bert Kaplan's 1950s dream database to crowdfunded EEG headsets, demonstrating the value of critical inquiry into techno-spiritual undercurrents of contemporary technoculture.