We’ve all had those flying dreams. You know, the ones where you can fly around endlessly – until  you touch the ground and then can’t fly anymore. If you knew you were dreaming, that is, if you were “lucid dreaming”, you would be able to pick yourself up and fly again.

But that’s the hard part – and something that we’ve all tried, and failed to do.

Once you’re aware that you’re dreaming, the possibilities are literally endless. But only a few people have mastered this skill – which annoys non-lucid dreamers to no end. Thankfully, this no longer has to be the case – thanks to this new sleep mask.

The new device, called ‘Remee’, flashes a series of light patterns over the face-mask once you’ve entered REM sleep. These light patterns somehow make the user aware that they are dreaming, thus inducing lucid dreaming. You can then turn your fist into a duck, or visit Lady Gaga for tea.

The owners had hoped to raise R350,000 on the crowd-funding platform in order to produce 300 masks. Instead, they received nearly R6 million from 6,000-plus backers around the world.

Despite this being really cool for all sorts of trivial and silly reasons, there is a heavily practical element behind this, too. For one thing, lucid dreaming can help one get rid of chronic nightmares. Also, it’s said that practicing real-life skills in a dream (say, attending a job interview) helps you get better at successfully completing  the same tasks in the real world.

[Source : Mashable, YouTube]