Dream enhancement apparatus and method

• US 10,052,452 B2
• Filed: 02/06/2014
• Issued: 08/21/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Andrew Holland Smiley, Daniel Carleton Schoonover
• Original Assignee: Andrew Holland Smiley, Daniel Carleton Schoonover
• Inventors: Schoonover, Daniel Carleton, Smiley, Andrew Holland
• Primary Examiner(s): Koharski, Christopher D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bays, Pamela M
• Application Number:
  US14/174,098
• Publication Number:
  US 20140221779A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,657 Days
• Field of Search: 600301
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/029 adapted for auto-initiation
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/002 Monitoring the patient using a local or closed circuit, e.g. in a room or building A61B5/0017 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/375 using biofeedback
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/378 Visual stimuli
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/38 Acoustic or auditory stimuli
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/398 Electrooculography [EOG], e.g. detecting nystagmus; Electroretinography [ERG]
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4806 Sleep evaluation A61B5/4821 takes precedence; devices for inducing sleep A61M21/02
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4812 Detecting sleep stages or cycles
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2021/0027 by the hearing sense
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2021/0044 by the sight sense
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2021/0072 with application of electrical currents
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 21/02 for inducing sleep or relaxation, e.g. by direct nerve stimulation, hypnosis, analgesia for massage A61H; electrotherapy A61N, e.g. applying alternating or intermittent electric currents for producing anaesthesia A61N1/36021
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/3303 Using a biosensor
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/3561 local, e.g. within room or hospital
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/3569 sublocal, e.g. between console and disposable
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/3584 using modem, internet or bluetooth
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/3592 using telemetric means, e.g. radio or optical transmission
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/52 with memories providing a history of measured variating parameters of apparatus or patient
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/581 by audible feedback
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2205/584 having a color code
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2209/088 : on the body
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2210/06 : Head
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2230/10 : Electroencephalographic signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2230/14 : Electro-oculogram [EOG]
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2230/18 : Rapid eye-movements [REM]

Abstract

Dream stage enhancement uses a headband with EEG-EOG sensors, onboard processors, memory, coarse and fine time REM waveform detection modules, LEDs and an audio playback unit. After normalization to the user'"'"'s EEG waveforms, the user'"'"'s EEG-EOG signals are processed, REM and NREM stages detected and light, sound or AV stimuli are presented to the user based upon user-supplied light-sound-AV stimuli commands. To provide a reality check control (“RCC”), the head unit has a user actuatable RC interface whereby during sleep, RC stimuli are presented when the user depresses the RCC control which plays back the user supplied stimulus. In a “learning mode,” the user selects “Recall” or “No Recall” (“NR”) after the sleep period. If NR, then the system changes the color of light stimuli, light intensity, flash, audio sound type, audio intensity, and AV. If “Recall” the user supplied stimuli commands are carried out.

Claims

1. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage comprising:

providing a headband unit with one or more electroencephalography (EEG) and electrooculography (EOG) sensors, said headband unit adapted to be worn on the skull of the user with the one or more EEG and EOG sensors in skin contact;

providing said headband unit with at least a plurality of light emitting devices mounted thereon to stimulate and illuminate the user'"'"'s ocular senses with a plurality of distinctly different colored lights;

providing an audio device having a telecommunications link with said headband unit, said audio device not physically attached to said headband unit;

obtaining said one or more EEG and EOG signals from the user during a plurality of user sleep periods;

over a plurality of normalization sleep periods, each normalization sleep period separated by an extended user awake period, detecting and storing data representative of the user'"'"'s one or more EEG and EOG waveform patterns corresponding to rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep stage one (NREM1), NREM sleep stage two (NREM2), and NREM sleep stage three (NREM3) as baseline data;

normalizing the baseline data to obtain normalized data representative of the user'"'"'s one or more REM, NREM1, NREM2, and NREM3;

prior to a designated sleep period, obtaining one or more lucid stimuli commands from the user, said lucid stimuli commands corresponding to one or more of;

(a) a visual light stimuli, (b) an audible audio stimuli and (c) an audio-visual (AV) stimuli being a combination of both visual light and audible audio stimuli;

said light stimuli being one or more of said plurality of colored lights;

said audio stimuli being one or more of a plurality of audible sounds directed at the user;

after obtaining the one or more lucid stimuli commands from the user and during said designated sleep period, detecting REM sleep stage based upon newly acquired one or more EEG and EOG signals and the normalized data and thereafter generating a REM indicator;

in the presence of said REM indicator and based upon said lucid stimuli commands, presenting respective one or more light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user corresponding to user'"'"'s lucid stimuli commands obtained from the user, said light stimuli generated by said light emitting devices and said audio stimuli presented by the audio device via said user'"'"'s lucid stimuli commands generated by said headband unit and sent over the telecommunications link to the audio device from the headband unit.

2. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage as claimed in claim 1 further including:

providing a headband transceiver in said headband unit and providing onboard power in said headband unit;

providing a reality check control in said headband unit, said headband unit further including a user interface to activate the reality check control;

obtaining a reality check (RC) stimuli command from said user, said RC stimuli command corresponding to RC stimuli being one or more of;

(a) said light stimuli, (b) said audio stimuli, (c) said AV stimuli;

during said designated sleep period and upon user actuation of said reality check control, presenting said RC stimuli directed at said user corresponding to the RC stimuli commands.

3. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage as claimed in claim 1 including:

during said designated sleep period, detecting REM sleep stage over both a 30 second epoch and a second additional a predetermined time-based window, said predetermined window being less than 15 seconds;

generating a plurality of REM indicators during the detection of both said 30 second epoch and the predetermined window; and

in the presence of each REM indicator, presenting said one or more light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user based upon said user'"'"'s lucid stimuli commands.

4. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage as claimed in 1 wherein said designated sleep period is one designated sleep period of a plurality of designated sleep periods, the method including:

obtaining a learning mode command from the user and thereafter, in a learning mode;

providing a pre-set initial set of lucid stimuli commands with corresponding one or more of;

(a) said light stimuli, (b) said audio stimuli and (c) said AV stimuli, and providing a pre-set initial normalized data, said initial set of lucid stimuli commands replacing any earlier user supplied lucid stimuli commands;

in said learning mode, applying the pre-set initial set of lucid stimuli commands and the pre-set initial normalized data for (i) generation of said REM indicator and (ii) presentation of the corresponding one or more of said light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli based upon said pre-set initial set of lucid stimuli commands;

on said headband unit, providing a user actuatable interface for generating a lucid dream recall indicator;

during said learning mode and in the presence of the recall indicator, replacing any earlier user supplied lucid stimuli commands with the then applied lucid stimuli commands;

during said learning mode and during a sub-plurality of designated sleep periods after said one designated sleep period and in the absence of the recall indicator, changing one or more of;

(a) a color of the light stimuli, (b) an intensity of the light stimuli, (c) an application of a flashing light stimuli, (d) a frequency of the flashing light stimuli, (e) an application of the audio stimuli, (f) an intensity of the audio stimuli, and (g) a sensory impact of the AV stimuli; and

during the learning mode and during said sub-plurality of designated sleep periods and in the continued absence of the recall indicator, changing said one or more of the light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli until said recall indicator is present and when said recall indicator is present thereafter using a then applied lucid stimuli commands as said user supplied lucid stimuli commands; and

thereafter ending said learning mode.

5. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage as claimed in 4 including:

in the presence of the recall indicator, obtaining said one or more lucid stimuli commands from the user.

6. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage comprising:

providing a headband unit with one or more electroencephalography (EEG) and electrooculography (EOG) sensors, said headband unit adapted to be worn on the skull of the user with the one or more EEG and EOG sensors in skin contact;

providing said headband unit with at least a plurality of light emitting devices mounted thereon to stimulate and illuminate the user'"'"'s ocular senses with a plurality of distinctly different colored lights;

providing an audio device having a telecommunications link with said headband unit, said audio device not physically attached to said headband unit;

obtaining the one or more EEG and EOG signals from the user during a plurality of user sleep periods;

over said plurality of sleep periods, each sleep period separated by an extended user awake period, detecting and storing data representative of the user'"'"'s one or more EEG and EOG waveform patterns corresponding to rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep stage one (NREM1), NREM sleep stage two (NREM2), and NREM sleep stage three (NREM3) as baseline data;

providing pre-programmed one or more lucid stimuli commands prior to a designated sleep period of said plurality of sleep periods, said pre-programmed lucid stimuli commands having one or more of;

(a) a visual light stimuli, (b) an audible audio stimuli, and (c) an audio-visual (AV) stimuli being a combination of both said light stimuli and audio stimuli, said light stimuli being one or more of said plurality of colored lights, said audio stimuli being one or more of a plurality of audible sounds directed at the user;

providing a user actuatable reality check (RC) control on said headband unit which, upon actuation by said user, generates a RC stimuli command;

during said designated sleep period, detecting REM sleep stage based upon said one or more EEG and EOG signals and generating a REM indicator based upon said baseline data;

in the presence of both said REM indicator and the user actuated RC stimuli command, applying said pre-programmed one or more lucid stimuli commands and presenting the corresponding light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user, wherein said corresponding light stimuli being generated by said light emitting devices and wherein said audio stimuli being presented by said audio device via said pre-programmed lucid stimuli commands generated by said headband unit and sent over the telecommunications link to the audio device from the headband unit; and

subsequent to the presentation of said corresponding one or more of said light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli, using the last applied pre-programmed lucid stimuli commands as user-supplied lucid stimuli commands; and

in a subsequent designated sleep period after said designated sleep period and in the presence of said REM indicator, applying said user-supplied lucid stimuli commands and presenting respective one or more of said light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user.

7. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage as claimed in claim 6 wherein:

said user-supplied lucid stimuli commands is a first user-supplied lucid stimuli commands;

after said subsequent designated sleep period and before a following designated sleep period, said following designated sleep period being later than said subsequent designated sleep period, obtaining a second user-supplied lucid stimuli commands from the user, said second user-supplied lucid stimuli commands corresponding to one or more of said light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli; and

,

during said following designated sleep period and in the presence of said REM indicator, applying the second user-supplied lucid stimuli commands and presenting respective one or more of said light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user.

8. A method for confirming a user'"'"'s lucid dream stage comprising:

providing a headband unit with one or more electroencephalography (EEG) and electrooculography (EOG) sensors, said headband unit adapted to be worn on the skull of the user with the one or more EEG and EOG sensors in skin contact;

providing said headband unit with a processor coupled to a memory for storing and processing one or more lucid stimuli commands from said user, said processor and coupled memory further coupled to said one or more EEG or EOG sensors;

providing said headband unit with at least a plurality of light emitting devices mounted thereon to stimulate and illuminate the user'"'"'s ocular senses with a plurality of distinctly different colored lights, said headband unit also having an audio device mounted thereon, said processor and coupled memory also coupled to said light emitting devices and said audio device;

obtaining the one or more EEG and EOG signals from the user during a plurality of user sleep periods;

over a plurality of normalization sleep periods, each normalization sleep period separated by an extended user awake period, detecting and storing data representative of the user'"'"'s one or more EEG and EOG waveform patterns corresponding to rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep stage one (NREM1), NREM sleep stage two (NREM2), and NREM sleep stage three (NREM3) as baseline data;

normalizing the baseline data to obtain normalized data representative of the user'"'"'s REM, NREM1, NREM2, and NREM3;

prior to a designated sleep period which is either before or after said plurality of normalization sleep periods, obtaining one or more lucid stimuli commands from the user and storing the one or more lucid stimuli commands in said memory, said lucid stimuli commands corresponding to one or more of;

(a) a visible light stimuli, (b) an audible audio stimuli, and (c) an audio-visual (AV) stimuli which is both a light stimuli and an audio stimuli, said light stimuli being one or more of said plurality of colored lights, said audio stimuli being one or more of a plurality of audible sounds directed at the user;

after obtaining said one or more lucid stimuli commands from the user and after said normalization sleep periods, detecting REM sleep stage based upon the one or more EEG and EOG signals obtained during the designated sleep period and the normalized data and thereafter generating a REM indicator;

in the presence of said REM indicator and based upon the one or more lucid stimuli commands, presenting the respective one or more light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli directed at said user corresponding to said one or more lucid stimuli commands, said respective one or more light stimuli, audio stimuli and AV stimuli generated by the headband unit.