💬 QUOTED: “Yesterday, communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction. Tomorrow, it will be so common we won’t be able to imagine our lives without this technology.”

Last week, in an experiment straight out of Inception, REMspace, a Silicon Valley-based neurotech startup, claimed its technology enabled two people to successfully communicate in their dreams for the first time in history.

How it (reportedly) happened: The startup says its achievement occurred while the two participants were each at their separate homes in a state of lucid dreaming.

• According to REMspace, the participants used specially designed equipment to exchange a message while asleep.
• One participant received randomly generated words through earbuds while sleeping, then supposedly repeated the word in their lucid dream – and the second participant heard them within their own lucid dream, and allegedly confirmed the word upon waking.

But… The results of the experiment have not been peer-reviewed. And the startup’s leader has an… interesting background. REMspace founder/CEO Michael Raduga made headlines last May after he performed neurosurgery on himself, drilling into his own skull to implant a microchip in an attempt to control his dreams.

Raduga, who said he learned surgery by watching YouTube and practicing on the heads of dead rams, claimed his experiment was a success despite a dangerous amount of blood loss, since the Russian man was able to confirm electrical stimulation can influence dreams.

🧠📲 STAT OF THE DAY: A half-hour of free time could buy you a short run, quick meal – or crippling social media addiction. Users can become addicted to TikTok in less than 35 minutes, according to the company’s own internal research that was recently made public. In a trove of secret documents reviewed by NPR and Kentucky Public Radio, TikTok’s researchers detailed how it takes exactly 260 short-form videos for users to develop addictive behaviors. The information was revealed as part of a two-plus-year investigation into TikTok by 14 state attorneys general, which resulted in a joint lawsuit filed against the company last week.

🤔 DID YOU KNOW? An estimated 1 in 8 Americans have worked at McDonald’s at some point in their lifetime, per a survey conducted by the restaurant chain.

📰 WORTH A READ: Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing → (Quanta Magazine)