In the famous movie ‘Iron Man III’, Tony Stark controls his suit in sleep. That raises a question: Can BCI devices issue commands during sleep?

The possibility
In essence, the brain signals (action potentials) in sleep are the same as those when awake. But the brain signals in sleep are fuzzy – they lack real-time feedback and can’t be repeated intentionally. From a medical perspective, the brainstem blocks the signal transmission from brain to spinal cord. That is how the body prevents you from actually acting out your dreams or getting hurt in sleep. But BCI can bypass the brainstem and directly read the cortical signals. This makes it theoretically possible to operate machines with BCI during sleep.

How to get that stage?
Not just by amplifying the signals and making them clearer, but by developing better decoding algorithms trained on sleep-specific brain patterns.

What’s the meaning of it when BCI users in sleep can do things? Twice as much productive time as ordinary people? The unfairness of not having BCI?
·Recording and controlling dreams become possible.
·People with disabilities can use BCI to turn on the light during sleep when they want to get up. Imagine you want to go to the bathroom in a dream – your intention is quite clear and brain activity is high.
·Solving sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is a common phenomenon triggered by stress or poor sleep. Your mind is fully awake, but your body does not respond when you try to get up. With BCI, when someone is experiencing sleep paralysis, the device could detect their intention to get up, and then send commands to a smart bed to lift the front section and turn on the light. So they could relax, perhaps drink some milk, and go back to bed.

The unfairness of BCI at night is not about who has it, who does not – It is that sleep, your individual, safe, and unique place – is no longer pure or private.