This Ukrainian Company Wants to Become the Netflix of Sleep
What if the perfect dream weren’t fleeting? What if, instead, it could be replayed or remixed whenever and however you wanted? Change that one moment in time that you and your subconscious think has fucked up the rest of your life? No problem. Sleep with your favorite celebrity? Of course. Spend a day as a fire-breathing dragon? A little weird, but sure. Making this happen is essentially the business plan of the Kiev-based company Luciding. It claims that its signature product, a headset called the LucidCatcher, puts you in control of your dreams via a minor electrical shock to the brain during REM sleep.
That such a magical-seeming device was created in Ukraine — a country whose recent history has been filled with political unrest and Russian aggression — isn’t much of a surprise. Escapism is a growth industry there. But Luciding doesn’t intend to stop at its own nation’s borders; it wants to fulfill your wildest dreams wherever you are.
Last year, MEL Films spent some time at Luciding — both at its Kiev headquarters and at its office in Siberia—and the result is our latest mini-doc, Kiev Dreamers, which you can watch above or at our Vimeo page.