SELLING YOUR WILDEST DREAMS
Dreamhackers peddle your subconscious data
- Dateline
- 9 February 2017
We spend a third of our lives with our eyes closed – literally that is. Besides the fact that the physical body regenerates and restores itself during this time, your subconscious also uses sleep to send you messages. The collective subconscious is one of the most powerful weapons (or should we rather say tools) of humanity, because it holds the secrets to our wants, needs and worries.
The Shadow app was introduced two years ago with the aim of creating a global dreams repository. It became a lot easier to remember, save and track your dreams over time; many people claim to have gathered real insights and creative ideas with the help of the app. As of yesterday, Shadow was valued at US$300 billion, because there’s nothing more powerful than knowing what’s really going on in people’s heads and hearts.
This type of inside knowledge is definitely not lost on advertising executives and business developers. Yi Ling Kwan is a Shadow user who claims that he has been receiving very targeted ads across his devices which correlate closely to what he has been sharing with his app. And no, he did not search for dream symbolism on Google. In fact, two thousand people have commented on his vlog, saying that they can attest to experiencing the same freaky correlations. Others are just too thrilled to see their dream creations come to life, regardless of who pockets the profit.
Shadow has never publicly admitted to a breach of security or illegal trading of dreams. Is this merely an instance of large-scale hacking? Or has Shadow been dealing in the dark? One thing’s for sure, delving into the subconscious is a dream come true for startups and mature businesses alike.
It’s no surprise really; it was only a matter of time before someone would go after the biggest data of all.
Links to related stories
- Shadow: A Beautiful App That Tracks Your Dreams - Wired, 17 September 2013
- An App to Build a Database of the World's Dreams - The Atlantic, 17 September 2013
- Dream On - The New Yorker, 28 October 2013
- MindBullet: DREAMCATCHER GRABS CONSUMER IMAGINATION (Dateline: 14 June 2017, Published: 20 May 2004)
- MindBullet: CHINA SWAPS US DEBT FOR DATA (Dateline: 15 March 2024, Published: 20 February 2014)
Warning: Hazardous thinking at work
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