Brain and mind research is obviously one of the widest and less developed area of human knowledge. We are very far away from real understanding on how they work and what their limits are. We don't even know for sure whether our mind is just a brain function or there is something else we cannot yet comprehend.
Electroencephalography (EEG) is one of the tools we may work with. Electrical signals
at the scalp are measured and some patterns can be observed. But commercial instruments
usually cost several hundreds or more, and provide poor customizing flexibility.
So I've been working on a one channel EEG amplifier that can be built for about u$s40, and
a PC software that reads the amplifier's output and do some nice processing, like
displaying the signal in both the time and frequency domain, recording it as digitalised
data, and providing some biofeedback. A second program can be used to later analyze the
spectrum contents of the recorded signal.
The biofeedback, in this case, is primarily oriented to help the user enter a deep relaxed
state and at the same time avoid falling into sleep. If the state is persistent enough,
unusual conscience states may arise.
A second intention is to help the user, once sleeping, become aware of being dreaming, and
thus allow an interesting experience usually called "lucid dreaming".