You can sleep soundly for now, but apparently researchers are working on the technology to ads in your dreams. [via AdPulp]

All in-sleep subjects have a procedure to implant a nanobot (a tiny robot about the size of a blood cell) into that part of the brain where dreams originate — the pons in the brainstem. Once the chip is in place, it acts something like a wireless base-station, sending and receiving signals from other nanobots.

Before an in-sleep subject goes to bed they put a small device in their ear, not dissimilar to a cochlear implant. When the subject moves into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the implant is triggered (by the increase in delta waves) and a nanobot containing the appropriate advertising message is released into the spiral artery of the ear and down through to the cochlear canal. Once it reaches the blood brain barrier, it is programmed to wirelessly send an electrical signal (the advertisement) to the nanobot located in the pons. That nanobot receives the signal, sources the appropriate neuroreceptor and implants the ad. [eMarketer]

Releasing a secondary nanobot to travel down the cochlear canal to deliver the message seems like an unnecessary step -- once the primary nanobot is implanted in the pons couldn't the tranmission come from something outside the body, like maybe your alarm clock?  I guess we're talking about very low power transmissions, and maybe body tissue would interfere -- but just the fact that someone is already trying to do this is a scary/cool thing.  I'll sign up for the BMW Test Drive Dream every night... heck, I'll take a nap every afternoon if this really works.

Tags: nanobots, nanotechnology, advertising, dreams