Beethoven, Poe, and Tesla all claimed to use a bizarre creative technique to come up with some of their ideas–a method that involved accessing their dreams to hunt down brilliant concepts and bring them into the conscious world. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are trying to build on the fabled process with an interface for dreams. They call it Dormio.

Led by MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group's Adam Haar Horowitz, Dormio is a device designed to influence and extend the semi-lucid sleep state called hypnagogia. We all pass through this cognitive wonderland just before falling completely asleep. It's a mental dimension that often features a distorted perception of space and time; you may lose your very sense of self, and you'll often experience lucid dreams or come up with ideas that are free of the logical constraints and cognitive filters of the conscious brain. Even though we all experience hypnagogia, the wild visions and ideas that come with this phase of sleep are usually forever lost after a night of sleep. Geniuses like Edison and Dalí had a clever trick for recalling their ideas, though. They would take naps while holding a steel ball in their hands–which would fall as soon as they left their hypnagogia phase, instantly waking them up with a fresh memory of their lucid dreams.