According to neuroscientific research on the topic of dreaming, our brains generally have trouble with accurately depicting—and especially re-generating—consistent, text-based contents in full detail while asleep due to decreased activity in the brain regions responsible for language-processing and logical thinking. In the context of lucid dreaming, the habitual technique of “reality checking”—specifically via so-called “re-reading tests”—is a common method used within the community which utilizes this typical error by training oneself to repeatedly look at texts or clocks within one’s daily life in order to realize that you’re asleep—and thus inducing a desired state of lucid dreaming—whenever trying to decipher writings or inspecting their consistency within one’s dreams.
Inspired by similar circumstances within early generative-AI models, which frequently produced images filled with obscure, unreadable text fragments due to focusing on visual structures rather than legibility similarly to the “sleep mode” of our brains, the computer-based experimentation practice “Reality Check” displays different versions of the message “This is just a dream. You need to wake up right now.” which have been digitally morphed using Photoshop’s content-aware fill tool.
(2026)