BBC Documentaries

The Dream Makers

Loading player...
In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 blockbuster Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio’s protagonist is paid to implant an idea into a target’s subconscious. If you look the film up, its genre is listed as being ‘science fiction’ - but could that soon have to be revised? Dream engineering is an experimental new field - with scientists, dream researchers and engineers pursuing the goal of influencing our thoughts as we sleep. For some, the idea holds the promise of a bright future, with benefits for our memories, creativity and wellbeing. On the other hand, though, the ethical issues it causes amid the unregulated world of an emerging technology have led to warnings of a future where our very dreams could be for sale. In The Dream Makers, Anand Jagatia investigates the fascinating potential and developing concerns over what the future of dream engineering could hold.
23 Feb 7AM English United Kingdom Education

Other recent episodes

Surviving a shark attack

Shark attacks on humans are rare, but they are slowly on the rise in Australia where all our guests are from. In this episode, they share the terrifying moment when they realised they were under attack. For Brett Connellan in New South Wales, it was an encounter with a Great…
3 Apr 8PM 23 min

God, grief and the chatbot

When Megan Garcia travelled to Rome, she carried with her a mother’s grief. At the Vatican she met the Pope and asked him to pray for her son Sewell, who died last year at the age of 14. In the months after his death, Megan discovered Sewell had been spending…
2 Apr 8PM 29 min

The Saltmakers

In India's Gujarat state lies the Little Rann of Kutch, a sprawling salt marsh desert where temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius. This harsh landscape is home to the Agariyas, nomadic tribal families who have harvested salt here since the 16th Century. For eight months of every year, they migrate…
1 Apr 8PM 29 min

Inheritance Samsung: 1. My kingdom for a horse

In 2017, the heir to South Korea’s biggest company is facing jail, leaving it with an uncertain future. After 80 years of business, how did Samsung get here? And how did a deal meant to secure family control of the company go so wrong? We take you behind closed doors…
31 Mar 8PM 27 min

India’s Shadow Children

Stephanie was brought up in France in a French family, but her birth parents are Indian – she’s an intercountry adoptee. In the 1980s and 1990s thousands of babies, like Stephanie, were adopted from India into white, western families. Now, inter-country adoption is more regulated, and there’s a recognition that…
30 Mar 8PM 30 min
All episodes