Future ‘Mad Men’ Will Buy Ad Space in Your Dreams

The smaller computers get, the more they invade our personal space (or from another perspective, the more we invite them into it). We've gone from lonely industrial age mainframes to pocket computers as essential and ever-present as wallet and keys. We're always connected, our waking hours spent reading, watching, gaming, and chatting.

For many, sleep is one of the last tech-free zones. But for how much longer?

A new science fiction short, "Branded Dreams," takes us to a future in which the digital world has entered our dreams—and advertising space in our heads sells at a premium.

The best speculative dystopias take today's trends to some plausible extreme. And this one? It isn't as far fetched as it might seem. Computers continue to shrink and get more personal. We already have basic (but working) brain-computer interfaces and digital services in exchange for ads.

Maybe some dark day it'll seem normal to accept direct-to-brain advertising in exchange for the finest dreams the entertainment industry can cook up. Yikes.

Image Credit: Studio Smack/Vimeo