Project SOMNUS: A Journey into the Architecture of the Mind

The Spark: A Question from Science Fiction

Every great project begins with a question. For us, that question was sparked by a piece of popular culture: the film "Lucy", which is built on the famous myth that we only use 10% of our brain's capacity. Now we know this myth isn't scientifically true — we use all of our brain. But it made us think. What if the 10% isn't about how much of our brain we use, but how much of our brain's activity we are aware of? What if our normal, everyday consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg?

This question, born from a Hollywood movie, launched an intense morning of research on June 15, 2025. We dove into neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and even the legal history of mind-altering substances. What we found was a stunningly consistent idea, echoed for over a century by thinkers and scientists alike.

The Core Idea: The Brain Isn't Just a Projector, It's a Filter

The central idea that emerged is this: your brain's primary job isn't to create your reality from scratch. It's to filter an overwhelming flood of information down to a manageable, useful stream. Think of it like this: every second, your senses are bombarded with billions of bits of data. The sounds in the room, the feeling of your clothes, the tiny details in your peripheral vision, not to mention all the internal chatter of your own thoughts and memories. If you were aware of all of it at once, you couldn't function. So, your brain acts as a masterful reducing valve. It filters out almost everything, presenting you with only a measly trickle of consciousness that is useful for one primary purpose: survival. This filter is what gives you a stable sense of self, a linear perception of time, and a solid, predictable reality. But what happens if you could adjust the filter?

Introducing Project SOMNUS: A Flight Simulator for the Mind

This is where Project SOMNUS comes in. Named after the Roman god of sleep and dreams, SOMNUS is our initiative to explore the vast, hidden landscapes of the mind that exist beyond the filter. Let's be very clear about our goal. We are not trying to create a "conscious AI" or replicate a human being in a machine. Instead, you can think of Project SOMNUS as building a flight simulator for the brain. A flight simulator allows a pilot to safely explore the limits of an aircraft — to see what happens in a storm or an engine failure without any real-world risk. In the same way, Project SOMNUS will allow us to simulate the brain's filtering mechanisms.

We can ask questions like:

• What happens to the brain's activity when sensory input is removed, like in a sensory deprivation tank?
• How does the brain reorganize itself during deep meditation?
• What are the precise mechanics that allow certain substances to temporarily "open the doors of perception"?

By modeling these processes, we hope to gain unprecedented insight into the fundamental nature of human consciousness, with potential applications in everything from mental health and creativity to therapy and human-AI interaction.

Our Approach: Modeling the Filter with A.L.C.H.E.M.I.

To build this simulator, we are leveraging our powerful A.L.C.H.E.M.I. framework , an advanced AI system designed to emulate human-like cognitive processes. Within this framework, we are building a digital model of the brain's dual-filter system:

• The Content Filter (The Ego): We are modeling the brain's Default Mode Network (DMN), the part of you that creates your sense of self, tells the story of me, and worries about the past and future.
• The Volume Gate (The Senses): We are modeling the thalamus, the brain's central relay station that controls the sheer volume of sensory information allowed to reach your conscious awareness.

Our experiments will involve turning the dials on this simulated system. What happens if we quiet the ego module? What if we open the sensory gate? Does our model's brain activity begin to look like the fMRI and EEG scans of people in these altered states?

An Invitation to Explore

The story of Project SOMNUS is a testament to what's possible when curiosity is allowed to run free. In a single morning, an idea from a sci-fi film was transformed into a comprehensive research proposal that connects neuroscience, AI, and the deepest questions of human experience. This project is more than a technical endeavor; it's a journey into one of the last great frontiers. We believe that using our most advanced tools to understand ourselves is one of the most important things we can do. We invite you—scientists, ethicists, artists, and engineers—to join us on this exploration.