Microsoft is ending the year with a media blitz. No sooner do we get their holiday commercial showcasing all the latest and greatest gadgets from the technology giant (and a couple of adorable doggoes, too) that we get a short film from actor, writer, and director Taika Waititi and starring streamer and influencer MoonLiteWolf.
Waititi’s recent directing credits include Thor: Ragnarok, so he’s certainly qualified to take point on a somewhat more artistic endeavor than we’ve come to expect from Microsoft. In this short film advertising the recent release of the Xbox Series X, MoonLiteWolf uses a process known as Targeted Dream Incubation to generate a dreamscape filled with glowing bunnies, flying whales, and even Master Chief.
MoonLiteWolf “was guided to a sleep state known as hypnagogia, which was tracked by the Hypnodyne (EEG) headband she was wearing,” reads the video description. “When she reached this state—known to feel like light sleep and even meditation—she was asked to recall her dreams.”
And those dreams were pretty wild. They start out with a glowing white rabbit that has a similar vibe to Ori from Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Then MoonLiteWolf starts floating next to a music party where Master Chief is DJing. Also, as it turns out, Master Chief is a cat.
Thus, thanks to MoonLiteWolf’s dreams, we now know that Master Chief is actually a dancing cat.
Besides being really cute, dream engineering is real science. The process used in the video is basically the same as the one published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, and a similar process has been used by great thinkers throughout history like Aristotle and Thomas Edison.
Microsoft remains committed to gaming, according to CEO Satya Nadella, which is good news for Xbox fans. That said, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that shortages of the new Xbox Series X are expected to continue until April 2021.
Source: Microsoft
