The trick is, you have to be in an MRI machine — and it only works with pictures.

Israeli scientists have devised an AI model that can reconstruct and even predict what people are seeing with startling accuracy, likening the results to mind reading.

Their work still exists largely in lab settings, though the researchers are hopeful that advances down the line could be extended even as far as reading people’s dreams. More immediately, the technology could have potential for medical purposes, like helping people communicate who otherwise can’t due to injury or disability.

The AI model, called Brain-IT, was developed by professor Michal Irani and fellow researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. They’ve documented their work on GitHub and in a paper presented at a scientific conference earlier this year.

Brain-IT takes advantage of the thing that AI is best at, which is pattern recognition. It takes in data from functional MRI brain scans, which track changes in blood flow and oxygen in the brain to measure brain activity, and then uses that data to recreate the images the person was thinking about when the scans took place.

It also works in reverse, predicting what a brain scan would look like if shown a specific image. 

According to Irani, other AI models can translate brain activity into images and preserve the general vibe of an image. 

“However, they tend to make mistakes in basic features such as composition and color,” Irani said in a statement.

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