Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered how to capture your thoughts and play it back on video.

The technique uses an MRI machine that scans the patterns that appear in a person's brain and compare it to the images they were seeing during the scan.

A complex computer model was created to predict the relationship between the two images and a large database matched it with nearly 20 million seconds of random YouTube videos.

With these in place, the model could then predict which brain scans where taken during a certain video clip, in a display of surreal colour.

The result is a watercolour-like painting of the image, the scanned images were put alongside the originals. The correlation was substantial and there can be no mistake that the system works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nsjDnYxJ0bo

The theory would seemingly continue into the ability to sleep during these scans to create a video of your dreams or even project your own waking thoughts onto a screen.

Although absolutely phenomenal - and slightly creepy - the researchers who discovered this system maintain that this technology is still "decades from allowing users to read others' thoughts and intentions," but closer than most would have ever imagined.

California