Tesla may have had a good grasp of what it feels like to watch real-time streaming of video on modern-day laptops and smartphones. In attempts at mind-reading, scientists have developed algorithms that can learn to interpret brain signals and reproduce a rough version of images 'seen' in a person's mind. Today, scientists have created artificial retinas through sophisticated mathematical analyses of how real retinas convert images to electrical impulses to send up to the brain.

Tesla's plan never became a reality, but researchers are still studying vision and exploring the idea of mind-reading machines. Our minds would then, indeed, be like open books,' he continued. 'If this can be done successfully, then the objects imagined by a person would be clearly reflected on the screen as they are formed, and in this way every thought of the individual could be read. 'In 1893, while engaged in certain investigations, I became convinced that a definite image formed in thought, must by reflex action, produce a corresponding image on the retina, which might be read by a suitable apparatus…Now if it be true that a thought reflects an image on the retina, it is a mere question of illuminating the same property and taking photographs, and then using the ordinary methods which are available to project the image on a screen. 'I expect to photograph thoughts,' Tesla said. In an article published in the Kansas City Journal-Post in September 1933, he told reporters about several projects he had been working on, including a device that concerns 'photographing of thought.' Tesla may have thought about inventing a machine to read mental imagery and thoughts.

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