You've no doubt heard of "biofeedback." It's a technique where you are taught such things as bringing your blood pressure down or slowing your breathing while being presented with live technical data on just how your body is actually performing. The idea is to intentionally bring your body into copasetic equilibrium in the face of stressors.

Since our lives seem to be defined by stress these days - and all manner of health problems can be linked to it - biofeedback is without question of great interest. But the interest doesn't stop there ...

Since any technology is open to frivolous misuse, biofeedback was center stage on the blessedly short-lived reality TV show "The Chair," hosted by of all people John McEnroe, a person famous for being unable to control himself in public. Each guest was strapped to a heart monitor and could win money by answering questions, but only if his heart rate was within a calm designated range. The subject would actually start losing money if his heart rate continued to soar. And did I mention intentionally trying to scare the person strapped in the chair? It was a tour de force of wondrously simple technology misapplied for purported entertainment's sake - or would that be a fast buck?

I mention the biofeedback experience to prepare you for a whole new field which will no doubt seem a godsend to reality television producers everywhere. It's called "sensory substitution," which is a very plain term describing something very powerful. It seems that we humans can readily substitute one bodily sensor - like sight, hearing or the like - for another, and our brains can quickly adapt.

For example, let's examine what it means to be blind. It's not really our eyes that see - all our eyes do is convert images to signals which our brains then interpret. Introduce those signals via some other means - such as sound data through our ears or infrared data through our tongues - and the brain quickly and happily proceeds to assemble images and their reference points within our memory banks. And it's not just conscious thinking that is affected here - it also directs our subconscious bodily accommodations to the physical world we move through.

Whether it's pressure changes we sense through our chests, pulses delivered to our foreheads or electrodes taped to the skin of our backs, successful technology is being refined to accomplish such unprecedented tasks as helping people regain their natural balance and assisting pilots in finding the horizon when all visual cues fail.

From here forward, every kind of input sensor we can build - and every way we can move data into the human body - will be put to the test. The result will both compensate for those who are sensory-challenged and enlarge the scope of what we can expect a typical human to do in any situation ... see in the dark, identify the presence of unusual materials, navigate in adverse environments, wake us silently in times of danger. In a sense, it's "Mission Impossible" for Everyman.

From security to weaponry, from healthcare to entertainment, the miniaturization of technology coupled with what neuroscience now tells us about the brain are giving us a whole host of reasons to try "substituting senses" ... and we can expect every use imaginable, from the exotic and to the mundane.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.

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