... That sounds like the most awesome skirt ever. It sounds like a skirt I'd actually wear and I don't do skirts.
Well, it started back when the CIA (According to the CIA, and the FBI according to the FBI, you know how it goes, I bet) developed something called the DreamShare Project, initially it was started as a therapy tool for PTSD cases. Somehow turned into a training tool for soldiers so they could hack each other to pieces in the subconscious mind, and still be A-OK for shipping off to whatever patch of desert or marshland we're fighting over next.
And then the private sector got ahold of it, found all sorts of interesting ways to use it, a hundred niche markets, though the most common by far is Extraction, stealing ideas, thoughts, plans right out of someone's mind, usually used for corporate espionage kind of things.
And if I haven't completely lost you, I'll be surprised.