Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and the image of a city skyline.

Prof Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when you see something and want to describe it to someone you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.

'You could use this technology to transmit the image to someone. It might be useful for artists or to allow you to recover an eyewitnesses memory of a crime.'

The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.

Pioneering? The tech goes back to 2001!!

And someone in India has already been pre-emptively convicted using it....