What is a "dread perm"?

Dread perming is a new concept for me. I came across a website advertising classes for lock maintenance that taught the technique. While looking for an explanation of dread perming, I was hoping that it didn't involve relaxing locked hair with chemicals!

Interestingly, someone did tell me that there are people who put relaxer in their locks. She said that the locks tend to get weak and break off where the relaxer is applied. It seems to me that putting relaxer in your locks would defeat the purpose of having locks.

But dread perming is a way to make straight hair frizzy so it will lock more quickly.

From Wikipedia:

'The dread perming technique begins with at least 6 inches of hair. Thehair is then separated into appropriately sized dreadlock sections. Each individual section is then backcombed, or teased, to knot the hair and create a loose dreadlock form. After each section resembles a loose dreadlock, the sections are then rolled onto curlers, to help ensure even distribution of the perming chemicals. Once the chemicals are applied to the hair, each strand of hair begins to swell. This swelling causes the hair to forget its' original form. The hair then begins to shrink back to its' normal size, permanently taking on the shape the hair is currently in.'

The hair appears really curly and kind of odd looking at first, but over time it settles into a pattern that, they say, is indistinguishable from naturally grown locks after about a year.

I'm moving up the learning curve.