Dreams may be the brain’s nightly remix of personality, memory, emotion, and real-world experience.
IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
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Why do some dreams feel so vivid that they seem almost real,
while others unfold as confusing fragments that are difficult to remember or
understand? New research suggests the answer may depend on a combination of
personality, sleep quality, mental habits, and major events unfolding in the
outside world.
A study led by researchers at the IMT School for Advanced
Studies Lucca found that dreams are not simply random collections of images and
thoughts. Instead, they appear to be shaped by both individual differences and
shared experiences, including major social disruptions such as the COVID-19
pandemic.
Thousands of Dream Reports Reveal Hidden Patterns
The research, published in Communications Psychology,
examined more than 3,700 descriptions of dreams and waking experiences from 287
people between the ages of 18 and 70.
For two weeks, participants recorded their dreams and daily
experiences. The researchers also collected information about each person's
sleeping habits, personality, cognitive abilities, and psychological
characteristics.
This broad set of information allowed the team to compare
what people experienced while awake with the stories, settings, and emotions
that appeared in their dreams.
How AI Helped Scientists Study Dreams
To analyze such a large number of written reports, the
researchers used natural language processing (NLP), a form of artificial
intelligence that examines patterns, relationships, and meaning in language.
Rather than relying only on researchers to read and
interpret every dream individually, the technology allowed the team to measure
the semantic structure of the reports. Semantic structure refers to how ideas,
words, and concepts are connected within a piece of language.
The results showed that dream content was neither completely
random nor inherently chaotic. Instead, dreams reflected a complex mixture of
personal characteristics, including a tendency to mind-wander, an interest in
dreams, and the quality of a person's sleep. Events occurring in the broader
world also influenced what people dreamed about.
Dreams Do Not Simply Replay the Day
When the researchers compared participants' descriptions of
waking life with their dream reports, they found that the brain did not appear
to reproduce daily experiences exactly as they happened.
Instead, familiar details were transformed.
A workplace, hospital, classroom, or other everyday setting
might appear in a dream, but it would often be combined with unrelated places,
shifting viewpoints, or unfamiliar surroundings. Different parts of a person's
life could merge into a single vivid scene.
These findings suggest that dreaming is not a simple replay
system. The sleeping mind appears to reorganize pieces of reality, combining
memories with imagination, expectations, and possible future experiences.
The result can be a completely new scenario that feels
immersive, emotionally intense, or surreal.
Personality May Influence Dream Vividness
The way dreams were transformed also differed from person to
person.
People who were more likely to experience mind-wandering
while awake tended to report dreams that changed quickly and felt more
fragmented. Their dreams often moved rapidly between scenes, ideas, or
perspectives.
By contrast, participants who placed greater value on dreams
and believed that dreaming had personal meaning tended to describe richer and
more immersive experiences. Their dream reports contained stronger perceptual
detail, making the scenes feel more vivid and lifelike.
The findings do not necessarily show that believing in
dreams directly causes more vivid dreaming. However, they reveal a strong
relationship between how people think about dreams and how they experience or
remember them.
The Pandemic Left a Mark on Dreams
The researchers also examined dream reports collected during
the COVID-19 lockdown by scientists at Sapienza University of Rome. They
compared those reports with data gathered in later months and years by the IMT
School team.
During the lockdown, dreams contained stronger emotions and
more references to restrictions, barriers, confinement, and other limitations.
These themes reflected the conditions people were experiencing in daily life.
As the months passed, those patterns became less pronounced.
This gradual change suggests that dreams may evolve alongside psychological
adjustment, particularly as people adapt to stressful or disruptive events.
In other words, dreams may provide clues about how the mind
responds to major changes over time.
"Our findings show that dreams are not just a
reflection of past experiences, but a dynamic process shaped by who we are and
what we live through," explains Valentina Elce, researcher at the IMT
School and lead author of the paper. "By combining large-scale data with
computational methods, we were able to uncover patterns in dream content that
were previously difficult to detect."
A New Tool for Studying the Sleeping Mind
The study also demonstrates how artificial intelligence
could change dream research.
The NLP models were able to identify meaning and structure
in dream reports with an accuracy similar to that of independent human
evaluators. This suggests that computational tools may allow scientists to
analyze much larger collections of dreams in a consistent and repeatable way.
That could create new opportunities for studying
consciousness, memory, emotional processing, and mental health.
Because dreams are highly personal and often difficult to
describe, they have traditionally been challenging to investigate on a large
scale. AI-based language analysis may help researchers uncover patterns that
would otherwise remain hidden.
This work was supported by a grant from the BIAL
Foundation (#091/2020) and by the TweakDreams ERC Starting Grant (#948891). The
research was conducted at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, in
collaboration with researchers from Sapienza University of Rome and the
University of Camerino.
Journal Reference:
- Valentina
Elce, Giorgia Bontempi, Serena Scarpelli, Bianca Pedreschi, Pietro
Pietrini, Luigi De Gennaro, Michele Bellesi, Giulio Bernardi, Giacomo
Handjaras. Individual traits and experiences predict the content
of dreams. Communications Psychology, 2026; 4 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s44271-026-00447-2
