Why some dreams feel so real while others make no sense: New study reveals how personality, sleep and COVID-19 shape your dreams
Ever wondered why some dreams feel so realistic that they stay with you long after you wake up, while others seem like strange, disconnected stories? A new study has found that the answer may lie in your personality, sleeping habits, and even major events happening around the world.Researchers from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca say dreams are not random. Instead, they are influenced by a combination of personal characteristics and real-life experiences, including stressful events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.The findings, published in Communications Psychology, are based on an analysis of more than 3,700 dream and waking-life reports collected from 287 adults aged between 18 and 70.For two weeks, participants recorded their dreams and daily experiences. Researchers also gathered information about their sleep quality, personality, thinking abilities, and psychological traits to better understand how these factors affected dreaming.
AI uncovers hidden patterns in dreams
To analyze thousands of written reports, the researchers used natural language processing (NLP), an artificial intelligence technique that identifies patterns and relationships in language.Rather than reading every dream manually, the AI examined how words and ideas were connected to understand the structure and meaning behind each dream.The analysis showed that dreams are not chaotic or meaningless. Instead, they are shaped by a person’s tendency to daydream, their interest in dreams, the quality of their sleep, and events happening in the outside world.
Dreams don’t replay reality—they reinvent it
One of the study’s key findings was that dreams rarely recreate daily experiences exactly as they happened.Instead, the brain blends together memories, emotions, imagination, and expectations. A familiar location such as an office, school, or hospital may appear in a dream, but with unexpected people, places, or situations mixed in.This helps explain why dreams often feel both familiar and completely surreal at the same time.
People who value dreams remember them differently
The study also found noticeable differences in how people experienced dreams.Participants who frequently experienced mind-wandering while awake tended to have dreams that changed rapidly and felt more fragmented.Meanwhile, those who believed dreams had personal meaning reported richer, more vivid dreams filled with stronger visual details.The researchers cautioned that the study does not prove believing in dreams causes them to become more vivid. However, it does show a clear link between people’s attitudes toward dreams and how they experience or remember them.
COVID-19 influenced dream themes
Researchers also compared dreams recorded during the COVID-19 lockdown with dreams collected after restrictions were lifted.Dreams during the lockdown contained more references to confinement, barriers, restrictions, and intense emotions, reflecting people’s everyday experiences at the time.As life gradually returned to normal, those themes became less common, suggesting that dreams evolve as people adapt to major life changes.“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,” said lead author Valentina Elce of the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.“By combining large-scale data with computational methods, we were able to uncover patterns in dream content that were previously difficult to detect,” she added.
AI could change the future of dream research
The researchers found that the AI system interpreted dream reports with an accuracy similar to that of independent human evaluators.They believe this technology could make it easier to study large numbers of dreams and deepen scientists’ understanding of consciousness, memory, emotional processing, and mental health.The research was supported by the BIAL Foundation and the TweakDreams ERC Starting Grant, and involved scientists from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Sapienza University of Rome, and the University of Camerino.
