openclaw/docs/concepts/dreaming.md

summary, title, sidebarTitle, read_when

summary	title	sidebarTitle	read_when
Background memory consolidation with light, deep, and REM phases plus a Dream Diary	Dreaming	Dreaming	You want memory promotion to run automatically You want to understand what each dreaming phase does You want to tune consolidation without polluting MEMORY.md

Dreaming is the background memory consolidation system in memory-core. It helps OpenClaw move strong short-term signals into durable memory while keeping the process explainable and reviewable.

Dreaming is **opt-in** and disabled by default.

What dreaming writes

Dreaming keeps two kinds of output:

• Machine state in memory/.dreams/ (recall store, phase signals, ingestion checkpoints, locks).
• Human-readable output in DREAMS.md (or existing dreams.md) and optional phase report files under memory/dreaming/<phase>/YYYY-MM-DD.md.

Long-term promotion still writes only to MEMORY.md.

Phase model

Dreaming uses three cooperative phases:

Phase	Purpose	Durable write
Light	Sort and stage recent short-term material	No
Deep	Score and promote durable candidates	Yes (MEMORY.md)
REM	Reflect on themes and recurring ideas	No

These phases are internal implementation details, not separate user-configured "modes."

Light phase ingests recent daily memory signals and recall traces, dedupes them, and stages candidate lines.

- Reads from short-term recall state, recent daily memory files, and redacted session transcripts when available.
- Writes a managed `## Light Sleep` block when storage includes inline output.
- Records reinforcement signals for later deep ranking.
- Never writes to `MEMORY.md`.

Deep phase decides what becomes long-term memory.

- Ranks candidates using weighted scoring and threshold gates.
- Requires `minScore`, `minRecallCount`, and `minUniqueQueries` to pass.
- Rehydrates snippets from live daily files before writing, so stale/deleted snippets are skipped.
- Appends promoted entries to `MEMORY.md`.
- Writes a `## Deep Sleep` summary into `DREAMS.md` and optionally writes `memory/dreaming/deep/YYYY-MM-DD.md`.

REM phase extracts patterns and reflective signals.

- Builds theme and reflection summaries from recent short-term traces.
- Writes a managed `## REM Sleep` block when storage includes inline output.
- Records REM reinforcement signals used by deep ranking.
- Never writes to `MEMORY.md`.

Session transcript ingestion

Dreaming can ingest redacted session transcripts into the dreaming corpus. When transcripts are available, they are fed into the light phase alongside daily memory signals and recall traces. Personal and sensitive content is redacted before ingestion.

Dream Diary

Dreaming also keeps a narrative Dream Diary in DREAMS.md. After each phase has enough material, memory-core runs a best-effort background subagent turn and appends a short diary entry. It uses the default runtime model unless dreaming.model is configured. If the configured model is unavailable, Dream Diary retries once with the session default model.

This diary is for human reading in the Dreams UI, not a promotion source. Dreaming-generated diary/report artifacts are excluded from short-term promotion. Only grounded memory snippets are eligible to promote into `MEMORY.md`.

There is also a grounded historical backfill lane for review and recovery work:

- `memory rem-harness --path ... --grounded` previews grounded diary output from historical `YYYY-MM-DD.md` notes. - `memory rem-backfill --path ...` writes reversible grounded diary entries into `DREAMS.md`. - `memory rem-backfill --path ... --stage-short-term` stages grounded durable candidates into the same short-term evidence store the normal deep phase already uses. - `memory rem-backfill --rollback` and `--rollback-short-term` remove those staged backfill artifacts without touching ordinary diary entries or live short-term recall.

The Control UI exposes the same diary backfill/reset flow so you can inspect results in the Dreams scene before deciding whether the grounded candidates deserve promotion. The Scene also shows a distinct grounded lane so you can see which staged short-term entries came from historical replay, which promoted items were grounded-led, and clear only grounded-only staged entries without touching ordinary live short-term state.

Deep ranking signals

Deep ranking uses six weighted base signals plus phase reinforcement:

Signal	Weight	Description
Frequency	0.24	How many short-term signals the entry accumulated
Relevance	0.30	Average retrieval quality for the entry
Query diversity	0.15	Distinct query/day contexts that surfaced it
Recency	0.15	Time-decayed freshness score
Consolidation	0.10	Multi-day recurrence strength
Conceptual richness	0.06	Concept-tag density from snippet/path

Light and REM phase hits add a small recency-decayed boost from memory/.dreams/phase-signals.json.

Scheduling

When enabled, memory-core auto-manages one cron job for a full dreaming sweep. Each sweep runs phases in order: light → REM → deep.

Default cadence behavior:

Setting	Default
dreaming.frequency	0 3 * * *
dreaming.model	default model

Quick start

```json { "plugins": { "entries": { "memory-core": { "config": { "dreaming": { "enabled": true } } } } } } ``` ```json { "plugins": { "entries": { "memory-core": { "config": { "dreaming": { "enabled": true, "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles", "frequency": "0 */6 * * *" } } } } } } ```

Slash command

/dreaming status
/dreaming on
/dreaming off
/dreaming help

CLI workflow

```bash openclaw memory promote openclaw memory promote --apply openclaw memory promote --limit 5 openclaw memory status --deep ```

Manual `memory promote` uses deep-phase thresholds by default unless overridden with CLI flags.

Explain why a specific candidate would or would not promote:

```bash
openclaw memory promote-explain "router vlan"
openclaw memory promote-explain "router vlan" --json
```

Preview REM reflections, candidate truths, and deep promotion output without writing anything:

```bash
openclaw memory rem-harness
openclaw memory rem-harness --json
```

Key defaults

All settings live under plugins.entries.memory-core.config.dreaming.

Enable or disable the dreaming sweep. Cron cadence for the full dreaming sweep. Optional Dream Diary subagent model override. Use a canonical `provider/model` value when also setting a subagent `allowedModels` allowlist. `dreaming.model` requires `plugins.entries.memory-core.subagent.allowModelOverride: true`. To restrict it, also set `plugins.entries.memory-core.subagent.allowedModels`. Trust or allowlist failures stay visible instead of falling back silently; the retry only covers model-unavailable errors. Phase policy, thresholds, and storage behavior are internal implementation details (not user-facing config). See [Memory configuration reference](/reference/memory-config#dreaming) for the full key list.

Dreams UI

When enabled, the Gateway Dreams tab shows:

• current dreaming enabled state
• phase-level status and managed-sweep presence
• short-term, grounded, signal, and promoted-today counts
• next scheduled run timing
• a distinct grounded Scene lane for staged historical replay entries
• an expandable Dream Diary reader backed by doctor.memory.dreamDiary

Related

• Memory
• Memory CLI
• Memory configuration reference
• Memory search