Dreaming (experimental)

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

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

Reads from short-term recall state and recent daily memory files.
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

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

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.

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 (using the default runtime model) and appends a short diary entry. This diary is for human reading in the Dreams UI, not a promotion source.

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 * * *`

Quick start

Enable dreaming:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "memory-core": {
        "config": {
          "dreaming": {
            "enabled": true
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Enable dreaming with a custom sweep cadence:

{
  "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

Use CLI promotion for preview or manual apply:

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:

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:

openclaw memory rem-harness
openclaw memory rem-harness --json

Key defaults

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

Key	Default
`enabled`	`false`
`frequency`	`0 3 * * *`

Phase policy, thresholds, and storage behavior are internal implementation details (not user-facing config). See Memory configuration reference 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, long-term, and promoted-today counts
next scheduled run timing
an expandable Dream Diary reader backed by doctor.memory.dreamDiary

​Dreaming (experimental)

​What dreaming writes

​Phase model

​Light phase

​Deep phase

​REM phase

​Dream Diary

​Deep ranking signals

​Scheduling

​Quick start

​Slash command

​CLI workflow

​Key defaults

​Dreams UI

​Related