Practice

Can you choose what you dream about?

You can only partly choose what you dream about (Diushekeeva et al., 2024). Thinking about a topic before you sleep, called dream incubation, can make it a little more likely to appear, but a 2024 review calls the effect of bedtime thoughts limited (Mallett et al., 2024). We found no study showing that anyone can reliably pick a dream.

Last updated: 2026-10-13.

What is dream incubation, and how is it different from lucid dreaming?

Dream incubation means picking a topic before sleep with the aim of dreaming about it (Haar Horowitz et al., 2023). It isn’t the same as lucid dreaming, which means realizing you’re dreaming while you’re still asleep (Mallett et al., 2024). Incubation doesn’t need lucidity: in a sleep-lab study, unsolved puzzles turned up in ordinary dreams as well as lucid ones (Konkoly et al., 2026).

In ancient Greece, people slept at healing sanctuaries in the hope of receiving a dream (Kapotsis et al., 2025).

Does thinking about something before bed change what you dream?

Thinking about something before bed changes your dreams a little (Mallett et al., 2024), perhaps more when the topic matters to you. The evidence comes from a handful of studies, some of them small.

In one small study, 10 students spent four nights in a sleep lab (Nikles et al., 1998). A suggestion to dream about a current concern shaped their dreams; a suggestion about another topic did no better than none.

At home, 90 university students, most of them women, wrote for five minutes before sleep (Wang et al., 2022). Half focused on a pleasant thought that often popped into their heads. Outside judges found the thought in 40% of that group’s dreams and 20% of the others’, but the dreamers’ own ratings showed no difference.

Trying not to think of a person may backfire. In another home study, people wrote about someone before sleep in several ways, and trying not to think of them led to the most reported dreams of them (Wegner et al., 2004).

What have sleep labs found with targeted dream incubation?

In one sleep lab, targeted dream incubation, a recorded prompt played as people drift off, brought a chosen topic into most dream reports, in naps broken up by repeated wakings (Haar Horowitz et al., 2020).

Dormio is a hand-worn research device that senses when you fall asleep. In the nap study of 49 adults, nappers were woken 1 to 5 minutes into sleep to report what was on their mind. Those who had heard a recorded voice say “remember to think of a tree” mentioned trees in 67% of reports, against 3% after a neutral prompt. People who heard the tree prompt while awake did so in 52%. The authors note the study’s limits: one theme, a narrow university sample and no full sleep recording.

In a small overnight lab study, 20 people, mostly frequent lucid dreamers, dreamed about 26% of their unsolved puzzles on average (Konkoly et al., 2026). A sound linked to a puzzle, played during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, made that puzzle likelier to appear, and dreaming of a puzzle went with solving it by morning.

Studies of personal problems rely on what people report. In a ten-day diary study of 96 frequent dreamers assigned to groups at random, those who used a bedtime incubation routine for one problem were particularly likely to rate it less distressing and more solvable (White & Taytroe, 2003). In a small week-long study of 76 college students, about half recalled a dream they judged related to their problem (Barrett, 1993). Most of those believed it held a solution. Haar Horowitz et al. (2023) describe a study of this kind as having no control group.

Studies of choosing a dream topic
StudySettingWhat people didWhat happened
Nikles et al. (1998)Lab, 10 studentsTold to dream about a concern or another topicOnly the concern shaped dreams
Wegner et al. (2004)HomeWrote about a person, or tried not to think of themMore dreams of them, most when trying not to
Wang et al. (2022)Home, 90 studentsWrote about a pleasant thought for 5 minutesJudges: 40% vs 20%; dreamers saw no difference
Haar Horowitz et al. (2020)Lab naps, 49 adultsHeard “remember to think of a tree” at sleep onsetTrees in 67% of reports vs 3%
White & Taytroe (2003)Home, 96 frequent dreamersUsed a bedtime routine for a personal problemRated it less distressing and more solvable
Konkoly et al. (2026)Lab overnight, 20 people, mostly lucid dreamersHeard puzzle sounds during REM sleepDreamed of 26% of unsolved puzzles

How can you try dream incubation at home?

To try dream incubation at home, borrow what the studies had people do. None of it needs an alarm.

  1. Pick one topic that matters to you now and that you’d be glad to dream about.
  2. In the last minutes before sleep, write freely about it for about five minutes, as in the home studies (Wang et al., 2022; Wegner et al., 2004).
  3. As you settle, hold one short line in mind, such as “remember to think of the lake house.” The nap study played a recorded line like this; we found no study of saying it to yourself.
  4. Before you move in the morning, note whatever you remember, fragments too, as in the first nights of our 7-night dream recall plan.
  5. Keep a dream journal you’ll stick with for a week or two, then read the entries back. After films and games at bedtime, several studies found the material showed up most on the first night, and one saw a second rise 6 to 7 nights later, though another did not (Diushekeeva et al., 2024).

The nap study’s repeated wakings belonged to the experiment and aren’t worth copying.

How often will your topic actually show up?

Expect your topic to show up on some nights, not most, and often only sideways. In studies of films, video games and virtual reality before sleep, the material appeared in 11% to 35% of dreams reported at home (Diushekeeva et al., 2024). In the pleasant-thought study, ideas related to the thought turned up more often than the thought itself, 66.7% against 40% (Wang et al., 2022).

In the few studies that compared them, dreamers saw more of the topic than outside judges did (Diushekeeva et al., 2024). If your topic does turn up, treat the dream as something to reflect on rather than an answer or a sign, as our guide to whether dreams mean anything explains.

More questions about choosing your dreams

Can you make yourself dream about a specific person?

You can’t dream about a person on demand, though thinking about them before sleep may help. In one home study, it generally led to more reported dreams of that person, however attracted people were to them (Wegner et al., 2004). Dreams about an ex and about someone you’ve lost each have their own guide.

Is the Tetris effect a kind of dream incubation?

The Tetris effect is a close cousin of dream incubation. People who played Tetris saw images of the game as they fell asleep, even three people with amnesia who couldn’t remember playing (Stickgold et al., 2000). Nobody chose those images.

Can dream incubation stop nightmares?

Dream incubation isn’t a nightmare treatment, and we found no study testing it on nightmares. Changing a recurring nightmare is a different approach, with its own evidence. For nightmares after a traumatic event, start with a doctor or therapist (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020).

See what turned up

Dreams Come True, a voice-first dream journal app for iPhone, transcribes a spoken dream right on your phone and keeps every entry there, so a week of mornings is easy to read back.

Get the app free

Sources

  1. American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (2020, October). Nightmares. Sleep Education. sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/nightmares/
  2. Barrett, D. (1993). The “committee of sleep”: A study of dream incubation for problem solving. Dreaming, 3(2), 115–122. doi.org/10.1037/h0094375
  3. Diushekeeva, A., Hidalgo, S., & Zadra, A. (2024). Impact of pre-sleep visual media exposure on dreams: A scoping review. Brain Sciences, 14(7), 662. doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14070662
  4. Haar Horowitz, A., Cunningham, T. J., Maes, P., & Stickgold, R. (2020). Dormio: A targeted dream incubation device. Consciousness and Cognition, 83, 102938. doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.102938
  5. Haar Horowitz, A., Esfahany, K., Gálvez, T. V., Maes, P., & Stickgold, R. (2023). Targeted dream incubation at sleep onset increases post-sleep creative performance. Scientific Reports, 13, 7319. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31361-w
  6. Kapotsis, G., Steiropoulos, P., Rovina, N., Vagiakis, E., & Trakada, G. (2025). Sleep incubation [enkoimesis] in medical practice at Asclepieia of ancient Greece: The ancient Greek sleep medicine. Sleep Medicine, 130, 31–35. doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2025.03.023
  7. Konkoly, K. R., Morris, D. J., Hurka, K., Martinez, A. M., Sanders, K. E. G., & Paller, K. A. (2026). Creative problem-solving after experimentally provoking dreams of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2026(1), niaf067. doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf067
  8. Mallett, R., Konkoly, K. R., Nielsen, T., Carr, M., & Paller, K. A. (2024). New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 28(12), 1105–1117. doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.004
  9. Nikles, C. D., II, Brecht, D. L., Klinger, E., & Bursell, A. L. (1998). The effects of current-concern- and nonconcern-related waking suggestions on nocturnal dream content. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 242–255. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.242
  10. Stickgold, R., Malia, A., Maguire, D., Roddenberry, D., & O’Connor, M. (2000). Replaying the game: Hypnagogic images in normals and amnesics. Science, 290(5490), 350–353. doi.org/10.1126/science.290.5490.350
  11. Wang, J., Song, B., Feng, X., Shen, H., & Liu, R. (2022). Presleep focusing on positive spontaneous thoughts enhanced the possibility of dreaming of them. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1042857. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1042857
  12. Wegner, D. M., Wenzlaff, R. M., & Kozak, M. (2004). Dream rebound: The return of suppressed thoughts in dreams. Psychological Science, 15(4), 232–236. doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00657.x
  13. White, G. L., & Taytroe, L. (2003). Personal problem-solving using dream incubation: Dreaming, relaxation, or waking cognition? Dreaming, 13(4), 193–209. doi.org/10.1023/B:DREM.0000003143.00133.1c