LumaDreams: Designing Positive Dream Meaning-Making for Daily Empowerment

Dreams contribute to cognitive and emotional health, yet tools for everyday dream engagement remain largely underexplored outside clinical settings. In this paper, we introduce LumaDreams, a mobile application designed to foster daily empowerment through positive dream transformation using generative AI. Informed by meaning-making theories, LumaDreams enables users to journal dreams through sketches and text, which are then transformed into positive images and stories for users to revisit and reflect on. We conducted a mixed-method study with 14 participants over 14 days. Our findings show that LumaDreams strengthened participants’ daily empowerment through cognitive and emotional shifts that arise from the positive meaning-making process. Qualitative insights further revealed how users’ perceptions and trust of AI-driven dream transformation were shaped through their interactions. In conclusion, we propose an inspiring approach that enables users to co-create positive meanings in dream experiences with generative AI, promoting cognitive and emotional shifts, fostering positive mindsets, and ultimately strengthening daily empowerment.