AI can interpret dreams but it is not an infallible oracle: Kelly Bulkeley

Interview/ Kelly Bulkeley, director, Sleep and Dream Database

KELLY BULKELEY IS a dream researcher, who currently serves as director of the Sleep and Dream Database, an online archive of dream reports with tools to study dreaming. A former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, he holds a PhD in religion and psychological studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He has also authored a number of books, including An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (1997), Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History (2008) and Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion (2016). He is also an adviser to the dream journal app Elsewhere.to, which integrates his research on dream symbolism and meaning into digital tools for personal reflection. Excerpts from an interview:

Q/ Ancient civilisations treated dreams as divine messages, while modern science treats them as data. Which is closer to the truth?

I do not see them as contradictory or mutually exclusive approaches, and I believe we come closest to the truth by integrating these two perspectives: study dreams with the latest tools of data analysis, with the goal of understanding not just dreaming in general, but those special, intense, life-altering dreams that people in many cultures and periods of history have regarded as religious experiences.

Q/ How has your background in psychology and religious studies shaped your approach to dream interpretation?

Dreams have so many levels of meaning that just one discipline or approach will never be enough. By combining insights from both modern psychology and the history of religions, I try to expand my ability to perceive and understand the full range of meanings that can emerge in any dream. Before psychology began as a field of study, religion was the language that people used to talk about dreams in different parts of the world throughout history. So it became clear to me that to study dreams in the widest possible way, I needed to study religion, spirituality, philosophy and art.

Q/ Why do people have recurring dreams?

There are several reasons. Recurring nightmares usually follow a traumatic incident like an accident, attack or a natural disaster. This can be emotionally hard to digest but it can change over time and with therapy. But not all recurrent dreams are nightmares. Athletes could dream of success in sports. Musicians could have dreams of their performances.  Among those in early adolescence, sexual dreams are common as they get romantically active.

Q/ There are instances where people wake up and go back to the same dream. What could be the reason for this?

It is a rare phenomenon for people to dream in such a way that their brain may pick up [from] where it left off after waking up. Some people wish they could do it more often because the dream is enchanting. It seems that when this happens, the brain’s neural pattern is active. In other cases, there are recurring dreams that follow the same pattern. So even if it is not the same dream, it feels continuous.

Q/ You have talked about video games enhancing lucidity. Do you think modern life, with all its screens and stress, has changed the way we dream?

Yes, and not necessarily for the good. It seems to me we are much too active in seeking to control dreams through lucidity, and also much too passive in allowing screen media fantasies to infiltrate our imaginations and crowd out the deeper wisdom of our dreams. Precisely because the modern world is filled with so much stress and distraction, we can benefit more than ever from grounding ourselves in the authentic vitality and honest self awareness of our dreams.

Q/ Could AI ever decode dreams, or are dreams too personal for that?

I used to think that AI would never be able to interpret dreams properly, but after working to develop such a system myself, I have completely changed my mind! The Elsewhere.to app, which a team of colleagues and I have built, enables users to record dreams and explore their meanings. Using carefully crafted AI prompts, the app allows you to interpret your dream in a variety of styles: Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian, Gestalt, biblical. Users can also generate art images from their dreams, track recurrent symbols and themes over time. They can also form dream-sharing groups with their friends.

Despite general criticism of AI, I have become more hopeful about its value in the practice of dream interpretation and its role in making these resources available to more people than ever before. If more people around the world are enabled to connect with the deeper patterns of their dreaming, this will set the stage, I believe, for an explosion of human creativity in the coming years.

Q/ There are concerns about the accuracy of AI dream interpretations.

AI-enhanced dream interpretation is not perfect, of course, and no one should treat these systems as an infallible oracle. But human interpretation is not flawless either. The key principle is always to phrase the interpretation as an open-ended question rather than a definitive statement, so the dreamer has the option to accept it or reject it. The dreamer’s dignity and autonomy are essential in this process, and that is why privacy concerns are also a top priority in any form of dream interpretation, whether online or offline.