Guide
OpenClaw Dreaming: Memory Consolidation Explained
An experimental, biologically inspired system that lets your AI agent “sleep” and consolidate memories — promoting important short-term knowledge to long-term storage.
What Is OpenClaw Dreaming?
Introduced in OpenClaw v2026.4.5, Dreaming is an experimental memory consolidation framework modeled after human sleep. During dreaming, your agent periodically processes its accumulated memories across three distinct phases, deciding which short-term memories deserve long-term storage and which can fade away.
The result is an agent with a more human-like relationship to its accumulated knowledge — one that remembers what matters and gracefully forgets what doesn't.
The Three Sleep Phases
Dreaming mirrors the biological sleep cycle with three cooperative phases:
| Phase | What Happens | Analogy |
|---|---|---|
| Light Sleep | Initial memory scan and categorization. The agent reviews recent interactions and tags memories by importance. | Like reviewing your notes before bed |
| Deep Sleep | Core consolidation. Important short-term memories are promoted to long-term storage through weighted recall promotion. | Like your brain replaying the day's key moments |
| REM | Association and integration. Newly promoted memories are linked with existing long-term knowledge. | Like dreaming connects unrelated ideas |
How to Use Dreaming
Dreaming is available in OpenClaw v2026.4.5 and later. It's behind the experimental feature flag, so you need to enable it first.
- Make sure you're on OpenClaw v2026.4.5 or later.
- Enable the experimental feature flag in your
openclaw.json:{ "features": { "experimental": true } } - Use the
/dreamingcommand in chat to trigger or interact with the dreaming system. - View the Dream Diary in the Dreams section of the UI to see what was processed during each session.
Configurable Parameters
Two key parameters let you tune how the dreaming system handles memory decay:
| Parameter | What It Does | Default |
|---|---|---|
recencyHalfLifeDays | Controls how quickly memories lose importance based on age. Lower values mean memories decay faster. | Varies by setup |
maxAgeDays | Maximum age a memory can reach before it's no longer eligible for promotion to long-term storage. | Varies by setup |
A shorter recencyHalfLifeDays creates an agent that focuses on recent interactions, while a longer value preserves older context. Adjust maxAgeDays to set the hard cutoff for memory eligibility.
The Dream Diary
Every dreaming session produces a visible log in the Dream Diary UI. This shows you exactly what happened during each phase:
- Which memories were reviewed
- Which were promoted to long-term storage
- Which were allowed to decay
- Any new associations formed between memories
The Dream Diary is useful for understanding how your agent's memory evolves over time and for debugging if the agent seems to forget important context.
Dreaming on OpenClaw Launch
Managed instances on OpenClaw Launch will receive dreaming support as part of regular image updates. Once available, you can enable it from your dashboard configuration without any manual setup.
Use Cases
- Personal assistant — Your agent remembers your preferences, past conversations, and important details without being overwhelmed by every interaction.
- Customer support — The agent retains common issue patterns and solutions while letting one-off queries naturally fade.
- Research agent — Key findings are promoted to long-term memory, building a cumulative knowledge base across sessions.
- Team assistant — Important decisions and context are preserved, while routine messages don't clutter the agent's memory.
FAQ
Does dreaming happen automatically?
The agent can be configured to dream periodically, or you can trigger it manually with the /dreaming command. The Dream Diary shows results from both automatic and manual sessions.
Will dreaming delete my agent's memories?
No. Dreaming doesn't delete memories. It promotes important short-term memories to long-term storage. Unpromoted memories naturally decay based on your configured parameters, but they aren't forcefully removed.
Can I disable dreaming?
Yes. Set features.experimental to false in your config, or simply don't use the /dreaming command. The feature is entirely opt-in.
What's Next?
- OpenClaw Memory Guide — Understand the full memory system that dreaming builds on
- Agent Setup Guide — Configure your AI agent from scratch
- v2026.4.5 Release Notes — Full details on the release that introduced dreaming
- Compare Models — Choose the best model for your dreaming-enabled agent