A Robot That Dreams

The sight of a human or animal sleeping peacefully often brings a sense of calm to the observer.

Subtle movements during sleep—small twitches or shifts of the body—are commonly perceived as natural signs of health and life.

In humans, such bodily movements frequently correspond to what is being dreamed.

Inspired by this, we created an installation in which a robot is assumed to dream while it sleeps, and to exhibit involuntary movements in response to those dreams.

Small motions such as gently moving its legs or scratching part of its body emerge during sleep.

By grounding these movements in dream content rather than randomness, the robot’s behavior becomes more legible and familiar, inviting viewers to form a quiet sense of empathy.

Whether this approach truly fosters a feeling of coexistence is left to the experience of those who encounter the installation.

Affective Communication with Robots

Robots can sometimes evoke feelings of unease or fear.

One reason may be that their internal states—what they are perceiving or why they act in certain ways—are difficult to grasp from external observations.

In this work, experiences gathered during the robot’s active periods are presented again during rest, in the form of dreams and corresponding bodily responses.

This allows viewers to indirectly sense the context behind the robot’s actions.

Importantly, this approach does not rely on the robot having a cute or friendly appearance.

Instead, it suggests that affective communication can emerge through shared experience and recognizable traces of perception.

By expressing these traces in the most harmless and vulnerable state—sleep—the robot gradually acquires a sense of life within the observer’s perception, gently narrowing the psychological distance between human and machine.