Dasdaq: Reimagining Dreams as Creative Assets in Human–AI Systems

Abstract

Dreams have been understood a generative source of creative insight, producing associations and narratives that extend beyond waking cognition. Recent HCI research has begun to engage this potential through systems that capture and reinterpret dream content for creative and expressive work. However, existing approaches largely frame dreams as private or therapeutic resources, leaving open how dream experiences might function as shared and reusable creative material within human-AI systems. We explore this question through Dasdaq, a speculative system inspired by the Korean folk practice of exchanging auspicious dreams. Dasdaq combines a bedside lamp for time-sensitive dream recall with an AI-driven reconstruction pipeline and a market-like interface in which dream fragments become tradable creative assets. Through interaction with AI, fleeting dream memories are transformed into narrative and visual forms that can circulate and inspire new creative work. Dasdaq positions dreams as a new layer of creative infrastructure for future human-AI collaboration.