As a side note, it really bothers me when dreaming is used as a plot device in books. I can’t relate at all to the concept of dreaming and remembering the dream.
So I could see how one of these types of devices could be handy to gently bring the consciousness out of deep sleep.
> Go back a half-century, and television’s impact on our closed-eye experiences becomes even clearer. In the 1940s, studies showed that three-quarters of Americans, including college students, reported “rarely” or “never” seeing any color in their dreams. Now, those numbers are reversed.
Probably not healthy for you though!
If you have some combination of a life of habit and adequate rest, you'll less often fool yourself into thinking you dreamed. If you immediately start writing when you wake up, you'll fool yourself into thinking you have the most elaborate and profound dreams ever, although you'll code this as remembering.
Dreams are so insubstantial that we very recently believed that everybody dreamed in black and white, and that dreaming in color was a sign of mental illness. This is a belief that faded completely and quickly alongside the rise of color tv and film. The implications of this are pretty devastating. People themselves believed they only dreamed in black and white, and later largely forgot that this was their experience.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/health/02real.html
Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/DreamB&W.htm
Media Influences How We Recall Our Dreams -- Do We Dream In Black And White Or Technicolor?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021224091445.h...
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edit: so I disagree with the OP. There are no dreams, only recollections of dreams. When you look at the "dreamlike" imagery of generative AI, you're looking at something similar to what awake people construct dreams from, not dreams themselves.