Getting started
What do I actually do with this app?
Set an alarm on the Alarm tab. When it wakes you, Doromir asks you to say what you remember, right there, before you get up. It writes down what you said. Everything else in the app is built from those recordings.
When should I record a dream?
Immediately, before you sit up or look at your phone. Dream memory fades within about a minute of waking, and almost completely once you start thinking about your day. A mumbled ten seconds recorded straight away beats a careful paragraph written at lunchtime.
I do not remember my dreams. Is this app useless for me?
No. This is the most common starting point, and the habit itself improves your recall. Set the alarm, and on mornings you remember nothing, still open the app and note that. Most people start catching fragments within a week or two.
What if I would rather type than talk?
Tap "Write it down instead" on the Journal tab. Typed entries work exactly the same everywhere else in the app.
Recording a dream
Do I have to speak clearly?
No. Half-asleep mumbling is normal and expected. Say the images and feelings in whatever order they come. "There was water, and my old house, and I was worried" is a perfectly good entry.
How does it stop recording?
It stops on its own after a few seconds of silence, so you can put the phone down and go back to sleep. You can also tap to finish it yourself.
Can I fix the transcript afterwards?
Yes. Open the entry from the Journal tab and tap the pencil. You can edit the title, the text, and the tags at any time.
What are tags for?
Tags are short labels like "water", "flying", or "work". The app uses them to spot themes that repeat across months, and the Dream Map uses them to connect one dream to another. You can add your own when you save, and the app suggests some itself.
Insights and the Dream Map
When do Insights start being useful?
Around ten entries you will see recurring tags. Around a month, the sleep correlations and the mood mix start to mean something. Before that there is not enough to compare.
What is the Dream Map?
A picture of your journal. Each dream is a dot, and a line joins two dreams that resemble each other, either because they share tags or because they describe similar things. Clusters are your recurring subjects. Tap any dot to open that dream.
Can I look at a specific week or month?
Yes. On the Insights tab, pick Week, Month, or Year, then use the arrows to step back through them. Everything below updates to that period.
Should I take an insight seriously?
Treat it as a prompt for reflection, nothing more. Doromir describes patterns in what you wrote. It is not a diagnosis, not a prediction, and not medical or psychological advice.
Sleep data
Why connect health data at all?
So you can see your dreams next to the nights that produced them, and find out whether you recall more after a longer sleep, or after a late workout. It is optional, and every other feature works without it.
Why is there no REM figure for me?
No phone can detect REM on its own. That takes a watch or sleep tracker that records sleep stages and syncs them to your phone. Without one you still get sleep duration, which is enough for most of the comparisons.
I do not have a watch. What can I do?
On Android, Doromir can estimate sleep from the phone's own sensors. Turn that on under Settings, Health setup. You can also log a night by hand from the same place. Both feed the same insights.
Your data
Where do my dreams go?
Nowhere. They stay in a database on this phone. There is no account, no sign-in, and no server that receives them. Transcription and analysis both run on the device itself.
How do I back them up?
Profile, then "Export my data". It writes a single file holding your journal and your sleep data. On Android, set a backup folder first so exports land somewhere you can find them. Uninstalling the app deletes everything, so export before you switch phones.
Can I delete a dream?
Open it from the Journal tab and use Delete. That removes the entry and its recording from the phone permanently. To remove everything at once, see delete your data.
Does keeping the recordings take up much space?
Recordings are the largest thing Doromir stores. If space is tight, turn off "Save recording audio" in Settings. You keep the transcripts either way.
When something goes wrong
The alarm did not go off.
Battery optimisation is almost always the cause. Check the Alarm tab for a warning banner and tap it. That opens the exact system setting you need to change.
The alarm only showed a notification instead of taking over the screen.
That happens when your phone was already awake and unlocked. Android only lets an app take over the screen from the background if you allow it to display over other apps, and the Alarm tab has a banner that opens the right setting. The same permission is what lets nightstand mode dock itself at bedtime.
The transcript is wrong or empty.
Speech recognition struggles with a very quiet or very sleepy voice. Edit the entry and correct it by hand; the recording is still there to listen back to if you kept it.
Insights are slow, or the app closes while generating one.
That is the optional downloaded AI model being too heavy for your phone. Remove it in Settings and the built-in engine takes over. It is faster, and it is always there.
Still stuck? Email support@doromir.com. Doromir is a reflection tool, not a medical device, and does not provide medical advice.