Melo | Devpost

Inspiration

Our project was inspired by a simple but universal experience: waking up from a vivid dream, only to have it vanish from memory within seconds. We realized that so much of our subconscious, and the emotional patterns it reveals, goes completely unnoticed. Stress, anxiety, burnout, and creative inspiration all show up in dreams, but current sleep tracking apps only capture physiological data. We wanted to bridge the gap between the subconscious and conscious self, helping people understand their emotions, improve wellbeing, and even spark creativity.

What it does

Melo transforms fleeting dreams into actionable insights. It passively tracks dream activity during sleep hours, reconstructs dream fragments visually, and provides key insights alongside sleep biometrics like heart rate and breathing. Users can:

Replay dream moments and explore hidden emotional patterns
Track recurring stress or inspiration across nights
Receive gentle prompts to reflect safely on emotionally intense dreams
Search and filter past dreams by date, theme, or emotion By turning subconscious patterns into conscious understanding, Melo empowers users to take proactive steps for emotional, mental, and creative wellbeing.

How we built it

We built Melo entirely in Figma, designing the screens and flows to show how users would explore their dreams. We drew inspiration from Figma Make to imagine interactive and dynamic features, like replaying dream moments, filtering patterns, and reflecting on emotions. This allowed us to bring Melo to life visually, showing how it could work in everyday life while keeping the experience intuitive and engaging.

Challenges we ran into

Our main challenge was designing a user interface that felt intuitive, engaging, and approachable while handling complex dream data. We wanted users to explore multiple dreams, see patterns, and reflect on emotions without feeling overwhelmed, which required careful layout, navigation, and visual hierarchy decisions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of creating a cohesive, story-driven prototype that clearly demonstrates how Melo helps people understand their dreams and emotions. Our design addresses multiple edge cases, ensuring users feel safe and supported even with challenging or complex dream data. We also developed an interface that’s clean, intuitive, and easy to navigate, making it simple for users to explore patterns, replay dream moments, and reflect on insights. Beyond functionality, we’re proud of how Melo connects wellness and creativity, showing how subconscious experiences can inform real-world understanding and personal growth.

What we learned

This was our first time using Figma Make, so figuring out how to bring interactive elements and speculative features into the prototype was a bit of a curveball. It taught us how to think creatively about user flows and dynamic interactions even without building a fully functional system. Beyond the tool itself, we learned how important it is to design for deeply personal experiences like dreams, balancing insight with simplicity, storytelling with usability, and realism with speculative imagination.

What's next for Melo

Looking ahead, we want to explore ways Melo could capture even more subtle emotional and cognitive patterns, helping users gain deeper insight into their dreams. We’re also imagining features that connect dreams to daily habits, creativity, and mindfulness, turning subconscious experiences into actionable reflections.