A gentle way out
of a bad dream.
NightWatch steps in before a bad dream wakes you up. It keeps watch all night and starts at the softest possible level, rising one step at a time — the goal is to turn the dream, not to wake you.
It doesn't wake you up.
It eases you out.
Waking you is the last resort
Waking someone mid-dream breaks their sleep, and the dream can come back stronger. So the goal here is to turn the dream instead — haptics, ambient sound, quiet music, one level at a time. The moment a level works, it stops there.
It always starts at the lightest level
Watch haptics first, then ambient sound you can barely hear, then music, then a voice. The volume ceiling you set cannot be exceeded by any code path. And if you'd rather have no sound at all, haptics alone works.
The first 60 seconds after waking count too
In the first minute after you come back from a dream, you remember it most clearly. That's the window for writing it down — or rewriting it into something less frightening.
One tap before bed.
A report in the morning.
Start the night watch
Plug in your phone and tap Start. The screen dims, and everything runs quietly in the background until morning.
It learns tonight's baseline first
For the first 60–90 minutes it only observes — no sound, no vibration. After that it scores the night every few dozen seconds, using sound, heart rate and movement together.
When it needs to step in, it goes one level at a time
Each level holds for at least 30 seconds. No skipping. Every sound fades in — nothing ever starts abruptly.
It stops the moment your signals settle
As soon as your readings return to their normal range, escalation stops. It stays at that level for a few minutes, fades out, and logs the event.
More than
“nothing happened”
The few seconds of sound that mattered
Only clips judged to be events are kept — a few dozen seconds, not the whole night. Delete everything at any time, or turn capture off entirely.
Every event, one by one
In the morning the night is laid out in order. Replay the clip, or add a note of your own.
A morning report on one screen
When it happened, what happened, and which signals it went by.
Yours to export
Records export as a file. If you go see a doctor, that's far more specific than “I've been having bad dreams.”
Your audio never
leaves this device
A night of bedroom audio carries more information than every message a person has ever sent — it reveals your schedule, your health, how many people live with you, even what was said in the dark. So we designed the app not to receive it at all.
- Raw audio is processed on-device only. Never written to disk, never uploaded.
- We have no server that could receive audio.
- Only the short clip judged to be an event is stored, in the app's private container.
- Don't want to be recorded? Turn off “Save event audio” in Settings. Once it's off, not even the buffer is read.
- Delete all data in one tap. Once deleted, it cannot be recovered.
- No ad SDKs, no analytics SDKs, no cross-app tracking.
What the bundled privacy manifest says
The privacy manifest shipped with the app (PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy) declares “no tracking, no data collected.” The App Store privacy label says the same.
Some limits come
before the features
Three questions before you start
If you act out your dreams at night — hitting, kicking, getting out of bed — there's a risk of injury and a doctor should assess it first. In that case we hold back automatic intervention and keep only the recording features, and we'll suggest taking those records to a doctor. You can redo those questions any time.
Sound never starts suddenly
Every audio track fades in; nothing is ever allowed to start abruptly. Once you set a volume ceiling, no code path can exceed it. By default the highest level is one below “strong wake” — turning that on is your call.
One tap turns it all off
Every night-watch feature can be switched off in a single tap. Nothing will pop up to talk you out of it.
Disclaimer
NightWatch is a sleep companion app, not a medical device.
It gives no medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and is no substitute for care from a qualified professional. It cannot detect every sleep event and does not guarantee catching every nightmare. Do not make medical decisions based on this app.
Please consult a psychiatrist or sleep specialist promptly if any of the following applies to you:
- More than one nightmare a week for over a month
- Low mood, flashbacks or avoiding social contact
- Getting up, hitting, kicking or falling out of bed during sleep
- Excessive daytime sleepiness, or sleep problems affecting work or daily life
All audio analysis and processing happens locally on your device. Raw recordings are never uploaded to any server.
NightWatch — a gentle way out of a bad dream, before it wakes you.