Meet the LEGO® DREAMZzz™ Chief Dream Creators: How six creative kids dreamt big and took Billund by storm

To shine a light on the limitless creative power of children’s dreams, we launched a competition to find six wildly imaginative kids to act as Chief Dream Creators. Then we flew them to the Home of the LEGO Group to meet with our LEGO® DREAMZzz™ designers, inspiring us all in the art of dreaming big.

A dragon with a body made of clouds, carrying a house on its back that’s also a magical library.

A booster-propelled, mail-delivering giraffe, splendidly named Giraffe Mail.

A seahorse-submarine mashup, stocked with diving equipment.

Wait, there’s more.

There’s the Dreamstone Guardian, who looks kind of like a panther, sports vents for underwater breathing and can shrink to the size of a domestic cat. It guards dream stones. (Note to self: get some dream stones.)

There’s a flying frog, straight out of a 6-year-old’s dream. He talked about it all day after waking up and then built it with bricks. It’s gorgeously toothy.

And to wrap it all up, the Vara-Wasp! A wasp-monitor-lizard combo who hates city living and prefers to fly around lovely meadows, smelling with its... tongue.

Reading that list of dream-like creations, you can see why these six kids were chosen as LEGO® DREAMZzz™ Chief Dream Creators. They come from Hungary, Poland, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. The youngest is just 6 years old (we know, right?!), the rest between the ages of 11 and 12.

We called for kids who dream. They answered

The LEGO Group put out a search call for a team of kids to champion the creative power of dreams. We tasked children to build or draw their own dream creature and explain who it was and why it was special.

In no time, we were flooded (no, seriously, flooded!) with the wildest, wackiest, most dream-like creations we’d seen in a long time. We loved it! Kids all over the world are dreaming, and they’re using their dreams to power their creativity, big time.

(Having to select only six kids out of them all? Now that was a real nightmare.)

Destination Billund

Next step: get the kids to HQ. Famously, the home of The LEGO Group is tucked in the cozy little town of Billund, Denmark – popular with cows and playful people, many of whom are children.

From the moment the Chief Dream Creators arrived, their agenda was filled with fun, creativity and lots of inspiration – and so was ours:

• An epic hands-on-bricks workshop with LEGO DREAMZzz designers, where they got to build a whole dream world for their winning dream creature (they also built their creature’s favorite food – in just 2 minutes! Masters of creativity in action.)
• The unveiling of the full, professional-artwork version of their dream creatures, together with hand-built LEGO brick versions built by the LEGO DREAMZzz designers themselves.
• A super-secret VIP screening of LEGO DREAMZzz episodes which haven’t aired yet (We’re a little jealous.)
• The gifting of special bumper goodie bags, packed with LEGO DREAMZzz products which aren’t out in the world yet.

Pro tip: Keep a look out for those artworked creatures. You may see them featuring in LEGO DREAMZzz animations in 2024.

The Board speaks: The Chief Dream Creators, in their own words

For Marisol, the 12-year-old creator of the Dreamer Dragon, the trip from her home in the United States to Billund was a journey of inspiration:

“Seeing my dream creature, the Dreamer Dragon, brought to life made me very emotional. The designers captured its details perfectly, and it made me feel so inspired to imagine more and use my creativity in the future.”

Here’s what Matthew, the Singaporean 11-year-old who created the Giraffe Mail, told us:

“Coming all the way to Billund as a Chief Dream Creator was such a fun experience and I’ll never forget it. I brought my Giraffe Mail dream creature with me and was excited to meet the LEGO DREAMZzz team.”

Samuel, also 11, and from the UK, shared that “taking part in the workshop got me thinking really creatively, and I’m happy the designers liked my Seahorse Submarine (…) It was just as I had imagined it to look. I really enjoyed meeting the other LEGO DREAMZzz Chief Dream Creators from around the world and found it interesting to hear about their designs and creations.”

“I was so happy to see the Vara-Wasp as a brick model and hold it in my hands. The designers made it perfectly. It had lots of great details that inspired me,” said Gergő Zoltán from Hungary. And it looks like we may have found a future designer in the 12-year-old, as he added: “It was a lifetime experience for me, I’ve wanted to be a LEGO designer for a long time, it was really great to get a little insight into this world.”

Stanisław, the Polish 6-year-old fly-frog dreamer, had a blast: “When we entered LEGO Campus, I was speechless, I don’t have such cool things in kindergarten as they do! When I grow up, I will also play golf, eat dinners like this and create wonders from blocks. I think they’re setting up a small office for me there since I’m part of a group. I just have to… [counts with his fingers] wait a few years.”

You know what, Stanisław? We can’t wait either.

The thing about dreams: They matter

We’re proudly obsessed with kids’ creativity and play here in Billund. We’re constantly scanning the world for opportunities to spot it, nurture it, and get inspired by it. It was only inevitable that we would turn to dreams, and the power of dreams to fuel kids’ imaginations in the real world.

Working with the LEGO Group, psychologist and behavioral sleep expert Dr. Shelby Harris, says:

“Kids are natural dreamers and experimenters, but as they get older, societal pressures begin to confine them and limit their imaginations. Dreaming is a universal phenomenon generally welcomed by children across the globe. With more stress and demands in their daily lives, encouraging free play and creativity is important in today’s world. The research has clearly shown that kids that have access to free play time increase their frequency of dreams and as a result makes them feel happier and more imaginative.”

Research tells us that 7 out of 10 kids experience complex emotions like stress or loneliness in their daily lives. Sleep experts say dreams can play a key role in helping children process complex emotions and engage their imaginations. And kids themselves agree: two-thirds of children say dreams help them be more creative during the day.

And that’s the ambition of LEGO DREAMZzz, the Group’s latest play theme – which is also a show, and a very exciting one at that. There are wild mashups, creatures, vehicles, goodies versus baddies in a battle for the world of dreams – and the real world, too. All of it at the service of one goal: empowering kids to create the world of their wildest dreams.

After our Chief Dream Creators visit, it’s going to get a whole lot wilder. New episodes are airing from August 11^th, and epic sets are available now. Buckle up!