Sutera Dream Deep Pillow

What is the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow?

This pillow is the flagship item of Sutera, a home goods company that sells bed and bath items. Its other products include silk sleep masks, bath towels, aromatherapy, and luxury hair products.

Made of firm-yet-breathable memory foam, the Dream Deep Pillow is designed to help you sleep more comfortably by molding to fit your head and improving your spinal alignment. Different sleeping positions often require pillows of different firmnesses for maximum support and comfort—at Reviewed, we make recommendations to suit your preferred sleep position for this reason. The Dream Deep Pillow aims to be a one-size-fits-all solution for stomach sleepers, back sleepers, and side sleepers alike.

One of the pillow’s main features is its contoured edges, which the company dubs its “butterfly” design. Notches at the side of the pillow create small pockets of space that allow you to snuggle the pillow as you drift off without causing circulation problems for your arms. Back sleepers can tuck one arm under the pillow using one of the contoured rests; side sleepers can hug the edges. The pillow also has a slight dip at its center which creates a nook for your head.

What I liked about the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow

The pillow made back sleeping more comfortable

I am a natural stomach sleeper, but I experimented with different sleeping positions to test the Dream Deep Pillow. It made resting on my back noticeably more comfortable, thanks to the dip in the center of the pillow. That contouring held my head and neck in place, and made me feel supported in a way standard pillows do not. I didn’t feel as if my head was lolling to one side or the other, which often happens as I drift off in this position.

The pillow worked well for side sleeping, too, though the improvement wasn't as noticeable as it was for back sleeping for me. Using the arm notches afforded me a bit more stability on my side than I have with my cheap home pillows.

It has a good level of firmness

I thought the Dream Deep Pillow’s memory foam material struck a nice balance between cushy and supportive: It feels soft enough to make me rest comfortably, but firm enough to provide support. Much like Baby Bear’s bed, it felt just right.

It provides cooling support

The cooling memory foam in the Dream Deep Pillow worked as advertised: The Sutera pillow was noticeably cooler at night than my normal bed pillows.

What I didn’t like about the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow

It smelled for several days after opening

It is normal for foam mattresses and pillows to smell bad when they are first opened. This is because the material releases “volatile organic compounds,” or VOCs, a phenomenon known as off-gassing. VOCs usually aren’t dangerous to healthy adults​, though some may have carcinogenic effects at high levels. Either way, they smell icky.

Sutera warns that its pillow will off-gas upon opening, so I was prepared to let it air out for a day. Unfortunately, the pillow smelled too much for snuggling for several days. I left it lying on my bedroom floor for nearly a week until I was sure it no longer smelled. Each day I would pick it up, sniff it, and decide it still smelled too much like chemicals for me to want to put my head on it. This initial impression did not make me excited to sleep with the Dream Deep Pillow.

It isn’t compatible with normal pillow cases

Due to its unusual shape, the Dream Deep Pillow isn't really compatible with normal pillow cases. It comes with a removable, washable cover to protect it so this isn’t a huge deal, but I’d imagine most buyers would be annoyed that they can’t encase it with their favorite organic cotton or silk pillowcase. If you’re not a fan of the pillow’s polyester cover, you might be out of luck.

It wasn’t comfortable for stomach sleeping

Even though I enjoyed back sleeping with this pillow, I thought it was lacking for stomach sleeping. It wasn't noticeably more comfortable than the cheap fiberfill pillows I own at home. I felt that having my head in the pillow's center dip felt more suffocating than with a normal pillow. I also didn’t find the butterfly arms useful for stomach sleeping. I usually sleep with my arms close to my body, not around my head. Pillows aren’t that heavy, so even if I move an arm near my head, I’m generally okay having it tucked under a normal pillow.

What do other people say about the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow?

This pillow fairs pretty well with online reviewers, though it’s hard to say exactly how well. It has 5 stars and over 3,000 reviews on the company’s website, but only 3.8 stars from over 5,000 reviews on Amazon.

Several negative reviews also flag the smell as an issue. “I can't even try it,” writes one Amazon customer, who gave the pillow a single star. “The smell of the foam is so bad.”

Others rave about its ability to alleviate neck and shoulder pain. “My sleep has been so much better since I started using it,” writes another customer on Amazon, who gave it 5 stars. “The pillow conforms perfectly around my neck, allowing me to sleep comfortably on my back or side without the usual back pain.”

Perhaps most importantly, several reviewers say they find the arm contouring to be a boon to their comfort. “I have found the curves for your hands to be very useful for my sleeping as I am mostly a side sleeper,” writes another Amazon customer, who gave it 5 stars.

Is the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow worth it?

It could be, for a certain person

I don’t hate the Dream Deep Pillow, but I don’t love it either.

If you’re a side sleeper who feels like your arms get in the way at night and impede your ability to fall or stay asleep, sure, give it a shot. If you’re a back sleeper looking for more support and a head-cradling sensation, you might like it as well. The pillow comes with a 30-day window for returns, so you can try it out without fully committing. But if you're a stomach sleeper, I say avoid it.

If ‘butterfly wings” don’t sound appealing to you, I think you can do better than the Sutera Dream Deep Pillow, which costs about $60. For almost the same price, you can purchase the Brooklinen Marlow Pillow. I tried it for stomach sleeping and found it the right balance of supporting my face without smothering me. The pillow has a zipper that can be moved to control how firm or soft it feels. You can also get the Coop Home Goods Original Pillow, our favorite pillow here at Reviewed, for just a few dollars more. That pillow also offers the option to give or take the filling and even comes with extra stuffing that also allows a sleeper more control in changing the pillow’s firmness level.

You can also find other contoured pillows for cheaper prices online. The AM Aeromax Contour Memory Foam Pillow, for example, has 4.3 stars from well over 1,000 reviews on Amazon, and costs about half the price of the Dream Deep Pillow.

However, if you’re looking for a pillow with arm rests and you’re OK without using your standard pillowcase, Sutera is worth a shot.