Keeping A Dream Journal - Tutorial

Keeping A Dream Journal…

Once upon a time many, many years ago when I was in my late teens I decided to keep a dream journal.

Recently I’ve been sharing some tips about keeping a dream journal with one of my coworkers and so it occurs to me that perhaps I have some material for another post here at Steemit…

Okay so you think you’d like to begin keeping a dream journal? Well you can! And it’s easy!

Also it can be quite fascinating. E.g. I still remember that years before I married a certain person, I had dreamt of her and I in a romantic husband and wife kind of relationship but when I awoke and recorded the dream it really didn’t make any sense because I had only ever thought of her in a “friend” kinda way and I wasn’t even attracted to her in that guy/girl kinda way.

So upon recording the dream it fell into the category of just not making any real sense. Okay so dreams can certainly be like that, so no big deal and no surprise.

And then years later when I had found my old dream journal and was looking through it I came across that entry and WOW… Very trippy.

So that’s the kinda thing that can be interesting with dream journaling.

Okay here’s some tips.

Maybe you just aren’t remembering very many dreams right now or maybe you just don’t think you’re dreaming at all.

Well you are dreaming whether you are aware of it or not, so regardless of how many dreams you are recalling let’s just start by setting the intention.

As you’re drifting off to sleep tell yourself that you WILL recall your dreams upon waking. Don’t bothering mentioning “waking in the morning”. Just tell yourself “waking”. The reason is that you may awake in the middle of the night and you don’t want to be suggesting programming that would potentially hinder remembering at any certain times at all. Waking is waking and isn’t really time specific.

And don’t worry about it. Don’t stress about it. It will begin to happen that you remember more and more. Maybe the very first night. Maybe not noticeably for a week or so… Just don’t worry about it. It will happen. Just let it happen, and keep giving yourself those suggestions.

First probably it will happen slowly. Maybe just the memory of a dream or two. Just bits and pieces…
What ever the dream memory is, just record it. Do not attempt to analyze it. You can do that later if you like.

Notice I said “record”. Yes I strongly suggest using some kind of recording device, because really if you have to turn on a light and start writing you are more likely to forget more, than if you are just laying there with your eyes closed speaking to a digital recorder.

Very quickly I realized that I would remember more if I used the recording technique and so when I did this, way, way back so many years ago I used a micro cassette recorder.

And yeah it very much made a BIG difference.

Fortunately at the time I had a job as security guard of a Digital warehouse on the graveyard shift so I had plenty of time to transcribe the recording into my hardcopy journal.

You will really need to transfer the recordings into hardcopy because being able to flip through a book is way better than to have your dreams only as recordings because flipping through pages to peruse your journal is easy, but just staring at a recording device doesn’t do anything to help you read your dreams.

Okay now with the intention set, and you beginning to record the dreams you recall, something will begin to happen…

When you record your dreams. When you do the work, and make the effort, you’re sending a message to your subconscious mind. You’re telling your subconscious mind that you are serious about this and so it actually begins to supply you with more and more dream memories…

I mean this turns out to be a whole lot! So be prepared for a LOT of writing. Before I stopped recording my dreams, I was remembering so much each night that it actually got to be too much. I was just spending too much time writing all this down and I only stopped because I got tired of all the writing.

These days if I were to do it again, I foresee that it would be way easier because today you can use speech to text software and transcribe your recording that way, but back when I did this that option just didn’t exist.

Okay now for some tips in relation to writing in the journal itself.

I recommend that you develop your own acronyms for certain phrases that may be repeated a lot. E.g. you know how dreams don’t always line up with the way we are used to perceiving reality in the “waking state”.

Rather than knocking yourself out trying to explain in ‘waking state terms’ what happened in the dream, it may be more beneficial to getting the job done, to have some kind of acronym to fill in the space. E.g. I remember one I used was IRC. That stood for “If I Remember Correctly.” Another was if the scene in the dream changed in some kind of “dream like trippy way” that just couldn’t be described from the perspective of waking state reality anyway, I would use the acronym DDT which stood for “did some kinda dream-transition”. That way I could just keeping talking into the recorder without getting all caught up in figuring out how to possibly describe it, and in the process start losing the memory of the dream.

It’s very important to just relate the dream into the recorder and not stop to analyze it or think about it. Dream memories can be very tenuous and fade quickly!

Another good reason for developing your own acronyms and or shorthand is because if anyone besides you ever looks inside of this journal it’s a very good idea that they are not able to easily read it. A dream journal can contain some really strange things and your average individual is not equipped to understand the difference between what you experienced in a dream and who you are as a person. A dream journal is private. Develop your dream journal code with the idea in mind that someday this book will be opened by the wrong person. Okay? Okay good!

Also along those lines I recommend that your book has a lock. But remember locks only keep out honest people. Assume that whatever method you use to protect the content will someday be breached. Yup. Back to the code/acronym idea.

Well that’s all that’s occurring to me right now!

I hope this writing has been fun and informative. Please feel free to share your own “Dream Journal” tips and tricks in the comment section below and thanks again for joining me here!

See you in dreamland! :-)

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