Why should you keep a dream journal? The reason is simple. For many of us interpreting meaning or decoding messaging from our dreams remains a complete mystery. The vast majority of people either don’t remember their dreams or find that the fragments they do recall make little sense and are confusing. Our journal helps resolve that!
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Sleep And Dreaming.
We are all aware of the importance of restful sleep and the many benefits for our mind and body. Sleep provides us the chance to recharge both physically and mentally.
Sleep provides us a retreat. It allows us to take a break from the stress of the world and enables our mind to wander and imagine.
Throughout the centuries every civilization has been fascinated with the dreaming state. Many of these cultures developed detailed theories about meanings and developed detailed guidance in relation to interpreting meaning.
More recently we have seen a great deal of interest stemming from the scientific community with a number of research projects being carried out.
The results of these scientific studies are fascinating and seem to support the fact that dreaming can make us smarter, spark our creativity, help our memory recall, and also make us more curious.
The downside is that to gain these benefits, we need to be aware of what occurs within our nighttime escapades. Sadly most of us forget them almost instantly upon wakening and before we have had a chance to truly explore them.
Journaling can help us document our night time experiences and potentially help us dream more often.
Keep A Dream Journal – 50 pages of interpretation dictionary and 150 pages of interpretation guides
Why Keep A Dream Journal?
Yours may be about great golden palaces, flying above the clouds or exotic distant lands. Perhaps your they are of shark infested waters or the mother-in-law (or perhaps that’s the same thing!)
Whatever they contain it is important to remember that your dreams are a way for your subconscious to be constantly communicating with you. They are integral to better understanding your waking life, your emotions, stresses, victories and your overall mental well-being.
They are the voice of your unconscious mind. They are packed with meaning and important messages. But you can only understand the meanings and decode the messages if you pay attention!
There are a great deal of theories that attempt to explain the purpose of dreaming. The one consistent aspect of all theories, that all experts agree upon, is that to keep a dream journal is an important first step for gaining understanding.
By keeping a daily journal you gain valuable information about your innermost thoughts and insight into what is truly important to you.
It is also an easy and simple method that helps you identify any recurring patterns. We begin to recognize trends such as similar concepts, images or symbols that may show up.
The saying “Practice makes perfect” is usually applied to daily life, such as learning something new at school or when developing the skills needed for a new job or hobby. You know that the more you do something the better you will get at it.
The same applies to your dreams. The more you practice the better you will get. The more focus you place on remembering details the more detail you will remember.
It is this detail that will help you to interpret any meaning and point you toward the aspects in your life that require further attention.
7 Simple Steps To Keep A Dream Journal.
Step 1 – Remembering The Day.
Before you retire for sleep spend a few minutes reminding yourself of what occurred in your day.
Make some simple notes about the keys aspects that you remember. Who are the people that you saw and spoke too? What did you do and where were you?
Try to recall any moments that caused your emotions to spike. It is important to note both positive and negative.
Step 2 – Setting Intent.
Setting of intent is where you programme your subconscious and energetic bodies to remember your dreams.
This is especially important if you are someone who finds it difficult to remember them when you wake.
This step establishes your desired intention. It helps you convince your subconscious that you do want to recall and remember them.
In your journal write your intention and then spend a few moments reading it . Ensure your intent is stated as fact.
An example is: “I will dream tonight. When I wake I will remember all details and will retain them long enough to record them all in my journal.”
Once this is done place your journal beside your bed. You will want it close for when you wake.
Step 3 – Waking Recall.
At the moment you wake up stay perfectly still, don’t even open your eyes, and spend time on your waking recall. This may take a little practice!
Ask yourself “What was the last thing in my mind?” Give a moment and if nothing comes, keep gently requesting. “What was the last thing i pictured happening in my mind?”
When you remember something, regardless of how significant you may think it is, focus on it. Now start to work in reverse. Give yourself some prompts such, “And what was happening before that?”
When you remember the next detail ask the same question. “What was happening before that?”
Keep doing this until you have remembered as much of the detail as possible. When you believe you have all the recall available go over the remembered details in your head one more time to see if anything further arises.
Step 4 – Keep A Dream Journal Close To Record.
Now get your journal and start noting down this recall. I suggest doing this as memorable words rather than sentences.
Even if believe you have remembered each event in the recall step it is very easy to forget. Once your conscious mind starts requiring you to focus your thinking on other detail you can lose the rest of your recalled memory.
By using words rather than sentences you are more likely to retain everything recalled, and be able to get it on paper. Note down the key pictures as words such as “house”, “Eric”, “Flying”, “Painting”, “Anger”, “Several Butterflies“, “Dropping.”
Step 5 – Expand Upon The Words.
Now that you have your sequence and your key words you can begin recording the detail. You can spend time exploring and expanding upon each of the words in the sequence.
You are less likely to forget other aspects of your recall because of the words you developed in Step 4. They trigger your subconscious recall. What you have done is enable a mental hook so that your mind can easily return to the memory through word association.
When you begin recording the dream details it is best if you use first person present tense. This ensures you gather the information that is important to you. For example write the detail as: “I am… (what are you doing)”, “I see…”, “I feel…” etc.
You also need to ensure you note the setting, the people or animals involved, your actions, other peoples or animals actions and any emotions you experienced.
What is also important is to note how you felt when you woke up. When you keep a dream journal record of being happy, tired, sad, fearful etc. it allows you to go beyond just that one day. You can review a period of time, a week, a month a year and look for meaning within the patterns that may emerge.
Give each journal entry its own title and ensure your record the date and if possible the time.
Step 6 – Keep A Dream Journal To Find Day Residue.
Spend some time focusing on what occurred the day before and read the notes you recorded the night before.
Do you see any themes emerging? Do the emotions or actions relate to events that have recently occurred in your waking life?
This is known as “Day Residue”. It is the dreaming of someone you know, or something you saw or actions you took. Recognising day residue is important because your subconscious mind is linking events, people or actions to stored memories.
You need to focus on this residue and ask what is the reason for that event, that person, or that object appearing in your dreams at this point of time?
Step 7 – Non Related Links.
Once you have linked aspects of your dream to day residue you need to focus on those words, thoughts and feelings that remain.
You need to list the emotions, thoughts, people, events that occur in your dream that cannot easily be linked to aspects of your daily life.
Over time patterns, trends and pictures will appear. It may be that your subconscious is sending you messaging and reminding you of something important for your life.
Your subconscious may be urging you to end associations that are unhealthy, or to follow a new path. Messages and meanings may be as simple as beginning a new hobby, or finding new interests.
Likewise you may be receiving messaging that is crucial for your future happiness and well being.
When you keep a dream journal and use it regularly you start to see patterns and recurring themes. These may be emotions, or people, or taking part in specific activities.
Whether day residue or non related, if patterns emerge you can be sure they are pointing too aspects of your life that need your attention.
Handy Templates To Record Your Dreams
These dream journal templates from Sleep Advisor were created to help you get you started. Each template serves a different purpose, from simply recording them to interpreting them.
For ambitious souls, use the templates to acknowledge your fears and set intentional goals for your nightly slumber.
If you’re a vivid dreamer, you’ve probably encountered some magical experiences that have you asking a lot of questions.
While there are many different interpretations, one thing for certain is that they reflect memories and experiences of our everyday lives.
If we accept that our dreams reflect our past, and of happenings in the present, then surely they can also be used to set focus for our future.
Keep A Dream Journal – Our Recommendation.
Get The Very Best – The Dream Key
The Dream Key is designed to help you discover their hidden meanings. This guided journal is truly one of a kind, The Dream Key Notebook and Journal has 50 pages explaining hundreds of symbols and objects and how they can be interpreted to bring meaning to you.
The keys, symbols and explanations provide you with enough understanding for you to draw meaning from your recordings and to begin interpreting. As well as 50 pages of symbology information, including hundreds of common objects, the Dream Key also provides 150 pages of guided notebook and journaling pages.
This gives huge amount of space for you to write, draw and interpret dreams. Each page is clearly explained and leads you, step by step through the sequence needed to analyze and interpret. The Dream Key is one of the very best if you are serious about analyzing and understanding the deeper meaning held in your dreams.
Summary
The front of this journal includes a 50 page dream dictionary, featuring hundreds of common symbols, colors and objects and their meanings.
The Dream Key journal provides a path to gain meanings which then helps you manage emotions, improve self awareness, develop empathy and leads to understanding others better. Dreams are often highly emotional so this journal enables you to give freedom to your emotion and creativity.
The Dream Key Notebook and Journal is a trusted go to guide as a gift, or for those looking to find the hidden meanings of their dreams.
+ 50 pages of detailed key analysis and guidance
+ Full detail of what certain objects, items and symbols mean
+ 150 pages of guided interpretation
+ 5 sequences and step by step guidance
Dream Analysis Guidebooks and Journals.
