Whether you had the most wonderful dream or woke up sweating after an intense nightmare: your dreams can communicate messages. And it doesn’t matter what age, gender, race, culture or religion you are: we all have access to these hidden messages from out subconscious mind. But in order to analyze your dreams and discover their hidden meaning, you first need to remember your dreams. And the best way to do that is by keeping a dream journal.
What is a dream journal?
A dream journal is a journal to record and reflect on your dreams. It offers you a place where you can write down the details of your dreams, including the people, places, events, emotions and thoughts that you remember.
Why should I keep a dream journal?
Keeping a dream journal can be beneficial in several ways. Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider starting a dream journal:
It improves your dream recall: by consistently recording your dreams in a dream journal, you train your brain to prioritize and store dream memories.
Dream journaling enables you to gain insight in your subconscious thoughts and emotions: keeping track of your dreams can provide clues to your innermost desires, fears and hopes.
People who keep track of their dreams tend to be more creative: when you’re asleep, your mind is free to make connections and associations that you may not be able to make when you’re awake and focused on more immediate concerns
You can look back at your dreams to find information that might help you solve some problems in your real life.
Dreams can show you what’s going on in your life and keeping a dream journal may help you become aware of anxiety and other emotions in your life that need to be addressed. It can also help you identify recurring patterns in your dreams. For instance: are you always in a certain place and/or time? Is there always a certain person with you or are you always alone? Or maybe there’s a particular plant, animal or other object that always shows up?
A dream journal can help you keep track of whether your dreams involve more negative or more positive emotions which could be useful in helping you track your emotional and mental state. For instance: people who have more peace of mind tend to dream mostly about positive emotions.
Keeping a dream journal can help you understand yourself better: it can help you view yourself differently, it can help you make connections between some things that are happening in your life and it can learn you new things about yourself and your place in the world.
A few tips on how to keep a dream journal
Some people write or even draw their dreams in a notebook while others type them on a laptop, use a voice recorder or download a smartphone app so there’s not just one way of keeping a dream journal.
But regardless of how and when you keep track of your dreams: there are some things that can help you get the most out of your dream journaling:
Set an intention before going to sleep: remind yourself that you want to remember your dreams. And if you want to try to find a solution for a specific problem: focus on that problem before going to sleep.
Keep your dream journal near to your bed and journal first thing in the morning: writing down your dreams as soon as you wake up can help you remember them more clearly because that way they’re still fresh in your mind. So don’t hit the snooze button and definitely don’t wait till you’re out of bed to fill in your dream journal. And in case you wake up in the middle of the night remembering a dream and you feel like recording it: go ahead.
Details: write down or record everything you remember such as the main characters, the actions, what time it is, the environment, the emotions, the sights and sounds, the feelings, the colors and objects that appeared in your dream and whether the dream felt positive or negative.
Write in the present tense: write your dreams as if you’re currently experiencing them. This can help you remember the details more clearly. And don’t worry about grammar or spelling: the goal of a dream journal is to record your dreams as accurately as possible so it doesn’t need to look perfect.
Get enough sleep: ensure that you have as much time as possible to dream. Which means at least seven hours of sleep per day if you’re an adult.
Do you have a dream journal?
©HolisticHappiness2023
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