Tips for a Dream Journal

[Wesley]

I have started keeping a dream journal. I listened to Stef's recent podcast with the social worker/psychologist who said that when he did it, he would wake up and write down the dream real quick and maybe a short analysis and go back to bed. In the morning, he would then do a more extensive analysis as he reads through it. I am planning on implementing this.

My issue is that I have trouble remembering my dreams. I know that I dream at least most of the time. I often wake up in the morning with the tip of a dream in my mind, but I can't remember it. I remmeber about 2 dreams a month when I likely dream a couple dreams a night.

Has anyone else gone through this? How can I remember my dreams better? Any tips on analyzing a dream once I have on down? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Thanks [blowkiss]

[TheRobin]

With pretty much everything that has to do with the psyche, the unconcious or subconsious (or however you want to call it) or those parts of yourself you normally don't have or get access to, my experience was that asking politely and respectfully worked really well :)And trying to force it doesn't work well at all

[cherapple]

I don't have any tips for you because I haven't had much success with increasing dream recall either. I would think that three years of listening to FDR, having meaningful conversations, journaling, writing my dreams down, talking about them with interested people, and doing therapy would all combine to provide a welcome mat to my nightly unconscious, but I still wake up most mornings and my dreams pop like balloons before I'm barely awake. 

I'm wondering what sleeping, waking, and dreaming were like for you in childhood. What do you remember about your inner experiences, in relation to your outer experiences? What was it like for you when you woke up in the morning as a child? What was it like for you if you woke up in the middle of the night? Do you remember any particular dreams, night-time, or morning experiences?

Cheryl

[Wesley]

 

 

I'm wondering what sleeping, waking, and dreaming were like for you in childhood. What do you remember about your inner experiences, in relation to your outer experiences? What was it like for you when you woke up in the morning as a child? What was it like for you if you woke up in the middle of the night? Do you remember any particular dreams, night-time, or morning experiences?

 

 

As a baby, there was one time that I have been told where my mom kind of forgot to get me up in the morning and all of a sudden realized that I had been there for several hours longer than she expected. She then ran into my room, but I was upright and happy, presumably I had slept extra for most of the time and had just gotten up to play with the toys in my crib.

What I remember of sleep is that I never seemed to be able to get enough as a child. I had school on weekdays and would have to get up to my alarm (which half the time I slept through and had to be woken up by my parents). Part of this was a general not wanting to go to school, which I found boring and pointless, and part of it was that I hadn't slept enough. I had an early bedtime which I couldn't sleep at. I would always end up reading or on my phone until too late and not get up easily in the morning. On Saturday, I couldn't sleep in because I had to do chores and having 1 day a week where I was relatively idle and could sleep in was a negative in my father's eyes. I also had to get up on Sunday morning as we had church.

I don't remember this as I am sleeping, but apparently when my mom would get me up when I missed my alarm, I would tell her that I am awake and have conversations, but I was somehow not conscious of what was going on and I would actually be sleeping or immediately go back to sleeping.

I may have trouble falling asleep, but I almost never wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe once every 6 months to a year with a vivid dream about falling, which I woke up and then fell right back asleep.

I can't remember any particular dreams. I was not enthusiastic about trying to remember them at the time.

I'm thinking now once that I had a nightmare and talked to my father about it. He told me that it didn't need to be scary and that it was in my mind and that I could control it. So I had the dream again and apparently (I would know it as now) consciously repressed my subconscious thoughts at the time.

Thats all I can think of.

[cherapple]

How did your parents treat you when you didn't get up or go to sleep when they wanted you to? One thing I'd like to point out is that they didn't "have to" get you up in the morning, especially seven days a week, nor did they have to send you to bed before you were tired. Lots of children (growing numbers) aren't forced to go to school, do chores, or go to church. There's quite a bit of rejection of you in those  actions alone, which would have taught you to reject yourself and your subconscious—to bring the subject back to dreams.

For myself, I experienced a lot of anxiety producing, rejecting, and downright dangerous events both during the day and at night as a child, which led me to be a very light sleeper, and to sleep on constant hiper alert. Also when my uncsonscious has attempted to alert me to painful situations in my life, past and present, there are parts of me that come up immediately and reject the message. That makes sense because as a child, I was totally powerless to express what was going on for me, or to do anything about it. I just had to get up each day and put one foot in front of the other, no matter what hell was going on around me. I think that's why ignoring or "forgetting" my dreams has become so automatic.

I was wondering if there were similar reasons for you.

[Wesley]

Well there was no "not going to sleep when they wanted me to". Out of fear, we (and my mother would also have fear and get us to go upstairs) would run upstairs when we heard him stir sometime around scheduled bedtime. Staying up usually would have carried the threat of verbal abuse, punitive punishments, and all of that would be complied with at the risk of physical abuse.As we would get older and had the ability to fight back, or to leave the house he would reduce the potential punishments or threats. As a senior, if I was going to stay out past 10:30 or 11, I needed to find a place to spend the night. He has to get up and check all the doors when one person opens one door. It is an OCD tendency to relieve anxiety about people breaking in at night.

I also understand that they did not have to get me up, but they chose to, regardless of my opinions on the matter. My opinions rarely mattered. While learning was encouraged in the intellectual sense, I was "guided" to have their opinions (obviously the internet has made that irrelevant) and my parents had nearly 0 emotional presence to talk about feelings, opinions, or dreams.

I would imagine that the nightmare I remember may have had something warning me, or reliving of a past experience. Of course, my dream was not listened to, and like many of my opinions, emotions, etc I was taught that the proper response was to repress the dream, emotion rather than express, record and/or analyze it.

I am not a light sleeper obviously. I have always liked to sleep. I wonder if in some way, sleep is some sort of escape from the world. Even if I didn't remember it the next day, sleep was a pleasant experience.

It easily could be a taught or learned response to dreams and feelings to repress them, rather that openly express and analyze them by bringing them into consciousness.

 

[Stephen C]

Forget about new dreams, work on dreams you do remember. Doesn't matter if you already have, keep exploring dreams you do remember. Thank and send appreciation to your unconscious for serving you these tasty dreams. Give that a shot and see what happens. I was talking to a fine gentleman in the chat room a few weeks ago who said he hadn't remembered a dream in almost a year. I asked what the last dream he remembers having was and we explored that dream and what was going on in his waking life around that time. I think we did a thorough job and made some great connections, he thought so as well. He emailed me the next day and guess what it was, a fresh juicy detailed dream he remembered from the night before.  

[Drew.]

I have a few tips. I can usually recall my dreams if anything sticks out. At my prime of dream journaling I could recall maybe three to four dreams in a night and write a page or more in details. I don't know how much of it is just my own workings or the efforts that I've put in. When I don't write them down, I can usually analyze a few things about a dream.

But here are a few things I recommend. Before you go to bed, write in your dream journal. I usually write the time at which I'm going in bed at. I also write any down any substance that may be affecting my dream (melatonin, caffeine, alcohol). I find melatonin makes dreams more vivid, and it helps me to fall asleep faster. I leave my notebook lying next to me on my bed. Get comfortable and making everything super easy for yourself the next morning. All of this has you primed for remembering your dreams. You may want to fall asleep thinking "I will remember my dream."

When you wake up, don't do anything! Dreams fly away with movement. There are few things that can scatter stray dream clouds than a swift gust of throwing off the covers. Try to remember the key aspects of your dream. Where were you? Who was there? What happened? Was there anything strange? Write down as much as you can possibly remember. If you only remember that you were in a forest with your friend, write that down. If you remember a key scene where you open a fridge with a lot of jerky and no one else in your dream and you begin to think that it's human meat, write that down too. I find that if I have a few trailheads, it makes reconnecting the dream much easier. I can't say it's a perfectly precise recollection, but it's enough.

Okay, so you've been motionless for a minute and you've remembered what you dream about. Now. Write. Maybe write down big details first of all the dreams you remember and then go into more details. But the key is to write until you're empty.

If your remember the tip, write that down. Write down everything you can. Prime yourself to remember your dreams. Don't move until you have enough to write about.

 

I highly recommend that you check out sources for lucid dreaming. A lot of lucid dreaming guides teach how to improve dream recall (what's the point of having lucid dreams if you don't remember them?). This guy wrote a few of the first guides on lucid dreaming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_LaBerge

I'm sure you can also check out Lifehacker or Reddit or some other source like that which can provide a lot of material.

[Wesley]

Thanks for everyone's input. I was on vacation last week, so I wasn't focusing on such things. I will plan on becoming more serious about my dream journaling in the upcoming weeks and maybe months. I'll let you know if I run into problems again or need any help.

Thanks again.

[applause]