When you remember your dreams, do you write them down in a journal? If you do, well done, keep going. If you don’t, why not start tomorrow morning!
I have been keeping a dream journal for nearly five years now and have noticed that I feel more anticipation and excitement when I wake up than ever before. I feel like a detective wondering what clues I am returning with from the dream realm! The stories I come back with are of all sorts: from adventures to premonitory dreams, from past lives to parallel lives, from magical realism to the downright ordinary. Sometimes I wake up with tears in my eyes; at other times with shivers of pleasure or fear. If a dream frightens me, I know I can do a dream re-entry and, in a lucid dream state, go back inside it to face the scary thing or situation and thus move past it.
There are many reasons why keeping a dream journal is important and I will share with you my top 3 favourite ones:
1) It turns you into a writer! Have you ever wanted to write a book? Well, this is the perfect way to start. As well as writing down your night dreams in your journal, you can also include interesting things that happened to you during the day: synchronicities and coincidences are my favourites to include in my journal.
2) It brings powerful healing! When we dream, we connect with a part of ourselves that is outside our ego. I call it the soul or the higher self. It is the part of us which is eternal and which knows who we really are and what our purpose in this life is. It is the part of us which we have become disconnected from due to our childhood upbringing or traumas. Through our dreams, we begin to re-connect with that part of us that got lost and we re-awaken the powerful dreamer in us.
3) It’s fun! Yes, that’s true, because it activates the playful child within you. As well as writing down your dreams, you can also draw images from them, turn them into a poem, make up a story, and get as creative as you like. Keep a case full of colouring pencils beside your dream journal and be amazed by what you produce.
On a more practical note, here are some things you can include in the layout of your dream journal:
– the date and place
– an intention (if you set one the night before)
– the time (especially if you wake up a number of times during the night)
– your dream (or dream fragment)
– a title for your dream
– your feelings on waking
– anything you recognise from the rest of your life
– anything that could play out in the future
– any questions you have about your dream
– any associations that come to mind
– one or more action steps you will take to honour your dream
– a one-line catchphrase to capture its essence.