As a Dreampunk author, keeping a dream journal is a pretty natural thing to do. I used to keep up with one years ago but I had fallen off the wagon. However, I had been wanting to get back into it for a while and finishing up writing my Dreampunk trilogy, the ROAM series, inspired me to start!
The benefit of keeping a dream journal, other than immortalizing some of the most embarrassing things that might ever run through your mind (is that a pro or a con?), is that it makes you incredibly self-aware.
I believe that dreams serve two purposes. The first being exercises from your own subconscious in the form of critical thinking challenges. Suppose there's an issue in your waking life that you keep ignoring. Your dreams present the matter to you in order for you to work out a solution. Or maybe you're anxious because of something that you fear and so your dreams facilitate a controlled environment where you have the opportunity to face that fear and hopefully conquer it. The second purpose that I believe dreams have is to serve as a connection to the universal subconscious. When we sleep, our minds are free and we are more receptive. Have you ever had an instance where you were thinking about a song, got in the car, turned on the radio, and that very song was playing? Have you ever thought about a person or place that hadn't crossed your mind in years and then later that day or the next, suddenly you find out news about them or you start to see others mentioning them everywhere? That's the power of the universal subconscious. And so why wouldn't the universe relay messages through dreams? I know, my inner-Ethan Roam is showing here. :)
To create my dream journal, I chose a basic journal design that was available at Michael's Arts & Crafts. Since I'm a planner addict, I knew I wanted to decorate it similarly to how I use my daily planner. I ended up choosing the Happy Planner "Free Spirit" sticker sheets because they had a lot of moon, dream, and zodiac options that fit perfectly.
For fun, I went ahead and decorated the first page with some of the stickers and a few of my favorite dream-related quotes.
The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I've included a couple of photos of the more entertaining entries here. I journal what my dream was, mark if it was a good dream or a nightmare, and what the interpretation might be. I would say that most are fairly obvious but if you're unsure what to make of yours or if you're not familiar with dream analysis already then you can always use dream interpretation guides. There are a few free websites that can help with this. To decorate, I like to add little doodles to illustrate something memorable from the dream and add a few stickers and washi tape to fill the space.
I've kept up with this journal throughout June and I will continue to keep dream journaling. I try to journal shortly after I wake up so that I don't forget any details because we all know how quickly they slip away. I also don't journal on days that I don't remember what I dreamed or if the dream was something that was truly upsetting to the point that I'd rather just forget it than write it down. So, dream journaling doesn't have to be too time-consuming if you'd like to give it a try.
(Even though it was a nightmare, this dream makes me laugh now.)
The majority of my dreams this month actually ended up being centered around writing/publishing--so that was interesting. Also, I'm apparently scared of alligators (?? News to me.) so that will make our tentative visit to Gatorland later this year very interesting. LOL
Do you keep a dream journal? Is it something that you'd like to try? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading,
Dez
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