Dream
Journaling

Everyone dreams...

  ...but not everyone is lucky enough to remember them without some practice. We spend almost a third of our lives sleeping, and it seems to me it might be wise to pay a little bit of attention to what happens when our subconscious takes over each night.

 Vivid dreams

  I’ve had vivid dreams all my life, and many years of trying to analyze them inspired the core idea of my May 2004 Dorchester Love Spell time travel

Dreamquest

  It all started with this question: Have you ever had that strange feeling when you’re not quite awake, but not really asleep...and you weren’t quite sure what was real? And, what if your dream was one of those perfect dreams where everything is more the way things should be...would you stay if you could?

  In Dreamquest, Suzanne Lucas has recurring dreams where she sees herself living in the desert. And the boy she sees in her dreams grows to become a man, a virile warrior --- just as she becomes an ethnobotanist teaching at the local university.  As the story begins, Suzanne’s friend helps her analyze a particularly vivid dream.  I hope you will invest some time to perfect your own methods of recalling and examining your dreams.

My favorite dreams

  I love the dreams where I fly--I simply take a running start, move my arms a little and I’m airborne.  I have a water version, too, where I commune with dolphins and I feel the ocean water flowing into my lungs just like air; I swim effortlessly for miles and miles and I feel sleek and as fluid as the water that is my home.

  But, my all time favorite dream is one that is vivid still today--one of volunteering to step on board a spaceship that lands at a family reunion picnic; I travel the universe and back, and finally get dropped off in San Francisco to attend my niece’s birthday party.  Cool, huh?  Any idea what that one means? 

Catching your dreams

  Before you go to sleep, take time to prepare to dream.  Find a way to slow your thoughts.  Meditate, take a warm bath, listen to music. Some people have good results applying simple deep breathing techniques. The goal is to free your body of as much tension and stress as possible before you sleep.

  Keep in mind that retrieving your dreams is an act of will. You’ll require a positive attitude and a strong desire.  Remind yourself as you are going to sleep that tonight you will remember your dreams and write them down.

 Recording your dreams

  Keep a notebook or journal by your bedside.  If you can’t imagine turning on the light in order to write down your thoughts, get one of those nifty lighted pens.

  A tape recorder is another way to record your dreams in the middle of the night.

  The dream you will probably remember is the usually the last dream of the night.  When you awaken, try to lie still and capture the images and the feeling of the dream.  You might try to put your body back into the position in which you were sleeping to trigger more images.

  In your dream journal, write in the present tense: I am walking along a path in the woods...

  If you have trouble finding the right words, try drawing a picture.

  Turn off your self-editor and your built-in censor.  Don’t correct your words or your grammar; just let the words gush out of you and onto the paper.  Record it all, no matter how strange or trivial it may seem.

  Identify symbols within the dream: water, trees, house, animals, etc.  Make a “symbols” box on each page of your journal and jot them down.  Your goal is to look for patterns and themes within your personal symbols and come up with your own meanings.

 Dream Analysis

   This is the tricky part.

  In 1934 Carl Jung wrote “The Practical Use of Dream Analysis,” and in it he said: “Every interpretation is an hypothesis, an attempt to read an unknown text.  An obscure dream, taken in isolation, can hardly ever be interpreted with any certainty.  For this reason I attach little importance to the interpretation of single dreams.  A relative degree of certainty is reached only in the interpretation of a series of dreams...also, the basic ideas and themes can be recognized much better in a dream-series.”

  So, a commitment is needed if you want to mine your dreams for information.

  And, if you’d like to share your dream journaling progress or even some of your most interesting dreams, email me at: mail@janetwellington.com

Wishing you happy and
interesting dreams!

~ Janet Wellington

©  Janet Wellington