If you are interested in your dreams, then a dream journal is a must. Dreams are often a reflection of your subconscious, and by writing down your dreams in a dream journal, you can keep track of what your subconscious is trying to tell you and use the information to your advantage in your waking life.
A Dream Journal Helps You To Become Better At Remembering Your Dreams
I have a friend who used to say he didn’t dream until he started a dream journal. Going to bed with the intent to write down his dreams in the morning encouraged him to remember his dreams as soon as he woke up. And he soon realized that he was actually having magical and interesting dreams.
Just like anything else, the more you practice remembering your dreams, the better you become.
Getting a dream journal and intending to use it is the first step in remembering your dreams better.
The second and third steps? Going to bed every night with the intention to remember your dreams and waking up every morning with your dream journal nearby.
The last step? Picking up your dream journal and writing everything you remember down (even if it’s just a word or a feeling) in your dream journal.
Soon you will be remembering whole dreams and even multiple dreams in complete clarity.
A Dream Journal Helps You Gain Clarity On Issues In Your Life
Recurring dreams often result from issues that keep occurring in your life or that you have not dealt with yet. These could include past hurts, fears, problems, unmet needs, and worries that you are having.
For example, I often have a dream where I am working at an old job and I’m desperately trying to get paid. In my dream, I’ve failed at my current job, and I’ve gone back to a job I hate. I know that they have withheld money from me and I’m trying to get it paid out to me, even though nobody will listen to me. All the managers that I didn’t like are there. They all treat me with disrespect and annoyance. I feel like a nuisance. I feel desperate. I feel like a failure.
Because of my dream journal, I know that this exact dream happens when I’m feeling insecure in my current line of work. It’s a signal that I’m feeling like a failure and would be willing to go back to something I hate because I feel like I can’t do what I love.
But sometimes you have a one-off dream that involves an issue you didn’t even know you had. You may have never had the dream before, but it’s clear that it’s trying to send you a message about something that is currently happening in your life.
A Dream Journal Helps You Gain Insight Into How To Solve Issues You Are Having
Sometimes dreams help you uncover issues you are having, but sometimes they give you answers.
This is why a dream journal is important. If you only go through the dream in your head – and avoid writing it down in a dream journal, you may miss important details that lead to an answer you’ve been looking for.
With a dream journal, you can write down everything from your dream and start to piece it together to make sense.
For instance, if you are struggling in your relationship and you dream about the problems you’ve had with an ex, that you had completely forgot about, your subconscious may be trying to tell you that you’ve carried some issues into your current relationship. It could also be telling you that you’ve carried some bad relationship habits into your current relationship or that you are dating someone extremely similar to your ex and things probably won’t work out no matter how hard you try. The more of your dream you recall and record, the more likely it is you will be able to figure out what the exact meaning of the dream is.
A Dream Journal Helps You Find Your Dream Symbols
The more you record your dreams each morning, the more you will recognize your dream symbols.
While you can find many dream dictionaries online and offline, dream symbols are actually personal to you.
For instance, some dream dictionaries say that a red rose indicates passion, a thriving love life, and lusty feelings, which are pretty positive. But, for you, a red rose may have a negative connotation. It may make you remember your ex who gave you a red rose just before he or she broke up with you. It may represent loss and pain to you.
This is why keeping a dream journal is important. As you write down everything you remember, you are more likely to recall these little symbols in your dream and, by using the context of the dream, use them to help you interpret your dream.
What To Include In Your Dream Journal
A dream journal should include things like:
- The details of what happened in the dream.
- How you felt in the dream. Were you happy, sad, excited, scared, or something else?
- Where were you in the dream? Home? Work? Somewhere you don’t recognize? Describe where you were.
- What was the theme of your dream? Was it a celebration or something more relaxed or mundane?
- What were the other people in the dream doing? Knowing that you often control your dream characters (or your subconscious does), writing down what they were doing could help you gain meaning out of your dream. What were you making them do? Who were you making them be?
- Did you notice any dream symbols in your dream? What were they? For example, was there water everywhere? What does water mean to you?
- Who were YOU in the dream? Sometimes you are not yourself. Sometimes you are of the opposite sex in your dream. Sometimes you are someone else that you know or don’t know.
By recording all these things in your dream journal, and then putting them together, you will find it much easier to interpret your dreams and find value in them.
What’s Going On In Your Waking Life?
Another thing you need to pay attention to is what is going on in your waking life – when you are not asleep.
Your dreams often hold answers and insights into your waking life, and you need to be aware of what’s happening so that you can use those answers and insights.
For instance, if you are working at a job you hate, but you seldom admit it to yourself, your dreams may be trying to tell you to find another job or even what kind of job you should look for. They might be giving you clues on how to enjoy your job more. Or they might be helping you work through issues that you are having at your job. By keeping a detailed dream journal, and being aware of your issues at work, you will be much more likely to find insights and solutions to the problem you are having so that you can be happier.
After all, you want yourself to be happy. And you are in control of your dreams. So, get your dream journal, take notes, and work with your dreaming self to come up with ways to be happier in life.
