Write down your dreams, they are your myths.
Joseph Campbell
The dreaming psyche is always at work. We are dreaming every night though we may not remember all of our dreams. The dreaming psyche responds to us. If it knows that we are interested in dreams, dream recall goes up. If we stop being interested and stop writing down our dreams, dream recall goes down. It works just like a muscle. It’s strong if you use it and it weakens once you stop using it.
The bedroom is a holy ground, a sacred space.
To call forward clear dreaming, we must also have a clear dream space. How can you make your sleep space more of a dreaming temple?
Cultivating a healthy dream space:
- Keep the space clean and free of clutter.
- Bring in aspects of nature such as a plants, bouquet of flowers, rocks, etc.
- Consider aromatherapy or scents to calm and induce a deeper dream state.
- Lower or dim the lights for the last hour before going to bed.
- Be mindful of the content you ingest before going to bed. What we take in before bed effects our dreams. Be mindful of what shows, books, and podcasts you’re taking in before bed. There is nothing wrong with watching a show or a movie, but you can also be more intentional about what you consume, choosing material that may enhance your dreams.
- Avoid screen time 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
- Have a small night light next to your bed for middle of the night dream scribing. The less light in the middle of the night, the better.
- WIFI: some people have found turning off their WIFI at night supports deeper dreaming. This varies from person to person but can be something you experiment with.
- If you share a bed or a room with someone, have a conversation with them about your intentions for dreaming. Dreaming is a sacred act. Often, we don’t necessarily remember to share what we are doing with the people who are sleeping right next to us. You do not need to share your dreams, but it can be helpful to clearly communicate that you are undertaking a spiritual practice.
Below are some tips that will help you remember and record your dreams:
- It’s important to write down your dreams every morning. If you make it a daily practice to write down your dreams, you will remember them. Keep a dream journal or recording device by your bedside. If you use a recording device, be sure the following morning or later that day to transcribe and write out your dream. In doing so, you tend to find more fragments that you had forgotten and those go into your dream journal.
- Create a magnet (intention) of something you want to dream about before you go to sleep. Write it down in your dream journal. Follow through on the process afterwards by writing down your dream to complete that cycle.
- Before going to sleep say to yourself 20-30 times: “In the morning when I wake up, I’m going to remember my most important dream.”
- Write down your dream(s) as soon as you wake up. Dream memories are unstable and vanish quickly. Recall of the dream may be lost if you start to interact with the outer environment, losing contact with the inner experience you are just emerging from. Never believe that you will remember this dream forever and therefore don’t have to write it down. After five minutes this ‘eternal’ memory may have disappeared.
- Have drawing material by the bedside to draw the dream image. Sometimes it’s easier to draw a dream image than to put it in words. Draw as many details as you possibly can. You don’t need to be an artist to do this.
- Upon waking, don’t move your body. Remain in the same pose, with eyes closed, while attempting to “reenter” or reenact mentally the dream experience 2-3 times. This will help establish the dream memory in waking state. Then memorize 3 things about the dream. Maybe the dream figure, the place or setting, an object, etc. When you start writing down your dream, write down the 3 things that you memorized first. The rest will usually follow. If you have to open your eyes for some reason, open only one eye and close it as soon as you can.
- Write down even the smallest hint of a dream, an image, a feeling, anything. Because you never know what might come when you start writing and sitting with the dream. If a feeling is all you remember, write that down. Even a fragment or sliver of a dream is enough to draw meaning from. Pay special attention to fragments. Don’t discount fragments and don’t discount mundane dreams. Include what seems mundane because often hidden in the mundane is the magical and the message. Resistances often make a dream seem trivial at first glance; after some mining work, these apparently insignificant dreams often yield a lot of material.
- Write down your dream in present tense. By writing or telling the dream as if it were an ongoing story, you can recall the emotions in it more fully and begin to discharge any anxiety associated with the emotions. Retelling the dream in the present tense allows you to appreciate the concerns expressed and use the dreamworking process therapeutically. More importantly, dream images become alive when we write or talk about them in present tense.
- Write down your dreams using verbs ending in “-ing” for example, write “Bear is chasing me” instead of “Bear chases me”. The “-ing” verbs bring the action of the dream even more into the immediate experience.
- Write down your dream without capitalization, punctuation, or any kind of editing. Once you start punctuating, you are already editing. You want to record the dream as unedited and raw as possible.
- Write the dream exactly as you remember without trying to make a coherent narrative. Remember dreams are images not stories. Focus on the imagery and be weary of dream elaboration where we will fill in gaps to make it sound like a story. Allow the dream to flow through you and come to life.
- A dream is a happening in space, an articulation of space. It is ideal to describe the dream images from inside them, so that you just have to look around.
- Capitalize the names of the main dream characters to give them the status of proper nouns. For example, Lion, John, Ocean. This transforms the dream character to an individual character with its own life, experience, and name.
- Take out all articles such as a/an, the, etc. For example, write “Lion comes toward me” not “The lion comes toward me”. Articles tend to reduce the image from a specific character with an independent identity to a generic class of beings.
- Give a title to your dreams. It helps identify the central theme of the dream.
- Write down the date.
- It is also good practice to write down your immediate associations to the dream right after recording your dream and while it’s still fresh in your memory. Think of anything in the previous day(s) that the dream might be related to and write them down. What floats to the surface of your consciousness in the first minutes after waking may come from layers of the dream that have eluded, or from deeper levels of dreaming so it’s helpful to jot them down.
- If you wake up in the middle of the night don’t be upset about it. It is a golden opportunity to do amazing dream work. As you fall back to sleep, say to yourself: “In the morning when I wake up, I’m going to remember my most important dream.”
- If you wake up in the middle of the night from a dream, try to memorize 3 things about it before you go back to sleep. This will help you recall the dream in the morning. Then record it as soon as you wake up.
- Give yourself more time to sleep. This would allow for more REM sleep which is when we have more vivid dreams.
- Set an alarm clock to awaken you after 4.5 / 6 / 7.5 / 9 hours of sleep (i.e. at the end of 90 min sleep cycle which ends with REM). Upon waking ask yourself “what was I just doing?” and try to remember. Write down your dreams each time after you wake up.
- Dreams don’t just come at night. There are also daydreams and visions. Write those down too and reflect on them.
- Pay special attention to images that come in the hypnagogic state (the transitional state between wakefulness and dreaming). This will help you with dream recall. It can also really enrich your life.
- Consistent effort here is the Key. People give up too early because they are not remembering their dreams. If the dream floats by and is not captured, no problem. Be patient and committed to your ritual and the dream will meet you there.
References:
Aizenstat, S. (2011). Dream tending. Spring.
Bogzaran, F. & Deslauriers, D. (2012). Integral dreaming: A holistic approach to dreams. Suny Press.
Bosnak, R. (1998). A little course in dreams. Shambhala.
Krippner, S., Bogzaran, F. & A. Percia de Carvalho (2002). Extraordinary dreams and how to work with them. Suny Press.
Ariella Daly – honeybeewild.com
Robert Moss – mossdreams.com
Penney Peirce – penneypeirce.com
Header photo by Yannick Pulver