The Secret Art of Journaling Your Dreams

Six golden rules to maximize the best dream interpretation tool you’ll ever have

“Regardless of one’s philosophical orientation, there is one aspect of dream study which scientists, spiritualists, psychologists, and dream therapists agree, and it is the value and importance in keeping a dream journal. The significance of the dream inspires it, its fragile nature demands it, and one can only learn to read what has been written.”

— -Barbara Andrews and Mary Michael

Did you know there is a “right” and “best” way to record your dreams?

Yep. Journaling your dreams is a unique skill, and it’s not like other journals you’ve authored. Not only that, but nothing will enlighten you to the meaning of your dreams more than a well orchestrated journal.

I won’t say there’s a wrong way to record them, because any effort to work with your dreams is better than none, but there is an optimal way to journal your dreams that will give you the most dream substance to work with in decoding their meaning and message.

One of the first things to realize about the nature of your dreams is that dreams are multidimensional communications that contain messages delivered on many different levels of awareness and meaning.

Author and dream teacher, Jeremy Taylor, was told by a mentor that every dream has at least seven different levels of meaning. In his book Where People Fly and Rivers Run Uphill, Taylor says, “There is no such thing as a dream with only one meaning. All dreams (and indeed, all dream images) have multiple meanings that are simultaneously true (p8,1992).”

Understanding this fundamental quality about the nature of dreams lends itself to the obvious assumption that knowing how to thoroughly record as much detail as possible from each dream segment or image is critical to a more holistic interpretation of its meaning.

Okay, so given how important keeping an adequate journal is to any dream-work you may undergo, there are a few basic rules to follow. If you are new to journaling your dreams, any amount of detail you record is a plus in learning to understand them. However, if you follow these six golden rules you’ll get far more mileage out of your dream journal, even if you’re already a seasoned dream worker.

The Six Golden Rules of Dream Journaling

Rule 1: Make your dream journal significant. In other words, recognize its unique importance. If you’d really like to experience the richness that can come from an in depth understanding of your dream life, then don’t just jot down a few details on scratch paper or a notepad.

Although incredible life change can come from remembering even the slightest bit from a dream sequence, far more can come into view when you invest in your dream study by investing in one notebook that is solely dedicated to the recording and decoding of your dreams. Give your dream life a seat in your home like you would a valued friend and it’ll show up more often.

Keep an actual journal, notebook or sketch pad that you can both write and draw in. Let this book always be at your bedside with a pen at night while you sleep, with the intention to record, recognize, and realize your dreams.

Sometimes I have chosen journals with an inspiring image on the cover, or I have used very simple lined composition books, that I might buy for 50 cents to $1 a piece. I often will paste or tape various images from magazines or the internet that remind me of certain dream themes or symbols to the thin cardboard covers of these cheap notebooks, adding to my journals meaning and significance in my life.

The point here is that you give your dream journals special attention. Believe me, when you do this, what you receive back will be ten times the small effort you put in.

Rule 2: Record your dreams right after you wake up. This is when the recall of your dream is the freshest, clearest and most available to you. Of course there will be instances when it is hard to do this, such as waking up late and needing to run out the door for work.

When this happens do your best to quickly write down some short notes about key images, people, places and events that were in your dream. This will help to trigger forgotten details later on when you find the time to sit down and record your dream more thoroughly.

One thing that can help with the remembering of details is to stay very still as you wake up. Do not move for a few seconds, as you allow the images, sights and feelings of your dreams to come into your awareness. Soak in as much detail as you can before moving a muscle. Staying in the same position that you were in while dreaming, can aid with dream recall when you wake. Then, when you’ve recalled all that you can, immediately grab your journal and start writing your dream.

Rule 3: As you write, always tell your dream from the first-person point of view, as if it is happening in the present moment, like you are walking though the events of your dream right now. You will be amazed how much more detail you will notice when you do this. You will bring the events of your dream alive into the present moment. The past always distances us from things, so making it a present-time unfolding will make your experience of your dream memory far more intimate. Your recall as you write will offer up far more detail this way.

For example: “I am standing at the edge of a cliff, perhaps 100 feet from a raging ocean below. There is a bridge in front of me, made of wood and rope, spanning the distance across the ocean to a cliff and plateau landing on the other side. I feel something pursuing me from behind, a sense that I stand at the precipice of a heavily weighted decision to either turn around and face what’s coming or cross the bridge to a new frontier…. “ You get the idea.

Rule 4: Take special notice of any feelings, thoughts, or emotions that occur during the course of the dream. What is the over-all mood and feeling of the dream? How do you feel when you wake up from it? Is there a sinking feeling of something gone awry or the clear feeling of something being solved? Do you feel inspired and elated or worried and tense?

Notice any bodily sensations to help you determine what you are feeling. Write down any specific feelings or awareness that occurs during dream events as they unfold. Write all of these “feeling” details in your dream journal: emotions in midst of the dream, feelings as you wake or as an overall mood of the dream sequence, body sensations as you wake, give it all definition and record it.

Rule 5: Be very detailed in your recording of specific things, items, dream characters, animals, and plot events. These are all pertinent dream symbols that will metaphorically begin to speak the language of your dream. These symbolic metaphorical representations have multidimensional meanings and can offer remarkable depth of insight to what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

Include things like location, any colors that are present, specific people and their various dream character roles, whether or not they are people that you know, the gender of dream characters, any numbers that may appear, specific objects, any sounds or smells, any tactile sensations. These are all symbolic language, delivering a message from your subconscious mind to your conscious mind.

For Example: Your mother in a dream can potentially represent your actual mother, or specific qualities of your mother that are displayed in the dream, she could represent the feminine side of your nature, if you are a man, or the older wise-woman part of your nature, if you are a woman. She can represent a more mature perspective within yourself, or a deeper feminine part of your intelligence, such as your intuition.

She can potentially be all of these qualities when she shows up in a dream. One or two of these meanings will likely resonate with you more than the others, but it doesn’t mean that the other meanings are necessarily cancelled out, they just may not be screaming as loudly for attention.

Rule 6: Draw things that are difficult for you to describe with words. Drawing is often very, very helpful, especially if you ever begin to work with another person or a dream group in deciphering your dreams. Many times I’ve been grateful for the crude sketches on the pages of my dream journal, when it felt difficult to help other people grasp what something looked like in my dream.

Over time, with so much detail on the pages of your journal, you’ll begin to notice certain themes that repeat themselves and play out on the stage of your dreams. These are also important to notice. Themes or dreams that repeat themselves are asking for your attention with increased measure.

I find it helpful to leave a page in between dreams on which to write down details from my research into various symbols or reflections on dream characters or plots.

Piecing together the meaning of a dream is like putting together a 3-D puzzle. Your journal can become the table on which you lay out all the pieces of the puzzle, so that you can begin to see how they all fit together.

There is much to know about the art of deciphering your dreams, but all of it begins with keeping a purposeful, thorough dream journal. Your journal will become the foundation for all of your dream work — a canvas on which your deepest insights and secrets will reveal themselves to you.

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