Keeping A Dream Journal

Photo: Meanest Indian

As a rule, my nights are dreamless. Oh, I know they say you dream every night. I guess I have to take that on faith.

As a boy my dreams were glorious Technicolor affairs, weaving fantasy, absurdity, terror, and profundity into narratives the might give Lewis Carroll a run for his money. Somewhere, all that stopped, until I set foot in Italy in 2002, my first journey overseas.

Then came the dreams. It was like the dreams were all stuck in traffic and arrived at once.

When you travel without rush or any real consequence of time, your mind shifts to a watching, patient thing.

One tested method for more dreaming is keeping a dream journal. Starting a dream journal is easy and makes an awesome addition to your regular travel journal. Here’s how:

1. Get a notebook or journal specifically to record your dreams in and keep it within arm’s reach of your bed. Dreams fade fast and it is important to record as much as possible as soon as possible.

Photo: akshay moon

2. Write in the present tense and write down every possible detail of your dream. Location, sounds, objects, colors, characters, and your emotional state are important elements of your dream to explore.

What is the feeling it leaves you with when you wake up?

It is OK to scribble random feelings and scattered, lingering thoughts from your dream. Don’t constrain your journal with grammar or punctuation worries. Sketch the landscapes or scenes from your dreams. The more you actively remember your dreams the easier it will be to slip into dreams and remember them with clarity.

3. Be consistent. You don’t have to do it every day but journal as often as possible. Enriching the memory and experience of your dreams takes practice. Who knows? Soon you could have a best selling dream journal like Jack Kerouac’s Book of Dreams.

Dream often and dream big!