START A DREAM JOURNAL
Everybody dreams every night - whether or not you remember it. When you consider that you spend one-third of your life sleeping, that's a lot of time spent dreaming! A person who lives to be seventy years old will had over 100,000 dreams in their lifetime. Imagine if you could harness the power and insight of all those dreams to make your life better?
Harness Your Dream Power
Create a dream journal, and you can start to use your dreams to improve your waking life! Experts say that analyzing your dreams can help you unlock secrets of your unconscious mind. You can use this 411 to make better choices, or know which path to take in certain situations. You may even catch a glimpse into your future!
Get Started!
A dream diary doesn't have to be fancy. It can be a spiral notebook, or even blank scrap paper stapled together. You can make a cute dream dictionary yourself by decorating a blue binder with glittery stars,stickers and pictures from magazines. Or you can buy a ready-made dream dictionary at a bookstore if you like. Whatever you decide to use, the most important thing is writing down your dreams properly so you can analyze them later.
Make It A Ritual
Commit to writing in your dream dictionary every morning when you wake up (or in the middle of the night, if you awaken from a dream). The more often you write down your dreams, the more often you will remember dreams in the coming nights. You will also get better at recalling details and remembering longer pieces of your dreams.
Keep It Handy
Keep your dream dictionary and a couple of pencils right beside your bed. The dream dictionary has to be handy to write in at the moment when you wake up.
What To Write
As soon as you awake, try to capture any memories of dreams you had during the night. Don't worry if you can't remember much the first few times you try this. Some people remember all their dreams, but it is more common to forget most of your dreams. Even if you can only remember a few fragments, or one symbol, even a color, anything remembered from your dream is a great start. Write it down in your dream dictionary. You may find you remember more once you start writing. Write everything you can remember, even if you have to set your alarm early to give you time to do this.
Get Creative
Use pictures, not just words, to record the thoughts and events of your dream. If you can picture in your mind something that you saw in the dream, draw it in your dream diary next to your description of it. This will help you remember it clearly later on when it's time for analysis.
Use All Your Senses
Try to remember every little detail you can about your dream. Think of what feelings, colors, smells, sounds or other sensations you may have encountered in the dream. Think about whether the dream was bright or dark. Did it take place inside a building, or was it set outdoors? If you're having a hard time thinking of details because your dream seemed vague, give your mind a rest. You can always add more detail to your description if you remember something later. Any description is better than none at all.
Consider The Emotion
When writing down your dream, try to notice if you get a specific feeling about it. Does remembering the dream make you feel sad, happy, angry, nervous? Write that down when you write down your dream.
Track The Date
Write the date (day and month) at the top of the page on which you recorded your dream, so you can look back later and investigate if any events in real life around that time may have influenced what you dreamed about.
Analyzing Time!
Once you have written down your whole dream, you are ready to analyze it if you wish. Read over your dream description and at the bottom, make some point form notes of key dream symbols. For example, if you dreamed that you flew out the window and landed in a field of flowers where you danced with red rabbits, you might make the following point form list:
-flying
-field of flowers
-the color red
-rabbits
-dancing
Use the Myjellybean.com Dream Dictionary
Visit Myjellybean.com's Dream Dictionary and look up your key dream symbols. Write down the meanings of your symbols in your dream diary. Use the next page in your diary, or the back of the page you recorded your dream on, so it's easy to go back later (if you want) and see which meanings go with what dream. After you've gathered the meanings for your dream symbols (write to Myjellybean.com for help if your symbols aren't listed), read them over all together. Try to see if you can get a general sense of what your dream is trying to tell you. Do the meanings all seem to be along one theme? Do they fit together in a way that makes sense for your life? Be creative in the way you think about the interpretation of your dream.
Look For Themes
As well as working daily with your dreams, review your whole diary once a month. You will undoubtedly see some themes emerging. Also, meanings may become clear to you that were foggy when you first had the dream. Over time, you will become very adept at analyzing your own dreams. Stick with your dream diary... this is an exciting journey into understanding the communications of your own unconscious mind!