Dream Capture Journal

We dream for about 6 years of our lives. People dream on average about 2 hours per night. Because most of us don’t remember our dreams we might not think we dream much. The data tells us that, with the exception of those with sleep disorders, the vast majority of us all dream. We typically have several dreams each night lasting 5-20 minutes. There is a lot of creative thought happening when we sleep, it’s just that we don’t remember much of it. For those of you curious about this large chunk of our imagination….read on! There is a reason we don’t remember our dreams easily. The visual center of the brain, the dominant area that processes all the new information we encounter while awake, is shut down. However the visual memory center, the part of the brain that stores images from the past, ramps up. This is why capturing your dreams quickly upon waking is necessary if we are to remember them at all. There is also a reason why our dreams can seem nonsensical. The prefrontal cortex of the brain, responsible for logic and reasoning, is inactive during sleep, which explains the wacky dreams. Often we do initially remember our dreams but dismiss them feeling, “That was weird. Am I weird?”. Falling from a cliff, being chased and flying are super common. The predominant anxiety-dream themes are:
  • Taking a test.
  • Finding yourself pregnant.
  • Forgetting your child someplace.
  • Appearing naked in public.
  • Standing on stage.
  • Teeth or hair falling out.
  • Being intimate with a stranger.
  Nothing weird or deranged about processing anxieties while we sleep. Many experts say that dreams exist to:
  • Help solve problems in our lives
  • Incorporate memories
  • Process emotions
  Sigmund Freud contended dreams are a window into our subconscious, revealing a person’s;
  • Unconscious desires
  • Thoughts
  • Motivations
  That said, there is rich content here that is uniquely yours for the exploration. It makes sense that we’re not receiving new external information so dreaming itself is a process of us creating new imaginings based entirely on our own memories, thoughts and emotions. So, our dreams are uniquely our own creations. He are some prompts for dream capture:
  1. Place your journal and pen within reach.
  2. The best times to capture a dream are when you wake up in the middle of a dream, after a short nap, when you wake up not with an alarm but using your internal clock, non-work mornings.
  3. If you use a phone alarm, put it in a sock or paper sleeve. This will at least remind you to try to capture your dream before doing anything else after hitting snooze.
  4. Set your intention before sleep. Focus on the now. Not a review of your day, not your to-do list for tomorrow. Think of a mantra or prayer like; “I am one with all things” or “Expand my territory” or “Ignite the Divine within me” or “I let go of everything and ask for a new experience” or a favorite prayer, meditation or spiritual truism.
  5. Don’t overthink or analyze your dream, just focus on writing it down
  6. If you don’t remember your dream that day, always write down something like, “No dream recall this AM. I feel…(rested, ready, groggy, anxious, clammy)...”, and use the moment to set your intention (vibe) for the day, “positive attracts positive”, or, “look to give love”, or read your core virtues and set off to live the day by your own design, accepting whatever may occur with confidence, humility and grace.
  Remember it takes about 21 days to develop a new habit so set your intention to dream journal for 21 days straight. Happy trails!   https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/20-amazing-facts-about-dreams-that-you-might-not-know-about.html https://www.verywellmind.com/why-cant-i-remember-my-dreams-4144687 https://www.verywellmind.com/facts-about-dreams-2795938 https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/dreaming-overview#1 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-you/201704/can-paying-attention-dreams-increase-creativity