Dream On...

 

Lately I've been (sort of) keeping a dream journal. I wake up a few times a night anyway, so if I can remember anything, I'll scribble a few short sentences down, in the dark, in a small notebook. 

"Meatball earrings."

"Lunch with Fisk, so happy!"

"Feeding the vultures. Andrea..." (our vegan friend) "denied eating the hamburger, but she did."

"No Cokes allowed in workplace! Paintball war."

"Light blue cat. Didn't like me at first. Patience." 

In the morning, I may spend an extra five or ten minutes in bed, trying to decipher the cryptic wandering phrases, often written one right on top of the other. Some mornings it's amazing: I start writing what I remember, and more details start coming back, and other dreams make a shy appearance at first and then reveal themselves more fully as I scribble dream-nonsense for pages and pages. Other mornings: nothing.

If I go over my notebooks periodically, it's exciting to see how easily I can freshen those dream memories right up. Many of them remain fairly vivid even many months later. I can still picture those big meatball earrings I was wearing last summer! Even if I can't remember if I've brushed my teeth this morning without checking to see if the bristles of my toothbrush are wet.

But why take precious morning time to do such a silly thing, which honestly is sometimes just frustrating? The fragments are so damn elusive, and so often just when they start to feel graspable... they slip completely away. 

Are there some secret psychological benefits to be had from keeping a dream diary, and getting more acquainted with the insanity that takes place in your brain every night?

Scientific Benefits of Keeping a Dream Journal

Well, this was interesting. Everywhere I went on the web, it seemed people agreed it was a very useful thing to do. Some of the benefits cited were: 

• Revealing Helpful Patterns and Connections
• Processing Emotions
• Stress Reduction
• Problem Solving 
• Assisting in Psychotherapy
• Improving Self-Awareness
• Increased Creativity 
• Reducing Nightmares 

But when I went to find the studies that showed that these benefits were actually real, and not just wishful thinking?

Er... I couldn't find any. Not that I made a huge amount of effort. But I just kept finding the opinions of various people that dream journals would be good for this stuff.  

My Research Assistant, Chatty McClanker, gave it a shot too, but she wasn't much help either.

The best she could come up with was the hardly shocking fact that logging your dreams helps you remember them better than waiting until someone asks you about them later. 

Um, duh?

Why I Keep a Dream Journal Anyway, Research Be Damned:

 

1. Better Dream Recall, More Entertainment!

It does seem like the more effort I make to remember dreams, the more I can recall. And holy crap, the absolute weirdness that transpires nightly is fascinating. Even the dreams that are unpleasant are intriguing to think about, once back in the safety of my bedroom. Plus, futuristic cities, vast beautiful landscapes, the ability to fly, strange animals that transform themselves into even stranger animals, long-dead loved ones suddenly available for chats... It's cheaper than Netflix, anyway.

2. I'm Hoping for More Lucid Dreams

Ages ago I wrote a how-to post on lucid dreaming, and I made it sound fairly simple to learn how to become aware, during a dream, that you were dreaming. And from there, sometimes control the content of the dream. 

I made it sound fairly easy because back then, I did all the recommended steps, and it worked! I loved having so many lucid dreams.

I'd love to get that back again, although I've had very little luck so far replicating my earlier success. Maybe it's a function of age? Anyway, one of the highly recommended practices for increasing lucid dreams? It's keeping a dream journal. 

3. Exploring Altered States of Consciousness

No drugs required! There is a lot of stuff that goes on in our heads that is hard to put into handy boxes. We get used to ignoring anything that we can't easily describe: odd mixtures of visuals and feelings and impressions. Dream states, as well as the almost-but-not-quite-sleep states, are fascinating to observe, and in my mind, lead to a better understanding that there is more to "you" or "me" than the usual conscious, analytical, verbal, goal-oriented, bossy, daytime personality. 

 4. Time on Earth is Precious and Limited: You Get "More" if You Include Dream-Time

If I have a night where I can't remember any dreams, I feel a little cheated. Where did all those hours go? Were they just lost? Probably not, but if I do manage to remember my experiences during the night, I feel like I've gotten "bonus" conscious time. I've had more adventures and learned more things, even if they have absolutely no useful application in the real world.

5. It's fascinating to Notice Personal Recurring Themes, Worries, Settings and Experiences

In real life, I do not have any particular problem finding and using a public toilet. So why the fuck do I have SO MANY dreams about gross/defective/missing/not-private/bizarre public toilets?

There are apparently many of us who have this dream. And of course a lot of my other recurring dreams are also common: having to take an exam in a class I've never been to, realizing I'm at a public function and have somehow forgotten to put on clothing, trying to run or scream in the face of danger and finding myself paralyzed, noticing that my teeth are falling out, discovering the house I live in has a bunch of extra rooms I never realized were there... you know, the "normal" odd dreams that make no sense that so many of us have.

But what's interesting about keeping a dream journal is that you start to notice more personal patterns: people who keep showing up, places that don't actually exist but that you've been to many times before in your dreams, bizarre accomplishments that bear no relationship to your real life. (For example, I keep competing in nonexistent sporting events involving strange contraptions and doing really well, despite not being particularly athletic).

Most of this information is pretty useless, but it's intriguing nonetheless. For example, I'm having a ton of dreams lately about being in my childhood home, both my parents alive again, my sisters and I doing weird dream things together. Would I realize how often this was happening if I weren't actively digging around in the jumbled chest of dream remnants in the mornings? Probably not. Does it mean anything, psychologically? Probably not. But maybe?

Anyone else having any interesting dreams lately? Do you make any sort of effort to remember them?