6 Benefits of Keeping a Dream Journal: How & Why To Start
Sleep glorious sleep.
There’s healing in the power of sleep.
And your dreams have that same healing power — over your mind, body, and spirit.
True self-awareness comes from discovering your story. The real story that’s hidden in your subconscious and weaved into the stories of your dreams.
And to really know yourself and harness the power of your dreams, you’ve got to record your dreams.
1st thing in the morning, before your feet hit the floor because around 95% of dreams are forgotten by the time a person hops out of bed.
Dream journaling is a powerful tool to tap into your story and know yourself on the deepest level.
#KnowThyself — but seriously, how many of us really do?
A majority of people believe they’re self-aware, but self-awareness is actually a rare quality. In a study cited by the Harvard Business Review, only about 10 - 15% of people studied actually fit the criteria of having true self-awareness.
Research says that seeing yourself clearly gives you a boost of confidence and creativity. Plus, you’ll make more solid decisions, build stronger relationships, and be a better communicator.
And who wouldn’t want all that?
Keeping a dream journal is a step toward self-awareness.
We’ll walk you through:
What Is A Dream?
What is a Dream Journal?
6 Powerful Benefits to Keeping a Dream Journal
How To Start a Dream Journal
WHAT IS A DREAM?
Dreams are images, thoughts, or feelings that transpire while you sleep. Visual imagery is the most common, but your dreams can incorporate all 5 senses. Plus a bonus #6 — imagination.
Most scientists today agree on what lies at the heart of many contemporary theories of dream function. And that’s the idea that dreams are generally continuous from waking life and are drawn from many of the same psychological mechanisms that create waking thought and behavior.
The Continuity Hypothesis of dreaming — one of the most widely studied models of dreaming — proposes that dream content is psychologically meaningful since it reflects the dreamer's current thoughts, concerns, and beliefs.
Dream Characteristics:
It has a 1st-person perspective — You’re the hero of the story.
It’s involuntary — Everybody dreams — every night.
Your dream content may appear illogical — While dreams may seem illogical when you awake, your dream follows a clear inner-narrative, an emotional logic.
Your dream has a wide array of players — Your dream content often includes other characters, be it a person, an animal, or even an animated object (talking toilet anyone?). These characters might interact with you, one another, or both.
It provokes strong emotions — Your dreams are highly emotional and symbolic of your emotions (slight agitation with someone can turn into a Shakespearean lovers’ quarrel, a stressful social problem, like a pandemic, can turn into full-fledged war or zombie apocalypse)
It includes elements of waking life — Elements that have emotional significance to you, the dreamer, are incorporated into your dream content.
These features are all pretty universal, and at least 1 characteristic (if not more) is found, to some extent, in every dream.
Remember — your dreams are like a movie produced by your mind, in which you’re the writer, director, hero, and sole audience.
WHAT IS A DREAM JOURNAL?
A dream journal is a journal or app in which you record your nightly dreams. You can also record reflections and emotions about those dreams and even your waking life experiences.
A dream journal is often used in the study of dreams and psychology. They’re also regarded as a valuable tool for remembering your dreams and practicing self-reflection, which leads to self-discovery.
Choose whichever type of dream journal tickles your fancy — a handcrafted journal, a spiral notebook, or an app on your phone, super handy, since for most of us, our phones have become our 5th appendage.
If you choose an app like Wakefully, you get a bouquet of bonus features in addition to a dream journal.
Wakefully comes with your own personal AI dream coach to guide you in your dream work.
Sure, you could just use Google to try to conduct your own dream therapy.
But, in reality, asking Google, “What does my dream mean?” is like asking Siri, “What does my life mean?”
We all love Siri, but she’s just not equipped to help you with the meaning of your life any more than Google can analyze how your dream, created by your mind, relates to your life.
6 POWERFUL BENEFITS TO KEEPING A DREAM JOURNAL
Call it a dream journal. Call it a dream diary. The title isn’t important — what matters is what it can do for you.
We already know the benefits of general journaling are heavily studied and speak for themselves.
There are benefits aplenty to keeping a dream journal.
As you begin your journey of harnessing the power of your dreams, you’ll find all sorts of benefits bubbling to the surface.
The central theme of it all is discovering your story. And once you uncover your story and own it, the possibilities are endless.
Here are 6 benefits to keeping a dream journal:
Improve Dream Recall
If you’re at the beginning of your dream work journey, you’ll find that keeping a dream journal helps improve your dream recall. Simply setting your intention to remember your dreams evolves into an automatic habit.
When you make a habit of thinking and recording your dreams first thing in the morning, you’ll see a vast improvement in your dream recall. And, it’ll happen quicker than you think!
Identify the Root of Recurring Dreams
Recording your dreams can help you identify dream patterns and get to the root of those recurring dreams that leave you scratching your head.
A recurrent dream is a dream experienced frequently and repetitively. They occur in between 60% and 75% of adults and more often in women than men.
Process Your Emotions
When you dream, your mind uses that time to sort through any unpacked or unresolved emotions from your waking life. Intentionally remembering and recording your dreams allows you to process what happened in your dreams, how you felt about it, and how it might shine a light on an area of your life.
Having a hard time processing a breakup or resolving an inner conflict? Your dreams are at your service.
Here’s the skinny on your dreams and emotions — up to 90-95% of our thoughts and behaviors operate unconsciously. That’s the brain doing its job of automating as much as it can for you.
According to Dr. Rosalind Cartwright, the late “Queen of Dreams,” a pioneer and leader in the fields of sleep and dream research, your dreams all have an emotional component to them, and they are your brain’s way of working through any emotions that may affect your waking actions and behavior.
Fuel Your Creativity
When you sleep, your brain thinks more vividly and intuitively, enabling your creativity to soar. A dream is a nonjudgmental space, uninhibited by the logical thinking that can hinder creativity during waking hours.
Recording your dreams in your dream journal can help you keep track of those fantastic creative ideas that come alive in your dreams.
Did you know that 23-year-old Larry Page dreamed up the concept of Google? Literally.
In an article entitled, “Minding the Dreamer Within: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Enhanced Dream Recall on Creative Thinking,” we found this golden nugget:
“Enhanced dream recall through daily dream logging fosters aspects of creativity. Associations between creativity, dissociation, and thinness of boundaries suggest that increased awareness of dreams increases creativity through a ‘loosening’ of stereotyped thinking patterns."
Smash Anxiety
Hidden, unresolved emotions can increase your anxiety level without you knowing why. When your brain speaks to you through vivid stories while you dream, and you record those dreams, it enables you to identify what might be causing your waking anxiety.
The truth is, you don’t know what you don’t know. And, sometimes, you don’t know what you do know deep inside.
Twisted yet? Let us explain.
Dream logging can expose the root cause of your anxiety.
“You can carry the insight you gain from your dreams into your waking life to help resolve depression and anxiety brought on by divorce, bereavement, serious illness, job loss, and other crises." Crisis Dreaming: Using Dreams to Solve Your Problems by Rosalind Cartwright
Self-Awareness
Discovering your story and getting to know yourself on the deepest level is the path to true mindfulness. Self-awareness is powerful and can unlock your potential that you never knew you had.
Intentional dream work is the goose that lays the golden egg of self-awareness.
Recalling and recording your dreams helps you get to know yourself. As you pay attention to your dream details, feel your feelings about the dream, and follow the breadcrumbs of recurring dreams in the context of what’s happening in your waking life, the map of your story unfolds before your eyes, resulting in high-level self-awareness.
“If knowledge is power, then there is no greater power than knowing oneself.”
Sansan Fibri, Founder & CEO of Wakefully
HOW TO START A DREAM JOURNAL
Starting a dream journal is simple. Recording your dreams in a dream journal is a crucial element in your dream work. The key to success is to commit to dream logging and stick to it.
Steps to get started keeping a dream journal:
Choose your journal (or app) — Remember to keep your journal or phone (with an installed app like Wakefully) next to your bed.
Commit to nightly affirmations — Repeat “I will remember my dreams” as you get ready to go to sleep. This step alone can increase your dream recall frequency by 80%!
Wake up slowly & recall your dream — This is best done as you awake, during that fuzzy state neuroscience terms the Hypnopompic State. Hypnopompic is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep, a term coined by the psychical researcher Frederic Myers.
Title your dream in few words like it were a movie — Thinking about a title will help you identify the central theme and motivation of the dream.
Write it down — Record as much as you can remember. Write it in the present tense.
Ask yourself, “How does this relate to my life?” — A big part of dream work is asking yourself questions about your dreams and how they relate to your waking life.
Notice patterns (wakefully can help with this) — Pay attention to patterns that keep popping up in your dreams. Your brain is trying to tell you something meaningful with these patterns.
**Make this a daily thing**
Remember, your dreams are personal & specific to you and your life. There’s no cookie-cutter dream meaning — you’ve got to do your own dream work to get to know yourself fully.
YOUR DREAMS ARE YOUR STORY — WHY WOULDN’T YOU RECORD THEM?
Your dreams, like any good story, need to be recorded. And keeping a dream journal is the perfect way to do that.
There are countless benefits to keeping a dream journal — we’ve listed the key benefits for you above. Today’s the day to start your dream work by choosing your dream journal and getting to it.
Dream therapy, including a dream journal, is a holistic way to get to know yourself completely.
Your story is important and worth recording.
Need help? Wakefully is your dream journal app.