Keeping a Dream Journal

A friend of mine told me that she had a dream in which she was having a conflict with a friend of hers, and when she woke up, the dream was so disturbing that she called a friend, told her about what happened in the dream, and apologized for it. And it’s interesting the power that dreams can have on us.

Sometimes we wake up after a really good dream and we feel fantastic… and sometimes we wake up after a bad dream and feel not so hot for a while.

I have kept a ‘Journal of Dreams’ for years and I highly recommend it. There’s three reasons why.

First of all, dreams are something that we are the entire creator of, even though they can include some things that are external to us, like something we saw on TV that day or a conversation that we overheard, it’s something that is uniquely ours.

Second, it’s interesting to just get them down and to get into that habit of writing about them. I know that when I started to write, it was a little easier to write them up right when I woke up, once I got into the habit of doing it.

But third is I found some insights into what was going on in my life, and not necessarily right away. When I write about my dreams, I often reflect on what’s going on in the dream or the people that I’m encountering in the dream, and what thoughts and feelings that brings up. Usually positive ones, but the idea of having that to reflect on is just another facet of life that can be really interesting.

Whether they are good dreams or bad, or help you work out conflict you’re having with someone in real life, or some issue that you’re having, writing down dreams can be a really interesting exercise.