I will explain to you how to write in your dream journal without writing for hours.
What is a dream journal?
A dream journal is your journal where you write your dream stories. A dream journal comes in many forms for example:
- A physical journal. The most known one is of course the physical journal. These are notebooks or journals where you write your dreams.
- An online journal. An online journal is becoming popular in the last years. These are apps where you write your dream journals in. I personally use Discord as my dream journal. You can create a server and organize the journal, and you can access it on PC and phone!
- Recordings. Recordings are not as popular, but these are very cool to do! When you wake up in the middle of the night instead of writing on your phone or in a dream journal you record yourself telling the story so you can write it down the next morning or just keep it as a recording.
- Drawings. People who are creative and have a lot of free time can also make drawings. Drawings can tell a story in many ways and maybe shows the dream from another side. You can also at drawings to your physical or online journal when you found your dream extra special.
You can see a dream journal comes in many forms. A dream journal is there to help you recall your dreams more clearly and helps you understand your dreams.
How to write efficiently?
Writing in your dream journal can take a lot of time out of your morning when you maybe don’t have the time. You can write your dream journal efficiently without losing any of your recall and of your dream stories.
Tips to make your dream entries shorter.
- Write only what is important. When you don’t have the time to write the whole story write what is important to you. If you find your dream about school boring just forget it and write down the cool fantasy dream where you are fighting in a battle of Lord of the Rings.
- Write in tags. Tags are a great way to remember dreams. Tags can help you write down dreams in just 5 to 10 words. For example, you are going to school did a project that had a lot of info you can write down: Went to school, a project about …., the project took longer, project name and late home. When you read it again you exactly know what the dream was about.
- Write the summary. Do not write your dream in 1000 words instead write your dream in 100 words. Going into detail may help you with your recall or awareness but for most people, it does not help you in that way. It is important that you can still remember what the dream was about when you read it back.
These are the best ways to reduce the time you are writing your dream entries. People may tell you it is important to go into detail, but it does not improve your recall and when you have for example 5 dreams you will struggle to write them all down within an hour of your time.
How to write your dream entry at night?
At night, you have to write short entries without waking yourself up too much. You can use this time to try to become lucid with WILD or DILD.
Tips for writing your dream entries at night:
- Tags. Write your dreams in tags. Tags can help you to remember the dream in the morning and you can write the dream then. Tags can also be used at dream entries so you have to work less time on your dream journal.
- Recording. Recording your audio is a great way to record your dream during the night. You don’t have to write down you can just tell yourself what happened in the dream, and you can write this dream down the next morning.
- Blue Filter. Use a blue filter on your phone, when you are recording your dreams with your phone. Blue filter makes your screen less sharp and you can easily fall asleep after looking at your screen for a short or longer period of time.
What are the benefits of having a dream journal?
A dream journal has many benefits for lucid dreamers or people who try to understand their dreams. A dream journal can help you recall your dreams better. When you dream journal you are thinking of your night and writing down what you can remember of this time period. After months of dream journaling, you will see the improvement of recall and dream vividness. For people who are trying to understand their dreams, a dream journal can help you find out what dreams mean. Dreams can have meanings but these are theories. I personally think that dreams are your thoughts from the last couple of days combined to create the scene of your dream. Think back to your dreams from last night do you see similarities of your thoughts during the days before?
What happens if I don’t use a dream journal?
When you are not using a dream journal, you are missing a big part of lucid dreaming. People who are not using a dream journal while practicing lucid dreaming remember only 1 to 2 dreams a night. People who are using a dream journal for a long time, are able to remember up to 5 dreams a night on average. You can see that a dream journal affects your development of becoming a regular lucid dreaming a lot. Some experts changed things up. They are using mind clouds to store up their dreams. I personally believe that this is hard to achieve and maybe not even possible to make it work for 100%. I think a dream journal does the job and doesn’t need a method that is not stable.
What happens if you use a day journal and a night journal?
People who are using a day journal and a night journal (dream journal), are able to split their day and night. When you split your day and night you are able to make your dreams have more fantasy. This happens, because you are able to remove the stress of your day and remove any annoying thoughts. You may ask how does that work? In a day journal you write down your daytime thoughts and stress, for example, you are having a test next week and you are stressing about it. You write in your day journal about the test and how it affects you, and then you try to not think about it anymore. After this, you start your night tasks like intention and meditation. You will see results quickly, and I recommend it to someone who is trying to make their dreams become more fantasy instead of their boring school dreams about the test you have in a week.
What is a nightmare journal?
Some people are using a nightmare journal for their nightmares. I would personally not recommend this to the people who struggle with their nightmares, but more for the people who are trying to induce a nightmare. Nightmares are scary, but there are always people who want to explore them more and more. Instead of watching a scary movie, they try to bring the scary movie inside the dream. They write down scary characters and locations and give them stories (creepypasta). A nightmare journal works best when you write it only in the middle of the night. When you are trying to make your nightmare journal during the day the intention may not be strong enough to incubate a nightmare. People who incubate nightmares benefit from NILD (Nightmare Induced Lucid Dreams). NILD is basically a Dream induced lucid dream (DILD) technique where you recognize a nightmare and use it to become lucid. The nightmare hunters will just be aware and let the nightmare play, and they want to see what is going to happen next.
Final thoughts
A dream journal is definitely something every person that wants to practice lucid dreaming needs. A dream journal benefits in multiple ways. I would suggest trying to never take breaks with dream journaling because this affects your chances to become lucid.
