Dream diary

All people dream, many dreams and every night. The only problem is that most of us forget what we dreamt about. Imagine all the amazing stories we are forgetting every morning as we wake up.

That thought annoyed me slightly so I decided to do something about it. I have, for a while now, kept a dream diary. In it I write down all my heroic adventures, my love stories and the random happenings that shows up in my subconscious during those nocturnal moments of intense cerebral activity.

Since the diary is filling up at a fast pace I forget them almost equally quickly and I spent a few minutes earlier today browsing through it and was amazed by what I read. I found a few dreams that I’m sure would become great inspiration for stories some day, if only I took the time to write more on them.

Even if you have no ambition to write stories, a dream diary can be very interesting. I don’t really believe in the “if you dream of teeth rotting, you’re afraid of getting old” and all other set-in-stone interpretations of dreams. But I do believe you can learn from the dreams and that they don’t appear at random.

A dream diary is not such a bad idea as long as there is enough time in the morning to scribble them down. The trick is to do it before you start thinking about doing anything else. If I start thinking that I need to make some coffee or I have to remember that very important meeting/phone call later that day, all the good details get lost. I still might have the basic idea there but all the details get blurry. It gets better with time, just like any other daily habit it takes getting used to. At the same time as I open my eyes I reach for the notebook and the pen next to my bed.

My first notes in the dream diary are quite boring “Dreamt something about a car” but after a few months one first sentence looked like “I played golf with Dolly Parton in a hot air balloon that transformed into a desert and to my right there appeared a choir of teddybears singing Christmas carols, me and Dolly joined in the singing” and it went on for over half a page before the scene changed in the same dream.

The more details, feelings, colours, impressions etc. that you can get on paper, the more you can tell from your dream.

All that I really was curious about is if anyone else are keeping a dream diary or have done so in the past. How did you find the experience? Or have you been thinking of starting a dream diary and my ramblings about Dolly Parton and Christmas carols have scared you into hiding?

Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.  ~Marsha Norman