How to record your dreams

What’s your favourite method for recording your dreams? Share in a comment below.

So you're starting to remember more of your dreams–hurray! Remembering and recording your dreams is the first step to having a dreamwork practice. However, here are a few key things to consider that will help you make better use of your dreams going forward.

Start a dedicated dream journal

Getting yourself a notebook or starting a dedicated file on your phone to record your dreams is essential. Not only will it consolidate the habit of writing down dream images as soon as you wake up, it will also be helpful in noticing bigger patterns in your life as you look back on past dreams.

And while there are pros and cons for both an analogue and digital journal, I prefer keeping dreams on my phone.

Writing dreams down in a notes app on your phone automatically makes your dream journal searchable. You can easily look for all the instances a symbol has been repeated, the times you visited a specific place in your dreams, or a particular character. You can also look at how these symbols and characters are evolving over time, which will tell you a lot about your own psychological or spiritual development.

If you're a data person, you can draw conclusions based on how often you dream about particular things: for example, what kind of dreams you tend to have when you fall in love or feel stressed about work or have a fight with a partner. This is particularly helpful if you have repeat dreams that you're struggling to understand.

Always make note of the date and context

Many of us skip this essential step when we start our dreamwork practice. We write down dreams whenever we remember them, without noting the date they occurred and what happened then. 

This makes dreamwork confusing and even pointless–because what's the point of analysing dreams if they don't connect with our waking life?

Remember, dreams are compensatory. They show us the other side of our day-to-day and comment on our actions. They may borrow images from the past, but they always refer to our present reality as it's happening, orienting us towards the future. 

Keeping a record of the exact date and writing down a few lines about what happened anchors your dreamwork practice. It honours the dream's wisdom and integrates it into consciousness, expanding it. It's also a hugely helpful self-reflection practice.

How to record your dreams

Here's a simple way to record your dreams every day, based on how I do it. Feel free to adapt and change as you wish, although do your best to note the date + dream content + emotion + context.

1. Create a dream journal for each year ("Dreams 2023").

2. Write down the date and, if you remember, the time of the dream when you wake up.

3. Write down everything you remember. Spare no details, as everything is important. If you only remember a vague image, write that down.

4. Note the emotions in the dream and the emotion when you woke up.

5. Write a few lines about what happened the previous day: who did you meet and what did you speak about? What did you think about that day? Where did you go? What emotions were present for you? You can also do this before going to bed for the night.

Example:
5 June 2023

J was forcing me to write and do marketing and I was yelling at her that I’m a therapist and don’t want to do that anymore. She was opposing me being manipulative/aggressive and D was trying to calm us. I felt very hostile towards her and her to me. 

Context: Arrived with J and D at the house. Very disorganised, too much to do. Shocked + annoyed that J and I had to share a sofa bed that night, they didn't make the proper arrangements for sleep and didn't tell me about it before. I knew I wouldn't sleep well which I really needed to.

Commentary: The fact that we shared a bed made me wonder if I picked up on some hidden dynamics between myself and J, including her disguised aggression and control (proved true later). The feeling of being forced into an old identity was relevant to my inner struggle at the time between old self and new self and being unsure if I can make it as a therapist. Even though we were equal in real life, the dream made me wonder if perhaps I was relating to her as an authority figure.

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Want to learn more about Jungian psychology and how it can help you understand your dreams? Join Dreamwork Circle to access in-depth classes on dreamwork, join our weekly dream circles, and share your dreams for analysis in our private forum.