Dream Journaling Practice

For this 40-day practice I would encourage you to focus on Remembering and Recording. This is the core commitment for the cohort. For the sake of avoiding overwhelm, you may choose to Decipher 3-4x a week rather than every day.

The sections below include:

  • Remembering and Recording

  • Deciphering

  • Why Active Dreaming?

Remembering

If you need help remembering your dreams, try the following:

  1. Write an intention before sleep “tonight, I will remember my dreams” (or make up your own version).

  2. Before sleep, write down by hand the last dream you remember in full detail and as you’re falling asleep, recall that dream.

  3. On any night, you can recall your day backwards to help you get into the ‘rehearsal’ of remembering your dream in the morning.

  4. When you wake up, stay still and give yourself some time to remember and recall the full dream.

  5. If it doesn’t come right away, give yourself a couple minutes. You can ask yourself “what was I just doing?”

  6. When you wake up, record your dream, even just the smallest detail – don’t leave anything out!

  7. If you don’t remember a dream, record whatever you want – feelings, colors, your name, whatever! Make it a rehearsal to prepare yourself for when you catch a dream.

  8. If you need extra help, contact me directly – yourstruly@dreampartyhotel.com

Notes

  1. Kill your alarm – get into a sleep routine where you’re going to sleep at the same time every night, and then before you go to sleep, ask your body to wake you 20minutes before your alarm.

  2. Weed! If you’re smoking weed regularly and can’t remember your dreams… it’s the weed.

  3. Once you get into the habit of remembering your dreams, you may choose to make any intention you wish before bed (or not).

Deciphering

8 Basic Writing Prompts to help you play with your dreams and uncover their messages.

These can be written out in any format you wish, although I prefer pen and paper. These prompts can be shared with trusted friends/family members and used to ask other people about their dreams. If and when you give feedback on someone else’s dream, please preface with “If it were my dream…” and then continue to speak in the first person “I” to avoid projecting.

  1. Title. Titling your dream gives it an identity / a container to be worked with. Also can reveal

    interesting emotions around the dream.

  2. Feeling Upon Waking. Note if there is any distinct feeling upon waking, especially if this is fear/anxiety or excitement/joy. Commonly dreams can feel quite Neutral, which is a totally fine answer. Be sure to use feeling words rather than thoughts like “I felt like I should have…”

  3. Feeling in the Body. Do you feel this dream anywhere in your body? You may choose to connect with that part of your body while you’re thinking about the dream or throughout the day.

  4. Intention Before Sleep. Did you make an intention before sleep to have a certain dream or address a certain question? If so, apply your intention to the content of the dream.

  5. Future Check. Could any part of this dream happen in your waking future? Note any possible literal content

    before moving into symbolic interpretations.

  6. Background Content. How does this dream relate to your waking life? Describe the characters, environments, objects and emotional themes that you recognize. **This is the largest writing portion of the exercise. Be sure to let yourself really flow and elaborate on situations, characters, themes, emotions, etc.

  7. What do I Want to Know? What do you want to know about this dream? If you could know one thing, what would it be? Or, what is the most important detail or scene? This helps to direct focus, especially when dealing with a lot of content.

  8. Action Plan. How can you honor this dream in your waking life? Create an action plan that relates to a message from the dream. Drawing energy from the dream into the waking world builds a bridge between dreaming and waking, helping to unite the two, induce synchronicity, and reveal more of the dream’s message. Living the dream one day at a time!

Active Journaling as a daily ritual…

Dreaming is universal. It is something we all do (whether we remember yet or not).

Dreaming is part of what makes us human. It is a built-in survival mechanism; and not just for avoiding accident or injury. Survival is about being able to create, adapt, innovate and navigate daily life. Survival is about having a strong inner compass of which we can rely. Survival is about knowing how to re-gain lost parts of our vital energy that go missing when we face difficulty and loss. Survival is knowing how to heal trauma and connect with authentic forms of power. Survival is about being connected with a deeper source of wisdom and guidance.

Dreaming is, in this sense, our most ancient form of survival, because dreaming connects us directly with all of these things. Dreaming is the ultimate tool for navigating the roads of life, soul, purpose, healing, creativity and autonomy.

There is not only one kind of dream.

Dreams come in many different forms and fashions. Some dreams are about our subconscious fears and desires; some dreams are about what we ate last night for dinner. Some dreams are here to give us practical tools for our daily lives and how to improve mundane tasks and routines. Some dreams are to help us grow and evolve what we’re working on/with, whether that’s relational, creative, professional or personal.

Many dreams are about healing, and where we are able to re-integrate parts of our vital energy have gone missing throughout time when we face difficulty and trauma. All in all, dreams are designed to wake us up to the bigger picture, the bigger story that is hunting each one of us, waiting to be embodied and told with courage. Nightmares are a survival mechanism designed to grab a hold of us on a physiological level and demand our attention to something vital we are unaware or avoidant of.

All in all, dreams are on our side and are always here to help, not hinder. As you pay attention and record your dreams you will eventually be able to, on an intuitive level, feel the difference between ‘types’ of dreams which will assist you in gaining clarity regarding their messages.