How to Keep a Dream Journal

Everyone dreams every night, several times. Most of it is gone before you've made coffee. Even a vivid dream usually leaves only a feeling by mid-morning, and by lunch you're not sure you dreamt at all.

A dream journal is how you catch them. It also has a side effect: people who write their dreams down regularly tend to remember more of them. Within a week or two, mornings that used to give you nothing start giving you a scene or two.

Before you sleep

Put whatever you'll record with right next to the bed: a notebook and a pen that works in the dark, or your phone. Then, as you lie down, tell yourself that you want to remember your dreams. It sounds too simple to matter, but going to sleep expecting to remember is one of the most commonly recommended habits for better recall.

Alcohol and cannabis both suppress REM sleep, the stage with the most vivid dreams, so expect thinner mornings after them. A regular bedtime helps too, because the longest dreams come in the last few hours of a full night.

When you wake up

Don't move yet. Keep your eyes closed and stay in the position you woke in. Getting up or checking your phone is often enough to wipe the dream.

Work backwards. Start with the last thing you remember and ask what came just before it. Earlier parts often come back one after another.

Record fragments first. Key words, a face, a colour, the feeling. Full sentences can wait. Present tense comes naturally: "I'm in my old school but the corridors are flooded."

Write "no dream" on blank mornings. It keeps the habit going, and the habit is what improves recall.

What to write down

• What happened, in whatever order you remember it.
• Where you were, and anything odd about the place.
• Who was there, and whether they were themselves.
• How you felt during the dream and on waking. This often matters most.
• Anything that has turned up in a dream before.
• What from the last day or two might have fed it.

Voice is easier than writing at 6 AM

Squinting at a screen or scrawling in the dark both lose details. Talking doesn't: you can describe a dream with your eyes shut. In WOYM you can record a voice note straight into an entry, and listen back once you're properly awake. With Premium, dictation types it out as you speak instead. Dark mode keeps the screen from blinding you, and you can change an entry's date if you only get round to it later.

I make WOYM, so I'm biased. A notebook by the bed works well too, especially if you like sketching what you saw.

Reading your dreams

Dream dictionaries will tell you that teeth falling out means anxiety about money or ageing. There's no good evidence that any symbol means the same thing for everyone, so treat those lists as entertainment. Your own journal is a better guide. After a month, read through it and look for:

• Repeats. The same place, person or situation turning up again usually points at something on your mind.
• The feeling. The story may be bizarre, but the emotion is real. Ask where in your waking life you've felt exactly that lately.
• Yesterday. A surprising amount of dream material comes straight from the day or two before.

One exercise worth trying comes from Gestalt therapy: pick an object from the dream and write a few lines as if you were it. "I'm the locked door, and I'm keeping out…" It's odd, and it often surfaces something.

Lucid dreaming

A lucid dream is one where you realise you're dreaming while it's happening. A dream journal is the usual first step, because it teaches you your "dream signs": the things that keep happening in your dreams but never in waking life.

Two techniques come up most. Reality checks: several times a day, ask yourself whether you're dreaming and test it, for example by reading a line of text, looking away and reading it again (in dreams text tends to change). MILD, described by Stephen LaBerge: after waking from a dream and writing it down, picture yourself back in it, noticing that it's a dream, and repeat "next time I'm dreaming, I'll notice" as you fall asleep. They work for some people and not others; expect weeks, not nights.

If your dreams are mostly nightmares

Writing a bad dream down often takes some of its weight away. But if the same nightmare keeps coming back and is affecting your sleep, talk to a doctor. There are well-tested treatments, such as imagery rehearsal therapy, where you rewrite the nightmare's ending while awake.

For everything else about building the habit, see how to start a journal.