The Magic of Keeping a Dream Journal

Journaling has always fed me. Journaling has fed my personal growth, taught me to be more loving to myself and others, helped me appreciate all the good in my life.

Photo: Seth Jacobson Photography

Journaling gave me the tools to solve my problems and challenges — a burnout job, a chronic health condition (now healed!), a romantic breakup (broken heart repaired!).

Yet, by far, the greatest opportunity for personal growth came through keeping a dream journal. In my dream journal, I transform my life from the inside out. Do you wonder what a dream journaling can do for you?

How Dreams Transform Us — and Journaling Helps

Dreams are not just the brain processing your daily life. Dreams give us a whole new perspective on our problems, our goals, our spiritual life, our work, our relationships and so much more. Here are 7 ways dream journaling can contribute to your life and tips on how to reap those benefits:

1. Dreams Heal: When I was sick with chronic fatigue, I dreamt that a hive of bees buzzed in my heart. In the dream, I intuitively knew they were healing me. When I awoke, I felt that something powerful had happened within me and that a healing had taken place. I journaled about the dream and as I wrote, I re-experienced the powerful healing effects. I felt gratitude for the dream and to the dream bees. These feelings of gratitude continued to support healing. Unbeknownst to me (at least on a conscious level), the ancients (and shamans still to this day) believed that bees are a particularly potent animal ally for deep healing. In addition to the many uses of honey in medicine — both ancient and modern — the vibrational sound of bees is also healing, as is breathing in the propolis-filled air around a bee hut. In my experience, while dreaming, the subconscious mind has easier access to the collective unconscious and wisdom of the ages. When we journal, we take that information from the subconscious and collective unconscious and make it conscious, where we can continue to benefit from its wisdom and healing properties.
2. Dream Journaling Can Help You Solve Problems: Dreams are loaded with symbols that work on multiple levels at once — and this symbolism can be explored for a variety of messages from your inner guru to discover the answers to problems you’re looking to solve. In my own life, dreams have helped me resolve relationship challenges, health problems, career conundrums and more. Try this: Write the problem in your journal before you go to bed. Add a brief note to your subconscious self or dream self asking it to provide clues and solutions to resolve the issue. In the morning, jot down your dreams and explore what they may be telling you. Imagine each dream character and symbol as an aspect of your psyche. What does each one want you to know? Ask them questions to ascertain their full message, which can often be rich with multiple layers of meaning. As you work with each dream symbol, you also gain the variety of perspectives that can take you out of a limited perception of your problem and give you the birds eye view that leads to previously unseen solutions.
3. Dreams Fuel Innovation and Creativity: After dreaming about a humongous exploding boiler in a warehouse, I journaled by dialoguing with the different dream elements — not just people but also the boiler itself. Interestingly, a Greek Chorus showed up in my journal with their continuous refrain and the journal entry turned into something of an opera! While I’m not taking it further to produce a piece for the stage — however sexy an opera about a boiler could be — it was delightful to see the dream take on a creative life of its own, far beyond what I would have expected. Creative work does not necessarily have to be for the masses. The enjoyment of creating something unique and quirky can be celebrated by a party of one. And if the creative progeny of your dreams inspire others, all the better. Try this yourself by journaling about a dream and allowing the characters and symbols to take you in new directions of exploration. Feel free to draw, add music, use color, play with form (such as a poetic form like Haiku)— anything that will enrich the creative exploration.
4. Dreams Can Stimulate Spiritual Growth: Tibetan Dream Yoga is just one way practitioners use dreams to awaken spiritually. In Tibetan Dream Yoga, one prepares specifically for enlightenment and death, but the same tools can be used to awaken your spiritual gifts and wisdom. After reading Dreams of Awakening by Charlie Morley, I found myself in dreams where dream characters entreat me to, “Wake up!” In one recent dream, I fell to the kitchen floor unconscious, realizing that I did so intentionally in order to remember a dream (this all happened within the dream, including my intention to remember another dream). Upon waking and journaling, I realized my dream was inviting me to become lucid in my dreams, an entryway to gather spiritual information within the dream world. Try this: Before bed, jot down any spiritual questions or spiritual goals you have. Upon waking, recall your dreams, write them in your journal and explore how the dreams might be answering your questions. Over a series of entries, you may start to notice patterns and feel guided by the dreams in your waking explorations.
5. Many scientific discoveries and inventions are said to come from the realm of dreams: The idea for the periodic table came from a dream, for example. How? For one, dreaming supports pattern recognition. Dmitri Mendeleev had been working feverishly to find the organizing principles behind the chemical elements. He wrote the names and properties of each element known at the time on cards. For hours and hours he studied the cards without a breakthrough until he finally fell asleep at his desk. Mendeleev reported, “In a dream I saw a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.” How can you apply this to your own pursuits? Jot your questions in your dream journal. Write a note to your subconscious mind and place the journal by your bed.
6. Dreams Teach Us About the World: Many herbalists and other healers have learned about the healing properties of plants through their dreams. You can spend time with a plant, perhaps enjoying its scene or harvesting leaves for tea. That night, make a note in your dream journal inviting the plant to teach you about its healing properties within your dreams. Upon waking, try to stay in the same position you woke in and see if you can recall the dream. Then write it into your journal and continue to explore, possibly dialoging with the spirit of the plant. Note: If you don’t remember your dream the next morning, you can still dialogue with the plant in your journal. Continue to do so for several mornings and see what transpires in your dreams and in your journal.
7. Dreams Help Us Find Our Purpose: Forgive me for using another example from my own life, but that is where my experience comes from! When I was working in a burnout job as a nonprofit director, my dream journal helped me in realizing I needed to quit. After co-authoring and publishing my first book, as a new mom, I used my dreams and dream journal to explore my next career step. I needed to make a living but knew I couldn’t return to the burnout career in nonprofit work. The rich work with dreams and journaling prompted a spontaneous vision during a Svaroopa yoga class where I understood that my next step would be to create workshops where I teach the 5 steps I use to enter a state of creative flow and to support people as a creativity coach. Over time, my dream journal explorations helped that career to evolve into writing coach, then book coach, and the creativity workshops to evolve into my book writing programs and my latest book, Breathe. Write. Breathe.

For more ways to journal, check out my Medium article Try Journaling to Feed Your Soul. Please share your experiences with dreams, journaling and dream journaling in the comments! Feel free to share a specific dream or ask a question as well!