Thread: how does dream journal help becoming lucid?

Keeping a dream journal is an important step in building very good dream recall, and an overall awareness of your dreams. Dream recall is not just about finding dream signs (although that can be an important byproduct), more importantly it is you exercising your access to memory. In the dream state, access to memory is impaired, so in order to be able to occasionally overcome this extra dullness, building very good access to memory when awake helps in eventually getting lucid in a dream. When you become very familiar with your dreams, you will build up a "feeling" of what a dream feels like to you, compared to how waking life feels. When you remember to notice this different feeling in dreams, lucidity results (often without ever needing to perform an RC, you just know you're dreaming).

We dream on a normal night for several hours, wouldn't you like to remember all that fun/weird/interesting part of your life instead of having it all go down the drain? Great dream recall is its own reward, not to mention the benefits of getting lucid more often.

If you would like help with tailoring a LD practice program, I encourage you to open a workbook in either the Intro DVA class or the DILD class. If you have no experience at all with LD practice the Intro class may be the better fit, if you have some experience, the DILD is perhaps better. You're welcome to join either one! There are other classes there as well with lots of great information and friendly teachers ready to assist your dreaming journey.

so I should read it in detail

Originally Posted by kamenriderbaron

so I should read it in detail

Yes reviewing your journal is a good idea, but even more important is writing in it regularly. Try to always build better and better dream recall and journal your dreams, the benefits for lucidity are great.

I believe that simply writing down your dreams in as much detail as possible can trigger lucid dreams.
I know that I tend to get False Awakenings very often when I write down my dreams in the morning an then fall back to sleep, and although False Awakenings aren't strictly lucid dreams, I do find it very easy to become lucid in them.
I don't know why my critical thinking is so strong during those specific kinds of dreams, but I will always find something that is out of place and immediately think "wtf, I don't have that thing in my room, I'm dreaming!".

Indeed it is important, mainly for dream recall, which also allows you to recall a lucid. Once I had a lucid and I remembered moments after I woke up. Also, in my case I think that writing the journal is what allowed me to wake up almost after every sleep cycle, with dream memories.

Before all this thing about lucid dreaming, dream journal, etc. I always told to people that "I sleep 8 straight hours". I would never get up to the bathroom or to drink water, and my feeling was that I would go to sleep at night (around 10-11PM), and wake up with the alarm clock (6-7AM), sometimes remembering a dream, sometimes not.

Now, I use to wake up at around 4am for first time, then 5.30am, and finally alarm clock at around 6.40am. And sometimes I even wake up at 1.30am or 2.30am. The thing is that I usually have a dream to write after every cycle. Some are really weird, small memories or just a scene (which I also write), and some others are amazing stories like being inside a movie being a special agent, jumping from moving trains trying to scape the army, etc...

And don't get fooled by thinking "I'm so confortable now.. I will write this dream later.. sure I will remember it". Because you probably won't. I've had empty journals some days the past couple weeks just because of this. And just tonight I felt tempted not to write, but I switched the light on, started writing and.... suddenly more dream memories came to my mind, which I also wrote.

So just writing them down not doing any special effort to recall anything, it triggers your memory for other dreams, or just allows you to recall previous moments of that same dream.

As others have pointed out, writing down your dreams is highly important if you want to remember them in great detail. If you wake up one morning and only have one or two dull dreams to write down, you may think to yourself, "they are not important; I don't have to write them." Do not fall into this trap! You will notice that after just one day of skipping your dream journaling, your dream recall will be significantly lower the next morning. Even if the dreams are boring, you should always record them. If you wake up in the early morning with an awesome dream still in your mind, you do stand a great chance of losing it if it is not recorded in your journal. However, I have heard of people not being able to sleep after writing down entire dreams at early hours. This is due to the fact that they had to get up, turn on the lights, and spend several minutes thinking hard about what just happened. I have a simple solution to this problem. Have a pen and scrap piece of paper in reaching distance from where you sleep. When you wake up after a dream, just write a few key words from the dream. Later on when you are up to journaling, these key words will allow you to remember most if not all of the dream in surprising detail. Remember not to use a bright light when you wake up to write your key words because it will greatly disrupt your sleep cycle. You will notice that this technique will also lead to greater recall and a higher number of lucid dreams. So in short, dream journaling is essential to anyone who wants to have lucid dreams. Looking back at your dreams and noting common themes will lead you straight to lucidity!

Keeping a dream journal is mainly to help with recall. However it should be used to figure out what techs you need to use as well. Most people mindlessly dream journal and it helps a little. This might be of use to you:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...m-journal.html

Two words: voice journal. You can do it in the dark with eyes closed, no fumbling for a pen/pencil which fell down somewhere in the night, you don't have to move much to do it, you can talk much faster than you can write, and it's (generally) much easier to understand sleepy voice notes than sleepy chicken scribbles the next morning. Then later in the day (or as soon as you get out of bed) transcribe to a file on the computer. If you can't touch type, learn how, it makes it bearably fast to do.

Originally Posted by 4thDimension

(...) When you wake up after a dream, just write a few key words from the dream. Later on when you are up to journaling, these key words will allow you to remember most if not all of the dream in surprising detail. (...)

This.

I did this a couple times on the middle of the night mainly because I felt soooo sleepy and tired that I wanted to go back to sleep as soon as possible, but is not a bad idea as a general rule. It's almost unbelievable that when you wake up with the alarm clock, you try to remember the dream without "cheating", but it's almost impossible (unless it was a VERY special dream for some reason), and when you look at the notebook and see a huge list of keywords it's just.... amazing, how it all comes to mind, like a dark 10km tunnel on a highway being lit up inch by inch, showing it's walls and floor.

Also, I use to do this on the morning. While writting a long dream suddenly another previous one pops in mind, so I stop for a moment and write keywords on a side. Sometimes I even forget that dream when finishing the first one, but I can get it back looking at the keywords.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

(...) much easier to understand sleepy voice notes than sleepy chicken scribbles the next morning. (...)

And this
Sometimes I find it really hard to read a dream I wrote....


So yeah, basically the conclusion is that DJ is a great tool, not just for lucidity, but also to discover lots of dreams that else would just get forgotten.

Originally Posted by Irreo

And don't get fooled by thinking "I'm so confortable now.. I will write this dream later.. sure I will remember it". Because you probably won't. I've had empty journals some days the past couple weeks just because of this. And just tonight I felt tempted not to write, but I switched the light on, started writing and.... suddenly more dream memories came to my mind, which I also wrote.

HAHA, I know right?
I tend to do this pretty often, I will wake up in the middle of the night and be like "wow, totally crystal clear memories, I will obviously remember this!", and then I am like "?" in the morning.

I can also relate to the moment when you decide to start writing down the dreams right away, and then all of a sudden more and more dream memories will appear.
Sometimes I have to be content just writing the overall plot and ignoring a few details, because otherwise I will probably write for like 20-30 minutes and then end up getting too awake and being unable to fall asleep again, ironically enough.

I have found that drawing simple sketches is easier for me, then I just write simple descriptions of things to make it all a bit clearer.
I have even invented an own logographic writing system where I have a simple symbol for many different common words ("sun" is just a round circle, "house" is a square with a caret on top etc), and I regularly update it whenever necessary.