Journaling by Writing Longhand vs. Typing on Computer?

Is it better to write your dreams by longhand vs. on computer?

Aside from personal preferences ("computer takes less time," "longhand is a more aesthetically pleasing experience," etc.), is there an objective answer here? I mean in terms of recall.

Is there a certain power that using your hand (to write longhand) has (in terms of unlocking memory)? Or doesn't it matter whether you do longhand or computer typing or etc.?

What are your thoughts?

I'm thinking of switching over to computer, if I can get a good mp3 to txt software. That would be a lot less time and work. I do prefer longhand, in terms of aesthetically/emotionally. But I would still write a bit of longhand (highlights, summaries, reflections or what have you). Anyway, my concern is recall. What's the best approach (for the purposes of recall)? Longhand or typing on computer?

I prefer handwriting but almost never do it. Not only because it's slower, mostly because for me it's painful. Journaling memos into my phone is not pain-free for me really, especially with thumbs, but it's better than handwriting. Sometimes I'd also just get up and go straight to the computer and write the dream on my DJ here on DV, though I haven't done this in some time, largely due to unrelated problems. So most of what I do now tends to be phone text memos, even if I leave the recall for an entire day before I get to it.

Not optimal, but better than not at all for me right now, and I personally feel that's important, the element of doing it at all should prevail versus whether it's optimal or not. If you want to focus on recall as soon as possible, phone text/voice memos are good because it's easier to get more into them, and they're "bad" because a phone will have light (filtered or not) that may wake you enough to disrupt recall; sometimes I partly deal with the light/recall issue by having one eye closed while typing into my phone, as it helps me retain recall. The downside is that if I want to get up, the "exposure" between my eyes won't match and things look a bit funky. :P

I don't think that either writing or typing should make a huge difference in terms of committing to memory, the intention and any of the acts themselves there should be what really matter, so the focus for me tends to really be about on what/where/when my ability to retain other parts of recall will be affected as I'm working on a different part of the recall; this is a significant concern if you have particularly long dreams or just several sequences that you need to recall, because trying to detail one more than another may lead to leaving recall for other bits for too long.


If there is an objective answer for your question, I don't know it. I think the only thing that could possibly assess that would be a research study on the subject.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Not optimal, but better than not at all for me right now, and I personally feel that's important, the element of doing it at all should prevail versus whether it's optimal or not. If you want to focus on recall as soon as possible, phone text/voice memos are good because it's easier to get more into them, and they're "bad" because a phone will have light (filtered or not) that may wake you enough to disrupt recall; sometimes I partly deal with the light/recall issue by having one eye closed while typing into my phone, as it helps me retain recall. The downside is that if I want to get up, the "exposure" between my eyes won't match and things look a bit funky. :P

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That's why I have a tape recorder. I got a new tape recorder recently. It's set to sound activated (not voice activated, unfortunately), so I just start recording when I get to bed, and leave it on for the night. It automatically pauses when it detects silence, and then when it detects sound it automatically starts recording again.

So I can just lay there. When I wake up from a dream, I just lay there. I don't have to move at all, except my lips. I just lay there and speak the dream.

So for 10 hours or so of sleep, the recording ends up being about 30-40 mins. So most of that is semi-silences. But I can play it in PotPlayer at 3x the speed. During the silent moments I write down dream signs from the previous night and stuff.

If I could get a good mp3 to text converter, I could just pop the mp3 file of the night in the software, and it would pop out as a text file. I would still have to organize stuff and add things, but it would cut back on a lot of stuff I'm sure. Plus it's just less time-consuming and more organized to write on a computer. But aesthetically/emotionally, I prefer longhand. So it's a bit of a dilemma.

"so the focus for me tends to really be about on what/where/when my ability to retain other parts of recall will be affected as I'm working on a different part of the recall; this is a significant concern if you have particularly long dreams or just several sequences that you need to recall, because trying to detail one more than another may lead to leaving recall for other bits for too long."

How do you deal with this issue? Just assign a key word or two to each scene/part, and then expound on them later?

I did hear of a study once about the mental effect of writing things down by hand. People were much more likely to carry out the intended action if they wrote it down first. Sorry, don't really have a link to back this up (maybe you can google it if you're interested in the source). I heard it on the radio.

To me, it seems likely that writing down your dreams is a stronger form of intention than typing or speaking (typing is perhaps stronger than speaking, as it can require more time and effort). There's something about the effort expended to write by hand. The more effort you expend, the more intention you create. And I believe intention is everything.

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Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

I did hear of a study once about the mental effect of writing things down by hand. People were much more likely to carry out the intended action if they wrote it down first. Sorry, don't really have a link to back this up (maybe you can google it if you're interested in the source). I heard it on the radio.

To me, it seems likely that writing down your dreams is a stronger form of intention than typing or speaking (typing is perhaps stronger than speaking, as it can require more time and effort). There's something about the effort expended to write by hand. The more effort you expend, the more intention you create. And I believe intention is everything.

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Ahh okay. Thanks so much for the info. I guess eventually though, if my dream recall becomes so good that I'll remember 17 dreams a night, and it'll take like 6 hours just to write it out by longhand, I guess I'll have no choice but to use a mp3 to text software. But I'll still write some stuff by longhand (maybe just a dream or two, or summaries or highlights or what have you). But yeah, one day at a time.

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Originally Posted by andreasdevig

How do you deal with this issue? Just assign a key word or two to each scene/part, and then expound on them later?

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Honestly, generally speaking I deal with this issue poorly; yes, your suggested technique would be ideal. In the moment of writing down initial recall, I am rarely in the mood to be that organised about it and prefer to simply do linear recall as much as possible, usually regressive, that is to say, starting from the part closest to awakening and working my way "back" to the earliest parts of the dream, though both ways work fairly okay for me.

And so, typically, I mostly only tend to do key words for segments if my morning will not allow me to write down recall which was actually decent; for example I will do this mostly on this days where I have to get ready to go somewhere relatively early and need to be preparing food for later in the day and so on, usually writing the keywords or expanding them a little in the moments when I'm waiting for something to happen.

I think it sounds like you have a very reliable setup/method for doing voice recording, so I would not necessarily encourage you to change anything about the way you are dealing with recall at present. Realistically, voice recording will only ever be problematic if you're having to go through hours of it because of backlog and if you're not categorising/tagging/identifying it and so on. Though any form of journaling can suffer on those fronts.