Thread: Dream Writing Technique

I would've voted for "I am myself, as I am awake" and "I am someone else, as I am awake", but I only get one vote.

Sometimes I'm myself, and sometimes it's like I'm someone else, but still thinking of me as myself. Does that make any sense. I've thought about this before, and how it's weird that you can be someone else, yet keep your same personality.

Good topic, M.D. The only thread I can remember that relates at all to this is the one about dreaming that you are a different gender.

I voted for "myself, other personality", because I think that the dream state brings some changes in the usual behavior of the one dreaming and so his/her personality may be a little different...

I fluctualte with all the answers. Maybe there should be an option for floating around - passive observation like watching a movie, I have this alot and i think others do as well.
My answer for now is - I am myself, but with a different personality. Lately I have been very agressive in my dreams.

i'm usually me, but i act differently than i would i normal life, hence my vote.

Most of the time I am myself, except instead of my thoughts constantly wandering as they do in real life, I think straight forward. Sometimes I will be someone else, but again I will think straight forward.

Never really thought about it or noticed it, I suppose I am quite similar to myself but like DarthDallas I act differently, I'd make different decisions in dreams and react differently to some things than I usually do in real life.

Originally Posted by Burns

I would've voted for "I am myself, as I am awake" and "I am someone else, as I am awake", but I only get one vote.

Sometimes I'm myself, and sometimes it's like I'm someone else, but still thinking of me as myself. Does that make any sense. I've thought about this before, and how it's weird that you can be someone else, yet keep your same personality.

Good topic, M.D. The only thread I can remember that relates at all to this is the one about dreaming that you are a different gender.
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Thanks, Burns. It shouldn't be weird, I don't think, since people's minds don't naturally become completely different. It's easy to consider yourself living another person's life, but it's much more difficult to (subconsciously) consider yourself thinking another person's thoughts and feeling another person's feelings. IMO.

Originally Posted by Burns

I voted for "myself, other personality", because I think that the dream state brings some changes in the usual behavior of the one dreaming and so his/her personality may be a little different...
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Hmm... I don't know if you should have. I think that except in the case of dreams which are reiterations of mundane events, like the one I had last night about discussing math problems, dreams will often necessarily have a different 'feel' to them, or place you in a situation that you've never been in before, so while you could easily reflect on the dream and think, "That's not me", it could have been "you" more often than you'd realize...

I know I'm a different person in my dreams when I do something surprisingly immoral or which I don't think I have any reason to believe I could have the strength to face in that way in real life. Also, I sometimes notice that I have a characterization in my dreams with is unusually reckless/destructive, or which is very emotionally deadened, or is single-minded and confident about bizarre things. That's when I decide, "Yeah, that probably isn't me".

Other times I might do something like yell at someone for being a coward, or fly across a lake in pursuit of someone mysterious but somehow I think those are things I would do IRL, so they're not evidence against me being myself. (The latter happened in a lucid dream, so I /know/ it was my true mind's decision.)

Most likely I don't get it right all the time, though often I rely on my gut feeling rather than observing individual aspects of my personality that I recall... and it's very possible that I am capable of something more or less than what I imagine I'm capable of, where I tell myself it's me when only someone else could do it, or where I tell myself it's my dream personality when I really am that kind of person.

In any case, it's probably always going to be largely difficult to determine (the one person who voted the last option is probably aware of this &#33 but it's always fun to discuss things.


By the way, while the poll did make this topic interesting, the main point of this topic was actually to ask what people think about how to best go about writing down a dream, organizationally. If anyone still has any thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them.

Hmmm. Good question. Most of the time, I'm myself, witrh my own personality. What changes in dreams isn't me, but other people... people react slightly differently to me in dreams than they do in real life.

Occaisionally, though, I'll be somebody else in my dreams, but with my own personality. Like, the night before last, I was Mal from Firefly (AWESOME scifi tv series, if you haven't seen it already, go buy the DVDs and check it out, it's so cool&#33

As for writing dreams down, I usually start from the most vivid, important part of the dream, usually somewhere in the middle, and then work forwards and backwards, adding on stuff as I remember it. I also re-write it later in the day. I usually find I remember a fair bit of detail when I re-write my dreams. The key is to get as many plot elements down as possible first. LATER you can re-read it all, and remember the cosmetic things, like how people looked, and how stuff looked, and what your surrpoundings looked like.

Originally Posted by The

(AWESOME scifi tv series, if you haven't seen it already, go buy the DVDs and check it out, it's so cool&#33
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Why, why, did they cancel it? (First time I used one of thoseI think it went in twice that's OK I was really sad).

I feel like myself but I do lots of mean things that I don't usually do.

Oh, I know! It was so stupid to flippin' cancel it. Hopefully one of these days they'll either bring it back to TV, or make another movie. I thought the Serenity movie was pretty good, but not as good as the TV series.

But yeah. It's weird being yourself, but somebody else at the same time. So far, I've been Tornado Joe from DV (that was weird), Mal from Serenity, a medieval knight, and a few other weird things...

Originally Posted by megabenman

Most of the time I am myself, except instead of my thoughts constantly wandering as they do in real life, I think straight forward.[/b]

This is how I pretty much always am, although I have had a few very rare dreams where I was just sort of a "camera" and not really in the dream at all.

As far as thoughts not constantly wandering, I believe people are usually always like this in dreams, and furthermore I believe this is why most people don't naturally become lucid except on rare occasion (if ever). In dreams we don't normally follow complex trains of thought such as: "Hmmmm, I'm being chased by a T-Rex, how is that even possible? Perhaps this is a dream?" Instead we normally think like: "I'm being chased by a T-Rex, RUN!!!"

Moving on... I've never been someone else in a dream, although I think that'd be a pretty cool experience. However, after much thought I have decided I do not believe it is possible to be "yourself but with a different personality" in a dream. Let me explain.

The first point is the simple one. If you could have a different personality, you wouldn't really be YOU, would you. You might look like you, you might answer to the same name, but if your personality wasn't "yours," then you wouldn't be "you." You'd be someone else. A dream character in your own dream.

My second point is a bit more complex. We're capable of more than we realize. Some of the things you do in dreams might seem like things you would never or could never do in real life, but are they really? Those things are inside you. They aren't always present at a conscious level, but they're there. For example, the normal "you" might not do anything if someone, say, cut in front of you in line at the bank. But the "you" who had just lost his job and had his wife leave him just might snap. Not "normal" behavior for you at all, but it's inside you nonetheless. Another example. Maybe the normal "you" would never dream of cheating on your wife, girlfriend, etc. But the "you" who's alone with a stunningly gorgeous girl who's crawling all over him... just might do something that he'll regret. It's inside you. These are just two examples but I think you get the bigger picture.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "yeah, okay, but those reactions were all brought about purely by unusual circumstances." Indeed, they were. And in your dreams, you have the unusual circumstance of being asleep. Your brain does not function the same asleep as it does while you are awake. We know this- think of my earlier example involving the T-Rex. And that's just one example. That altered state of consciousness (sleep) can bring out those other things that are inside you.

"Being yourself but acting differently" is, of course, entirely possible. The norm, in fact. However, this is markedly different from "being yourself but with a different personality." Perhaps I am just quibbling over words, in which case I apologize.
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Now that this thread has been effectively hijacked, let me address the original topic. I believe the best way to record your dreams is in a two-part process. The first part is immediately after you wake up: grab your dream journal and just jot down notes. The purpose of these notes is simply to jar your memory later on. With that in mind, these notes don't have to be organized. They barely have to be legible. Just get down AS MUCH as you can, AS QUICKLY as you can.

The second part is reviewing your notes after you have risen for the day and refining them into story form. Using the notes, write a story in first-person perspective, start to finish, in past- or present-tense (I prefer the latter). You should list the setting, give detailed descriptions, and include details like what thoughts and feelings you were having. Write it as if someone else is going to read it.

This is what I do, except I replaced the journal by my bed with a little voice recorder instead. By the way, there is a link to my dream journal in my signature.

Originally Posted by DuB

As far as thoughts not constantly wandering, I believe people are usually always like this in dreams, and furthermore I believe this is why most people don't naturally become lucid except on rare occasion (if ever). In dreams we don't normally follow complex trains of thought such as: "Hmmmm, I'm being chased by a T-Rex, how is that even possible? Perhaps this is a dream?" Instead we normally think like: "I'm being chased by a T-Rex, RUN!!!" [/b]

Yeah... I've thought about this before, how my mind always seems to clear when I'm dreaming lucidly, and just generally straightforward when I'm dreaming in any case. I think maybe that's part of the reason "lucid" stuck. It's what I admire most in lucidity, in any case. I think it could be because when you're in your ordinary state of living, you have all these unconscious states which you have to maintain to be able to operate quickly and effectively, partially. The other reason would be... like you say, it's just a different state of mind. Right now I have a song repeating in my head, I'm feeling a bunch of different sensations which I think about more or less on a very frequent basis, and both my mind and my mind's eye are still maintaining loose outlines of things and ideas even when I'm no longer actively trying to maintain them, just as a habit which was developed due to efficiency, whereas when I'm in a dream I don't really feel my body as much as understand my immediate environment in the way that's probably not realistic, and I don't imagine any irregular feelings, and my mind's eye is kind of the dream itself in a way (except it's also possible to have a mind's eye within the dream, I know--it's just you have to deliberately imagine, if that makes sense). Actually, one possibility is that all the extraneous thinking isn't sensed by the conscious dreamer, but rather is working behind the scenes and isn't sensed by you as you dream, so you can experience a clear dream while the "you" who's making assocations and building the dream world and seeing what your mind's eye isn't serious enough about to want to bring into the dream, is isolated. Maybe. I'd need to study dream science more.

Moving on... I've never been someone else in a dream, although I think that'd be a pretty cool experience. However, after much thought I have decided I do not believe it is possible to be "yourself but with a different personality" in a dream. Let me explain.

The first point is the simple one. If you could have a different personality, you wouldn't really be YOU, would you. You might look like you, you might answer to the same name, but if your personality wasn't "yours," then you wouldn't be "you." You'd be someone else. A dream character in your own dream.

My second point is a bit more complex. We're capable of more than we realize. Some of the things you do in dreams might seem like things you would never or could never do in real life, but are they really? Those things are inside you. They aren't always present at a conscious level, but they're there. For example, the normal "you" might not do anything if someone, say, cut in front of you in line at the bank. But the "you" who had just lost his job and had his wife leave him just might snap. Not "normal" behavior for you at all, but it's inside you nonetheless. Another example. Maybe the normal "you" would never dream of cheating on your wife, girlfriend, etc. But the "you" who's alone with a stunningly gorgeous girl who's crawling all over him... just might do something that he'll regret. It's inside you. These are just two examples but I think you get the bigger picture.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "yeah, okay, but those reactions were all brought about purely by unusual circumstances." Indeed, they were. And in your dreams, you have the unusual circumstance of being asleep. Your brain does not function the same asleep as it does while you are awake. We know this- think of my earlier example involving the T-Rex. And that's just one example. That altered state of consciousness (sleep) can bring out those other things that are inside you.

"Being yourself but acting differently" is, of course, entirely possible. The norm, in fact. However, this is markedly different from "being yourself but with a different personality." Perhaps I am just quibbling over words, in which case I apologize.[/b]

I agree completely, and I did indeed mean for the phrase in my poll to take into account the situations you describe, so it is, as you lightly reference, just a matter of wording; when I say, "with a different personality", or course I know it's all subjective within the context of the dream. I don't expect most people to be able to make the distinction, so this poll just wants the person who takes it to ask themselves, "Do I feel this is true?" rather than analyzing the question too deeply. Thank you for saying this, though.

Now that this thread has been effectively hijacked, let me address the original topic. I believe the best way to record your dreams is in a two-part process. The first part is immediately after you wake up: grab your dream journal and just jot down notes. The purpose of these notes is simply to jar your memory later on. With that in mind, these notes don't have to be organized. They barely have to be legible. Just get down AS MUCH as you can, AS QUICKLY as you can.

The second part is reviewing your notes after you have risen for the day and refining them into story form. Using the notes, write a story in first-person perspective, start to finish, in past- or present-tense (I prefer the latter). You should list the setting, give detailed descriptions, and include details like what thoughts and feelings you were having. Write it as if someone else is going to read it.

This is what I do, except I replaced the journal by my bed with a little voice recorder instead. By the way, there is a link to my dream journal in my signature.
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A three-step method? That would probably work really well... I did a two-step method, kind of, which involved the first two steps, but I stopped because I had the impression that I was encouraging myself to selectively remember what I wrote down, although that probably wasn't case, and also more importantly because I think that just jotting down as much as I can doesn't work well for me because I need to be able to trace through the dream carefully to catch as much detail as possible, the first time around. Using a tape recorder... that sounds like a really good idea. I should possibly try that.

I don't think my dreams are like yours, in that I can really write them well if I just stick to first-person perspective consistently, because often I'll have feelings about things which don't make any sense in that context, or part of the dream I won't exist (you said it's rare for you to be "outside" a perspective, but I imagine it's more common for me). Or maybe it's just that I am recalling bits and pieces and try to record as much as I can. At this time, I think of a dream is just a series of mental sensations which doesn't have to have any continuity, so I just try to write down every part of the experience I can recall in the order I believe it occurred. It does often come out well in written form, since it's vivid world and I'm in it, but I don't think that's its nature.

Yeah... In real life, I mostly think about 5 or so things at once, all the time. For example, right now I am thinking about the message I'm typing right now. Well, at the same time, I'm thinking about what I did today, what I'm sick with (yeah I'm sick ) how hot my room is, and what I will dream about tonight. Whatever is the most important thought will usually stick out; the rest will be in the background. So obviously, the most important thought right now is about this message.

If I were typing this message in a dream (assuming my dream computer worked) the only thought on my mind would be the most important thought- this message. In my dreams I have no background thoughts.