Thread: Should I use my dream journal or my computer?

I am relatively new to LDing I started two months ago than quit, joined back after a month quit again, and this time I am 100% serious about LDing and got back into it cause my first LD. Now Back to the topic at hand, I have always ben using a dream journal, But I have two reasons that I want to do it digitally. One: I have A third graders hand righting, and two is that I'm a slow righter and I'm about 6-5 times faster on the computer. So please tell a sorry soul like me what YOU think I should do. ( realized I while ago that this was a dream about LDing but none of the less I still am 100% serious)

I do mine on the computer. I know that some people record their dreams on tape recorders while other people record their dreams in an old fashion Journal. You can try everything then pick and choose what works for you.

Man that fast! Thank you for your reply, I will perhaps do it on the computer as I said do it on a old fashion one but I've been thinking for days whether or not if I should cause I keep on hearing stories of people who lost there dream recall after trying the computer version but I thought it was a dry spell instead. Thank you this has helped immensely.

What works for me is to keep a notebook next to the bed along with a lighted LED pen so I don't need to switch on a light, which will wake you up too much. You want to write it down immediately - as soon as you get out of bed and start your day the dreams will evaporate from your memory completely. And of course when you're more than half asleep your handwriting is terrible - sometimes I have trouble reading it later, but when I do get up I type it up with much better form in my computer DJ, where I add details etc, because the notebook version is totally barebones - it's really just a reminder.

Thank you for your reply It is extremely nice of you to reply to my question. Some times I just leave my journal on my bed or I quickly get up and grab it, it doesn't effect much I think. But I also don't have great handwriting or in my case I always don't have it but computer would = easy to read words and extremely fast writing speeds. I am getting better and better at my recall the other day I fully remembered 4 dreams and a false awakening. Also on the side note I always forget to reality check In the morning and Let me tell you this I have plenty and plenty of false awakenings, do you have any methods of getting better at doing RC's in the morning or any other times. Your help is much appreciated.

Another quick, off topic, and little question how do you do those quotes or have a picture under your message permanently?

I have one more question. This site will die one day (maybe not) like most other sites then what about my DJ will all of that be lost or will I be able to print it out or something?

Originally Posted by ARandomViewer

do you have any methods of getting better at doing RC's in the morning or any other times. Your help is much appreciated.

Unfortunately I usually forget to RC in the morning too. I think a good method would be to write a reminder in your journal before going to bed "Do an RC". Either in a notebook or go ahead and open a computer file and type it in there - that way you could delete it in the morning before typing up your dreams.

Originally Posted by ARandomViewer

Another quick, off topic, and little question how do you do those quotes or have a picture under your message permanently?

Quotes - use the button that says "Respond with quote" - or, to respond to multiple posts like I did here use the one on the far right that has a checkmark and the quote symbol. Check all the messages you want to show up, then on the last one hit the "respond with quote" button and it will be all set up in the response window. You then write your responses in the spaces between the (/QUOTE) tag and the following (QUOTE) tag. I used regular rounded parentheses so it would show up here, but they'll be square brackets.

A tip - when you're replying to multiple posts, always click on Go Advanced when you're done rather than Post Quick Reply - it will show what your post will look like and then you can correct any errors before posting it. It's easy to mess up when replying to multiple posts.

For the signature pic, find a pic you want to use and upload it to your profile. To do that, click on Control Panel at the top of the page and then on Edit Signature. You can type in a short message you want to show up or add the picture. Just now I don't remember exactly how you get the picture to show up - I'd need to look into that a bit.

Originally Posted by ARandomViewer

I have one more question. This site will die one day (maybe not) like most other sites then what about my DJ will all of that be lost or will I be able to print it out or something?

You can download them. The way I know to do it is to have the page open and go to your File menu across the top of your monitor (I have a Mac- it might be different for a PC). Click "Print" and it will open a dialogue window, and then you select "Save as PDF". It will download the entire page. You can print it up or just save it as a PDF file in a folder. Or heck - do both if you want, have a party!!

Or rather than clicking Print at first you could just click "Export as PDF".

Thank you on the RC one even if you don't have information you still helped me with the last part.
I will be sure to remember all about the quotes. Thank you.
And last but not least that is extremely useful I will write that down, and remember this one.

god I am way to new to this

Some feel that handwriting is best for burning the dreams into your memory. Another benefit to paper is that it's a lot more robust to the technological glitches that plague our society these days. On the other hand, it's a lot slower, and I find writing for long periods painful (not to mention I don't have particularly good furniture or lighting for it, making it even worse on my body). Writing it on the computer has a lot of benefits, such as taking vastly less time and making it easier to search for things.

Ultimately, it's up to you, but my personal compromise has been this: I use a voice recorder to record rough notes about everything I remember upon each awakening. This can be done in the dark, takes barely a few minutes, and I then get back to sleep quickly. Then, when I get up, I go through the voice notes and type them as formal entries on my DJ which I keep on the computer. This way, I go through every dream in my mind at least twice, which helps solidify the events in my memory. I haven't regretted this approach, and my recall is just fine. But I would also recommend going back and rereading your DJ from time to time. I went nearly a decade without ever reading my DJ, then when I finally read it I realized I had forgotten most of what I had written about, making it almost feel like I was reading someone else's DJ in a way!

Originally Posted by ARandomViewer

I have one more question. This site will die one day (maybe not) like most other sites then what about my DJ will all of that be lost or will I be able to print it out or something?

This is a good question and is one thing that always makes me a bit wary and skeptical of Web- and cloud-based services. I don't use Dream Views's DJ system, so I'm not familiar with what it offers, but unless it has an easy export option to export the entire DJ in a single download to something you can easily open on your computer without the aid of the Internet, I would be worried. Personally, I prefer to manage my own data. I have a set of self-written software scripts that take my DJ and create a nicely-organized, custom-tailored set of HTML pages I can comfortably browse and navigate in a browser, but all of the DJ content they read from is contained in nothing more than a plain text file—something that virtually any text editor on any computer and OS on the planet can open, even if it's just Windows Notepad. I use a little HTML and some other special syntax, but it's sparse and designed to still be reasonably human-legible on its own, not much worse than reading raw posts with BBCode on forums. The fancy scripts and such are just extra stuff; if they somehow just disappeared or stopped working someday, my raw DJ content would still be safe and readable. If I really wanted to, I could just print the entire thing out on paper for safekeeping (though the cost might be somewhat prohibitive at nearly 2 million words and growing!). And then I keep it backed up by regularly copying it (and all my other computer files) to more than one other storage device on a regular basis and check them out from time to time to make sure they still work.

Hope that didn't get too technical. Basically, I just wanted to point out that you're right for thinking about the security of your data when considering any kind of computer system, especially online services. Too many people don't think of it until it's too late. As a general rule, simpler is safer, so if you write on the computer, I recommend using the simplest software possible that gets the job done.

Hmmm thank you I will remember this. But I don't know I'm kind of thinking Of first writing in my first DJ I like the "it runs through my mind" part than later in the day I will put it in the computer. Sounds nice.

Originally Posted by ARandomViewer

I have one more question. This site will die one day (maybe not) like most other sites then what about my DJ will all of that be lost or will I be able to print it out or something?

What I do is type up my detailed entries in Google Docs, and then copy and paste that to the form specific DJ.
That requires some trust in Google... but you can always download backups. I have four documents full of dreams on Google Docs and the editor has everything you need for simple dream journaling, plus a lot more.

Did it? (nope) didn't work

then how bout this?

(nice)

Spoiler for undefined:

does this?

I do it on both but I usually do it on Notepad and then put it in the dream journal on here at night and upload the dream to onedrive.

I generally write a few quick details about the dream and then later type them up in more detail.

Recently, I've started a morning ritual of getting up, taking a picture of my paper DJ (which is then automatically uploaded to Google Photos), and then when I am ready to type up the whole dream I just load the picture on my computer and use it for reference. That solved my problem of having to take my physical DJ to my computer area, which used to be very annoying.

For RCing to prevent false awakenings, you could try autosuggestion -- maybe a mantra of "when I wake up, I will do a RC".