Dreaming about Journaling (versus just... journaling)

Do you ever wake up intending to reach over for your dream journal and write down your dreams of the night but just... feel too comfy to bother? And you figure, hell, you'll just lie where you are and try to recollect a few more details first... yeah, that's it... then figure out how to write them down, which order and what details... why there's the journal after all, you must have grabbed it without noticing! just write down the dream, that's the spirit, you'll never forget it now...

...and then wake up a little while later and realize you just dreamed about writing down the dreams you've had, and now you can't remember what those dreams were and you sure as hell don't have a physical journal entry to remind you anymore? I was thinking about the rotten luck I have incubating certain dreams by visualizing them as I fall asleep, but then I realized that I actually do this at least a few times a week! only all I ever visualize is journal pages and writing in them.

What a pain in the ass!

I jot down dream journal entries in dreams every so often. But when I do that it actually solidifies the nights dreams in my mind and when I wake up I can remember all the dreams much more easily, especially if I've given the dreamed dream journal entries catchy or unusualy titles.

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Originally Posted by Vex Kitten

I jot down dream journal entries in dreams every so often. But when I do that it actually solidifies the nights dreams in my mind and when I wake up I can remember all the dreams much more easily, especially if I've given the dreamed dream journal entries catchy or unusualy titles.

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Lucky you! My dream-dreamjournaling efforts are disgustingly counterproductive, because I'm actually forgetting what I'm trying so hard to remember while remembering it. It would actually be more useful for me to say "screw it to hell!", roll over and pick up in the real dream where I left off and hopefully wake up remembering the whole shibang, awake enough to write it down now for real.

I had one of those last night, but went one better! I actually dreamed of getting up and venturing out into the house with my dream journal and a sharpened pencil (I don't even own a physical journal) and I met my neighbors. I then proceeded to explain all of my dreams to my neighbors and comment on how stupid it was that I didn't become lucid in some of them :rolleyes:

Much profanity ensued.

I've had this experience several times in false awakenings. I'll reach the point in an LD where I decide, "I'd better wake up and write this all down!" So I do... sometimes for several pages... only to wake up again and realize that I have nothing to show for it, and that the intervening time has dulled my recall of the LD I was intending to record.

On one memorable occasion, after handwriting a long entry describing the LD I'd just had, I looked back over what I had written and discovered that it was entirely in cuneiform script! This probably should have tipped me off to the fact that I was still dreaming, but it didn't. Go figure.

I've had the experience of dreaming I was writing in my journal, only to discover THAT was a dream, and when I woke up I still had to write in my journal! But I've found this to be a helpful experience - if I just dreamed something amazing and I'm "writing it in my journal" (still dreaming), that reinforces the experience because I'm replaying the events visually and constructing words and sentences about them. Then when I actually wake up, it's much quicker and easier to really write it down in my real, physical journal. Usually.

The thing I'm realizing now is that there are multiple levels of dream/experiences: There's the Astral level of course, but then there's a higher level, the Mental level. After dreaming something on the Mental level and then "waking up" (back at the more-familiar Astral level), I know it's time to write in my "journal"! Then I wake up again, and realize - oh, man, that first dream was at a deeper level than I thought. Time to write both experiences down in my real journal now that I REALLY know I'm awake, sitting up in bed. 20-30 minutes later I can go back to sleep.

I find this happens a lot within 1-2 days of the full moon.

I actually had a dream once wherein I was studying for a test (AP Government, I think), and the notes I were reviewing were written in my dream journal.
Kinda freaked me out once I woke up.