Thread: A Practical Introduction to Dream Cartography

What is Dream Cartography

Dream Cartography is a modification of Dream Journaling. The idea behind DJ is to keep journal of dreams and try to write down dreams as detailed as possible. The problem is that this proccess usually emphasize plot of the dream: often you can found DJ with amazing details about who talk with, what dreamer and DCs did while dreaming and so on. It indeed trains recall but the plot is not one thing that deserves dreamer's attention.

Another one - dream world itself and its geography, so Dream Cartography is a technique which suggest to emphasize dreamer's surroundings and a place where dream takes place over dream's plot.

Basic features

• Exploring your own dream world is fun and interesting.
• It may appeal to people who enjoy exploring and researching.
• Comparing to the number of possible plots, the number of places is much limited (in non-lucid dreams), so it is possible for frequent ones to serve as dream signs.
• The goal to explore dream world gradually becomes incentive of your's dream counterpart, and you may start to see dreams about places where you have never been (or just do not remember) or have not been for a while (often in adulthood we tend to visit some places more rare than when we were children).
• Dream Cartography do not exclude Dream Journaling, it may be a supplement to this.
• Dream Cartography allows to use more effective your non-lucid dreams which usually are majority. More, for creating first draft of your map you can start with already recorded dreams. If you already have long DJ with a lot of entries - that's great. You can process them right away and draw a draft of the map based on this dreams.
• Useful side-effect of this practice is that one start to remember other dreams which took place in the same place.

Advanced features

• Interesting feature of dream maps is that some elements are rather common among dreamers.
• Dream maps can be shared and discussed: it is one of the best features!
• Dream Journaling significantly improves dream recall: some of the DJs features very detailed descriptions of events happened during a dream. Dream cartography also has significant influence over dreaming. It deserves own articles on this topic, so I will only outline it briefly here.
  
  A lot of dreamers perceive dreams as a set of non-connected or loosely connected dream scenes which changes oftenly. At the other side, some may notice scenes which are reoccuring from time to time, and even more - they may often get from one place to another using the same route. Example: when I was younger I often had dreams which took place in small town which I used to visit in real life. In dreams I usually went there by train. When I processed my old DJ for creating list of places, I realized that this route was quite stable, and more - after train station in this town there a couple of others which I also visited several times.
  
  So the more we see dreams the more patterns we find, the more dream scenes become connected and "ordered". It become to make sense. This process is somewhat natural: if one have a good recall then in his, say, fifties (s)he will know a lot of places in her/his dreams and how they are connected to each other. Dream cartography allows to force this process of dream space ordering and (as ultimate goal) give dreamer a complete map within reasonable period of time.
  
• Many people (both "skeptics" and "mystics") agree that dreams are key to one's inner self. Dream cartography gives dreamer a sane, simple and fun method to explore it. Even if you do not know what aspect of your personality is represented by this cute castle on the hills, you at least know how to get there!

Which dreams are most useful

One of the good points of dream cartography is that the main source are non-lucid dreams, though some will be better than others. The best ones are those which took place not only inside but also outside because these dreams allow to judge about where different elements of the dream world are situated relatively to each other.

At first it will be hard to notice such connection because often in dreams we move from one dream scene to another by sudden change of it. During practice of dream cartography brain figures out (or creates - hard to say really) these connections.

How to start

As with DJ there are no universal way how to create and update a dream map, so I will provide general guidelines and share my own experience.

First you should to process dreams you already have and create list of the places which you will put onto map later. Alternatively you can start over and put them right away if you want - it may be different for everyone. Personally, I am lazy and first write dreams into DJ and once in a while update my map.

DJ entries can be slightly modificated for dream cartography's purposes. You should add to each a title and/or description of place where dream took place and transits (if any). Transits are objects which led to sudden change of dream scene. For example, you touched a statue in dream and was teleported - this is a transit. Or you went through mirror and found yourself somewhere else - this is also transit.

If you have have drawing skills, you may also draw this place.

Personally I keep DJ as Excel file with five columns: date, title, brief description of the plot, places and transits (the last is usually empty). My dream map is vector image - I use open-source editor Inkscape.

General layout

Dream map usually built around one's home (i.e. it's dream counterpart) because this is the place which one usually dreams very often about. Around Home usually there is an area which called Home City. It includes school, college, work and other typical places which we often visit in dreams. Also there are may some other towns (usually smaller than Home city).

Borders of dream world are represented by impassable obstacles like ocean and mountains. Often before such obstacle there is a river.

Another important note is that dream world is actually multilayered. We make map for a "main" layer but there are few others. One of them - subway which a lot of people see in dreams. It also may be explored if one desires. Even "below" (we need to remember is that it is not actually below, it is how we interpret some aspects of our mind) are situated layers which shamans call "Lower worlds". One rarely visits this "worlds" until he is mystic of some sort, drug addict, heavily sick or just advanced dream cartographer who is interested in what else his inner self have.

Probaly there are should be layer perceived as being "above" main layer but as with "lower" ones they should not interest us for now.

Last important topic which should be noted is that for historical and traditional reasons north and south are switched on the dream maps. Of course, you are not bound to do this .

How detailed map should be

It is the same as for question "How detailed dream journal should be" there is no common answer. Personally I make one global map and later I intend to make separate maps for a Home city (with streets), a couple of small towns which are represented with small icons on general map, and subway.

Epilogue

I hope this small tutorial was interesting and will help you to build your own dream map if you decide to give it a try.

I certainly will give it a try
It's a cool way to explore your dreams, very original

Thanks Phantasos, but I had a question. There is this one place in my dreams ( school to be exact ) where I have walked out the front, and there have been two completely different things. Maybe I should put one in front of the school and one out to the side entrances?

I have the same concern as oniman. Rarely are the surroundings the same for me in any of my dream locations. Also, I have dreams where I'm in a place that I know is supposed to be my apartment, but it isn't at all, or I'll be in a building that is a combination of my apartment and my parents' house.

This is a cool idea though and I might try to map out the things that seem to stay fairly constant.

Never mind, I think I have answered my own question. I have seen a track ( as in a running track ) in both the front and back of my school. I think I will put it in the back of my school in the dream map. I am hoping it will force my brain to think that way. That's also where the graph is at my real school. I think I will do my maps on graph paper.

John, try doing what I am going to do. Map the surroundings as the place that makes the most sense. Then maybe go over the map before you go to sleep to remind yourself of where the proper surroundings should be?

As other have said, we don't always get from a place to another place the same way... Is it that if we do a map, our brain will make connection? cool. And thinking about it, I remember using the same or similar way to go from school to home (because I always miss the damn bus in my dreams so I'm obliged to walk back home)! lol!

oniman7
Well, it is hard to advise anything. Your solution is pretty fine, lately you may have other dreams about this place and decide what is more "right". After all, it is our conscious effort which stabilize dream world and helps to connect places to each other.

Personally, my Home city currently is very chaotic - I have no clue about how different places are situated relatively to each other except street where my home is located and subway entrance (it is roughly the same as IRL but I am sure this is not the case for other places), so as you could see in my pre-draft (which I posted in another topic) I just roughly placed all important city locations into Home city area.

Funny but I better know a small town to which I can get by train. Maybe because it is much smaller - a couple of areas (few street each) connected by trolleybus route.

My places seem to be connected in one way or another. I travelled a great distance last night. By bicycle. Whatever

My home city is quite structured, I must say, it looks a lot like my usual home town, with a few exceptions, and also the school is a bit strange

Cool stuff! But making a map of all of my dreams will take an eternity!

I apologize if my following thoughts appear to ramble on or don't really add to the thread. I am mildly drunk and I tend to ramble on in this state. I originally wrote this in a response to Oniman in a PM with regard to his experiment, but it grew into something I felt like posting here.




I started a map, but there are just too many places I've been and too many of them are just on their own out there in dreamland and don't yet appear to be linked to anything. So, I took Phantasos' suggestion and just wrote up a excel spreadsheet of all the places I've been and their connections. Even that is getting to be a chore though. I have about 500 locations listed (many sub-locations of major locations though) and I'm only about two-thirds through my dream journal.

I feel dream cartography appeals to my nature for things to be structured and because of that I feel compelled to continue it.

I am confident that I will finish my spreadsheet soon. However, I am quite concerned that once I have mapped out my dream world in the logical sense in the spreadsheet, I will never have enough drive to actually map it out visually (especially since there seem to be so many disjointed locations currently). I am far from an artist in any sense of the word and I fear I will just get discouraged in my attempt to do my dream map justice to my dream world. Any help or suggestions in this area would be appreciated.

I looked up dream cartography on Google and from what I've read it can take years to find connections between various locations in your dreams.

I plan on continuing though. I've already found interesting connections between the dreams I've recorded in my journal and it has also caused me to remember some past dreams that I've forgotten due to location similarities.

I am FAR from artistic, but take a look at some of mine. Simple rectangles and circles drawn on paint. If you want more information, I can tell you how, but it's pretty simple.

EDIT: I just looked up dream cartography, dream mapping, map of dreams, etc. and found nothing on it.

Yeah. I guess so. I just don't feel like creating my dream world with rectangles really represents my dream world very well.

I just don't know what to say then.

lol.

I also remembered dreams From mapping just a little bit out. 3 places to be exact.
John11 you should just map out the main places. Maybe in the excel thing, put a x2 or whatever number next to each place. Anything above say, 5, put onto the map. I've got TONNES of places that I've been to in dreams that I'll probably never visit again, no point putting them on there.

Originally Posted by John11

Yeah. I guess so. I just don't feel like creating my dream world with rectangles really represents my dream world very well.

Just you have not to be writer for keeping DJ, you do not really have to be artist to draw maps (though if one can draw dreamp places it will not hurt either).

I haven't been here, but I prefere drawing scenes and not a map because I don't travel too much in my dreams other than home to school and school to home. And when i do it I have to walk 'cause I always miss my bus XD

I've mapped out my dream locations before as well. Very helpful in navigating or becoming lucid if you memorize the map (hey, I know where I am! Shazam! Lucid!). Though my map was more like a bunch of different scenes drawn in bubbles connected by lines and not a real map you would use in the waking world.

Aslo, things break down a bit if you do things like teleport etc... then the adventure is to find the connections between the place you teleport to in relation to the places you already know.

Phantasos! I love this guide. Thank you for writing this!

Very Nice Tutorial, I actually mapped a dream once and since it was lucid I could remember the approximate distances to make an accurate map of the location I was dreaming of.

Way to necro... still the pic is kind of funny.

Right up there with things like "My girlfriend asked me what I lucid dream about, and I said doing her friend"

Making my map. Anyone else seen a field with golden grass,or a forest with small dirt dams?

Originally Posted by Vulpixel

Making my map. Anyone else seen a field with golden grass,or a forest with small dirt dams?

Well, i don't know about golden grassed field. Is it the same lcocation as your forest, or two separate locations?
can You please describe how this forest is looked like? try to describe Your impression, not small details, but whole picture. Actualy i don't understand about small dirt dams - can You describe configuration please?

Thank you.