How important is dream journaling?

[Starmonger]

Don't you think that it's important to keep ontop of your dreams and write a few down each night? I've not been doing this for ages now, and hanvnt had any lucid dreams really. Trying to get back into the habit of writing them down. When i first started learning to LD, I was really good at writing them down and it was fun even though I didn't have an LD for ages. But for some reason I got out of the habit and it seems my progress has suffered because of it. If you don't write them down, then your mind isn't focused enough to think about LD'ing. Like after each dream if you write it down, then it re-focuses you to have an LD, and also wakes you up a bit. I bought a pen with a small light on the end to assist in the process (so i don't have to switch my lamp on), and am going to try to write them all down from now on...

[Conkt]

Dream Journalling is very important. When I first started out, I thought "I'll only document my lucids." Needless to say, it really didn't work. DJs are important for improving recall and learning Dream Signs for MILDs.

[Catbus]

It's essential if you want any sort of dream recall. And without dream recall you're not going to be having many lucid dreams.

[nina]

Plus it's REALLY awesome to be able to go back and read the crazy dreams that you had years ago. Sometimes I love browsing through my dream journal on here and reading dreams from a few years ago that I had completely forgotten about. If I hadn't written those down, they would have been lost forever. It is so worth it. (also your dream journal can be a great source of inspiration for you, if you are artistic, or musical, writer, etc. ...I've gotten a lot of interesting ideas for short stories from some of my dreams)

[Branden982]

Yeah, I wsn't writing much in my DJ, guess what I got? A dry spell it sucks. If you don't want that, i suggest DJ ing.

[Requiem]

Dream journals document intention.

[youssarian]

Dream journals are highly useful. They teach you how to remember your dreams, so that when you go lucid you'll remember it. Plus, as Aquanina stated, it's fun to go through it every once in a while and check out what you've done in your sleep. I've been to at least five different planets (and I've named three of them: Battallion, which orbits Rigel; Amazon, a forest planet; and Solitude, a world which only has a corner store and me). I use those little pocket composition notebooks to write them down, and I'm almost finished with my second one (I haven't been active in journaling in a while...). All the best, Youssarian

[CarmineEternity]

Using a dream journal for a few weeks, you can discover recurring themes/dream signs, and use them to become lucid.

[Maria92]

Dream Journaling is awesome, imho. It's beneficial beyond all reason and can be fun to boot. I'm getting better at making my dreams more story-like, so they're fun to read, too. I suspect I'll be using mine for recall and also to skim back through any lucids of epic win. Just to give you an idea of how amazing dream journaling is, I recall at least four dreams from the beginning of September in vivid detail without even having to look them up. Writing down your thoughts is an incredibly powerful tool.