Dream Journaling Question

I have a quick question for the experts... I've recently begun a dream journal, and am wondering if it's so important to record every dream that I have.

I wake up often at 4 or 5 in the morning, and if I take the time to record the dreams then, I have A LOT of trouble falling back asleep. Would it be sufficient to record the ones that I have when I wake up for the day at 7 or 8? The problem is I don't usually remember the dreams I'd had earlier (at 4 or 5).

Thanks a lot for any help you guys can give me.

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Also....

I wanted to start some sort of log on this site, a little help in my quest, to keep me disciplined and encouraged, etc. I'm not gonna relate the dreams that I've been having lately (they've been pretty freakin' boring), but there are two quasi-interesting dream-related things that I thought I would share (and I stress the quasi part).

**First, this gem "came to me" in a dream last night (I was gonna call it a joke, but it's not funny):

"A young boy in Alaska is on his way to his favorite ice-fishing hole, when he comes upon a clubbed baby seal. Though startled, the boy has a moment of clarity, and suddenly knows exactly what he wants to do with his life.... He will become a commercial seal clubber."

[Disclaimer= I'm not a fan of seal clubbing.]

To those of you that are offended, I humbly apologize. At least it didn't come from my conscious mind, right?!


**OK, now for item number two.

I heard this quote right before waking up a few days ago:

"The intelligence of choice does not include custody."

I actually had some idea of what it meant too. The first part is not referring to a particular intelligence that one chooses, but choice IS the intelligence. "The intelligence of choice," meaning "the intelligence that is Choice"... Choice is a form of intelligence (in this context at least).

As far as the second part is concerned, I had a feeling "custody" had something to do with private property and ownership ("my unconscious is communist!!" is what I joked to myself)...

OK, enough.

thanks for reading, if you got through all that.

You can start a Dream Journal here on the site. Or if you want to keep it private, you can start a DJ in the private journals forum.

For middle of the night dreams, I find it's sufficient to just jot down keywords really quickly, then lay back down and just run over the dream a few times. If you're lucky, you might end up DEILDing, and if not you should have a pretty decent memory of the dreams when you wake up and look at your keywords. Then, when you've got time you can fill in the rest.

thanks a lot. I'll try that. And thanks for the dream journal link.

Sure thing, lemme know how it goes. If you're still having trouble we'll try to find something else that works.