7 reasons to record your dreams

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We draw inspiration and travel through the subconscious without getting out of bed.

1. It reduces stress and teaches you to overcome anxiety

Try to remember how many of your dreams have a uniquely positive and cheerful plot? Most likely, there are fewer of them than disturbing dreams. Quite often we see how something or someone pursues us, and we run away. Or we find ourselves in a desperate situation when something threatens our life. Hello, stairs you can't climb down or endless fences that you can't climb no matter how much you climb.

Scientist Antti Revonsuo noticed that the part of the brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for realizing the fight-or-flight instincts, is most active during REM sleep. And he proposed a "danger simulation theory": in his opinion, in a dream we practice our behavior in life-threatening situations.

Antti Revonsuo Finnish psychologist and neuroscientist, philosopher of consciousness.

Dreams allow us to replay the situation that frightened us in a safe environment and develop the appropriate skills: to cope with such threats if they really threaten our lives, or to recognize circumstances that do not pose a danger.

Recording generally helps reduce stress levels and increase mental resilience, and a dream journal is no exception. By recording your dreams, even frightening ones, you will begin to perceive them more calmly - like watching an exciting thriller - and you will not suffer from nightmares.

2. Recordings help to observe the subconscious

Carl Gustav Jung called dreams the door to the subconscious. A dream diary allows you to look into this very subconscious to study your own emotions.

Carl Gustav Jung Swiss psychiatrist and educator, founder of analytical psychology.

A dream is a small, well-hidden door that leads into that primordial cosmic night, which the soul was before the emergence of consciousness.

Our dreams are based on real life events. Very often we dream of the same places or events over and over again. In the sleep diary, you can track the patterns that arise, and thereby guess what the subconscious is trying to tell you: what worries you and what makes you happy. And after re-reading the records after some time - for example, a year or two - you can correlate their content with certain events in your life.

3. Recording dreams improves your memory

Dreams are fleeting, they are quickly forgotten. At the moment of awakening, you still quite clearly remember what you dreamed about, but 1-2 minutes pass, and all these thoughts simply disappear from your memory.

However, there is a funny pattern. If you record your dream immediately after waking up, in the future, when you re-read the recording, you will reproduce it in your head vividly enough, even if you missed many details in the text. You can think of this as a kind of memory exercise.

4. Diary will help you immerse yourself in lucid dreams

Dreams are called lucid dreams, during which you realize that you are dreaming. In such a dream, you can control your actions. This is very exciting: you explore places created by your subconscious and meet there familiar people from the real world or various fantastic creatures. A fun practice, I recommend it.

Half of the people in the world have had such dreams at least once in their lives, they can be caused artificially. This is not only interesting, but also useful because it helps develop the areas of the brain responsible for logical thinking and willpower.

A sleep diary can help you immerse yourself in lucid dreaming. With its help, you can keep track of what places, events and characters are present in your dreams and even "watch" the dream you have seen. If you missed the fun part because you were woken up in the morning, write down what you dreamed about. And falling asleep the next night, concentrate on the images from the past dream - and you can see it again. It is not difficult, but it will require some training.

5. This is a new source of inspiration

When Salvador Dali went to bed, he picked up some heavy object, most often a silver bowl. And as soon as he fell asleep, she slipped out of his hands, thundered and woke the artist. What for? So that Dali could, upon waking up, immediately sketch out scraps of his dream and later use it as a source of inspiration.

Many stories and even poems to Edgar Allan Poe dreamed at first, and only then he transferred them to paper.

The famous song # 9 Dream John Lennon also came up with in a dream. And the phrase Böwakawa poussé, poussé means nothing from it: Lennon just dreamed about it.

Horror master Howard Lovecraft kept a diary of his dreams. For example, he also dreamed about the creepy mad monster Azathoth.

Howard Lovecraft American writer and journalist.

The leader of England challenges the leader of the enemies to a personal duel. They are fighting. The enemy loses his helmet, and there is no head under it. The entire army of enemies plunges into fog, and the observer finds himself on this plain in the form of an English knight on horseback. Looks at the castle and sees a strange thickening of bizarre clouds above the high battlements.

Write down your dreams too. Maybe someday you will write a novel that will make Stephen King's hair stand on end.

6. Records help you solve important problems

Dream diary not only unleashes your creativity, but also stimulates logical thinking.

Researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston conducted an experiment in which subjects had to walk through a complex virtual maze for an hour. Then half of them were sent to take a nap for an hour and a half, and the rest were awake.

After a few hours, the passage of the maze was resumed. Those who were awake or slept without dreams showed little progress on the task. But those who started dreaming about this labyrinth showed no less than a tenfold improvement in the result in its passage.

According to psychiatrist Allan Hobson, dreaming promotes memory consolidation and the development of procedural learning. They help to synthesize and process our memories to improve survival skills.

If you are thinking hard about a task, you may even start dreaming about it. It is possible that you will see the solution to it in a dream. For example, thanks to a dream, the mechanic Elias Howe invented the sewing machine. Therefore, write down your dreams so that the ideas that suddenly dawned on you do not disappear without a trace.

7. It's just fun and interesting

In fact, is there a need for a reason to record dreams? They are interesting in themselves, and transferring them to paper is like creating a book with a unique plot that no one but you will think of.

People spend almost a third of their lives sleeping. This state itself, of course, is useful and necessary, but sleeping is just so incredibly boring. Therefore, treat dreams as just another kind of entertainment, like a good book or movie.

Practical advice

Keeping a dream diary is a pretty personal experience. Everyone decides for himself how he will keep records. But there are some general guidelines to help you get started.

• Fall asleep with the firm intention of remembering your dreams. People who say they never dream are wrong: they just don't remember them. Therefore, train yourself to recall everything that happened in a dream immediately after awakening.
• Write down your dreams regularly. Ideally, every day. The more notes you take, the easier it will be for your brain to remember dreams.
• Don't delay recording. We forget most of the details of sleep about five minutes after waking up. Therefore, put your notebook next to your bed so you don't run far. A smartphone or tablet will work too - you can use them to type in the dark.
• Don't hesitate. The more you try to give your thoughts a graceful form, the sooner you will forget your dream. Write without editing. The main thing is to record the most important moments of sleep and your emotions.
• Try to wake up earlier than usual. Set your alarm two or three hours earlier than usual. This will allow you to wake up when your brain is in REM sleep and remember your dreams clearly. Write down everything and go to bed to fill up. Of course, you don't need to do this every day, but once a week on weekends - why not?
• Make sure you are awake. Finally, one interesting fact. Scientists have noticed such a phenomenon as "false awakening", which is especially common among those who like to keep a sleep diary. It looks like this: you see a great, detailed dream, wake up and write it down. The next morning it turns out that there is no entry in the diary, but you have safely forgotten the dream. This is all because you recorded … in a dream. Quite in the spirit of Christopher Nolan. Therefore, before you sit down to the diary, wake up.