8 Things to Include When Writing Your Dreams

I Had the Weirdest Dream Last Night  

You’ve just woken up with the weirdest dream and you want to record it. But what's the best way? 

I used to write my dreams in a journal – by hand - every morning over a cup of tea. Until one day, I slipped on the boat dock and broke my arm - my right arm. I had a cast from my wrist to my shoulder. I can't write, crap!  

Amazon to the rescue with a voice activated mini tape recorder that I kept under my pillow.  It's the only way I record dreams now. I can remember so much more detail because it's at the moment.

By turning on a light to write long hand, I was disrupting my body’s circadian rhythm, reducing melatonin – the sleep hormone. But worse than that, I was disrupting my dream cycles.  

Now, with the recorder, I was finding I was having more vivid dreams, recording more detailed information. I was recording things in that sleep-induced stupor that I would never have remembered. Great! That means more information from my Higher Self that I get to interpret.

There is one slight drawback though; It takes me two cups of tea now to get through my dreams…  

And oh, I talk in my sleep now. 

1. Extra Extra, Read All About it!  

Imagine that you are walking down the street in Manhattan and the newspaper boy is yelling, “Extra extra read all about it.” flashing a newspaper at you that has no headline. Not likely to stop are you?  

Would you buy a book that didn't have a title? Nope. That title is how you remember the book. It tells you the subject, it sets the tone.

In a dream full and twists and turns and characters popping in and out, that dream title will indicate what part of the dream you personally consider to be the most important.

The dream title is that piece of the dream that's going to trigger you to say, “Ah, yeah, I remember that one! “The World's Fastest Corn Shucker” , “The Purple Leprechaun on the Bus”, “Green Pickled Granola”  (I'd buy that headline!)  

Titles not only help you remember your dreams and let you find your dreams later by searching for keywords, but they tell your dream analyst important clues about the meaning of your dream. 

Think of it as the dream slogan. Give it a headline, a caption, a banner, a tag line, a rubric – write something up there at the top.   

(PS: I had to look up the word rubric: a word or series of words, often in large letters at the top of the page in order to introduce. Well, that just sounds like a title to me.) 

Oh and While You're at it, Date Your Dreams

You wouldn't want to buy that headline-less, special edition newspaper only to discover that it's two weeks old and you had totally missed the end of the world. “Extra, Extra, Read all about it!” 

2. She Wore an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini  

What if that polka dot bikini were pink?  Well, in the language of dreams, that color makes a difference.

In fact, if its an itsy bitsy bikini versus a full length bathing suit that your great great grandma might have worn once in a blue moon, that makes a difference too.  

There's no gray area in a dream when it comes to colors. Your dreams don't pull colors out of the blue. And colors in your dreams can be red flags toward things you need to address.  

So show your true colors and give yourself the green light to include them in your dreams, because there's always a silver lining to including them.

You'll be tickled pink that you did because its a golden opportunity to learn even more from your dreams.  

And now you have the green light to move on to the next thing you should be sure to include when recording your dreams.  

3. Singing in the Rain  

For some odd reason, the weather is a topic that can instantly spark a conversation. It's like this universal subject that everybody can relate to regardless of their background or interests. "Hey how you doing? How's the weather over on your side of the table?"  

It's a scorcher. I can't believe how cold it is. It's raining cats and dogs! 

In a dream the weather matters, imagine that? Was it snowing in your dream? Was it hot, was it cold? Were you sweating? Freezing your booty off? Was it cloudy? Sunny? Overcast? Were you in your bathing suit about to jump in the glacial water? 

Write it down. As boring as the weather can be for starting a conversation, it usually works. And in your dreams talking about the weather is just one more bit of information as to it's meaning. 

And don't forget, if it's raining cats and dogs, be careful not to step in the poodle.  

4. Location, Location, Location  

It was a picture perfect hotel resort. The picture of my premium room on the online booking page looked incredible. It wasn't until I arrived that I discovered that my room backed up to kitchen loading dock. Beep, beep, beep starting at 5 am.  

Location, location, location. The mantra of every realtor is just as important in choosing a hotel room as it is when recording your dreams.  

If you've ever taken a creative writing course, they would never advocate that you start by including every detail about the location:

The hotel with purple wallpaper and little yellow flowers in a green vase on the reception desk on the second floor next to a set of double glass door elevators that opens into a grand foyer with lavender carpeting. Yawn! 

But luckily we're not out to win a creative writing award. We're here to write dreams and include as many details as we can possibly remember. One of those details should be location.  

I've got this great piece of real estate to sell you in Florida. 

5. Where They Stand 

Stand up, stand down, stand off, stand out, take a stand - where we stand in life matters. And in dreams, it matters too.

In fact, where someone stands in relation to you in a dream can tell if they're a guide, a healing agent, someone exhibiting a trait from your past or your future. If they’re  on your right, your left, behind you, in front of you - it’s all meaningful.  

That's why details such as where people stand,, how tall they are, what they are wearing, numbers and colors are important to include when you record your dreams.

With these details, a skilled dream analyst can uncover more information about the meaning of your dream.   

6. Giving it Your Two Cents Worth  

Everywhere in life are numbers. Your phone number, your address, your credit card, your locker combination, your rewards number, the price, the date, the time, remembering that one pound is 16 ounces.

And that's not even the whole nine yards. Try to get through a day without having to recall a number. There's not two ways about it. Numbers are important. 

And guess what? Numbers are important in your dreams as well.  

Every number has a meaning in a dream. There are masculine numbers and feminine numbers, there are numbers having to do with commitment, limitation, sharing, spiritual enlightenment, judgment and completion.

So when you wake up from those 40 winks and you're on cloud 9 that you remember your dream (High five!), don't forget to include any numbers that showed up. Nine times out of ten, you'll be glad you did. 

Even in Douglas Adams book 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', the super computer Deep Thought reveals, after 7.5 million years of computing and checking, that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is a number:  42. (I didn't spoil that for you did I?)

Unfortunately it's going to take another 10 million years of computing to figure out what the question was. Back to square one.  

10-4. 

7. Feelings…Whoa -o -o Feelings , Nothing More Than Feelings 

Morris Albert (who?) wrote those song words in 1974.  Maybe he was talking about dreams.  

The feelings you experience in dreams are sooo-o-o important.  So make sure you jot those down in your dream journal.  

Perhaps the lyrics, “Feelings, nothing more than feelings,” could more aptly be applied to dreams if they were written as “Feelings, so much more than feelings.” 

Everything is about feelings.  

When I was ten my dad took me to cedar point in Sandusky, Ohio to ride the Blue Streak rollercoaster. To me it was a 78-foot climb of heart pounding anxiety followed by a 40-mph ride straight down to what was surely my death. It was one minute and 30 seconds of sheer gripping panic that I wasn't ever going to forgive my dad for, especially since his hands were waving in the air and he was grinning ear to ear. 

“Let's do it again!”  

“Heck no!!” 

 But maybe you would have taken my dad up on that second ride offer. That's why feelings in dreams are so important. They differ person to person, experience to experience. So, write down those dream feelings, whoa-o-o feelings.  

 PS: I still hate rollercoasters.

8. My Great Aunt Ray 

Yes, I really had a Great Aunt Ray. When she was 88 years old she bought a bright red Mercedes convertible 450SL that she drove around the stylish neighborhood of Bel Air Los Angeles. She had that classy look about her, and yet, if you knew her, you would see that she was still a down home gal from Detroit.  

But you wouldn’t know any of that if I just said, my Great Aunt Ray. And in your dream, I won't know who your Great Aunt Ray is either - unless you tell me.

That's why it's important to put a little paragraph at the end of your dreams before you submit them for dream analysis explaining who all those characters are that popped in for the night.  

Did you like your Uncle Morton? (I didn't like mine, I could never understand him, he never wore his teeth.) 

Did your 3-fingered Uncle Chil keep you captivated with stories of when he rode shotgun for the Detroit mafia? (I'm not telling if that one's true or not.)   

How you feel about the characters in your dreams can tell your dream analyst why they popped in for a visit. So make sure you include a simple paragraph at the end of your dream introducing your dear Aunt Ray. 

What do I do if I have a really short dream? I got you here.