Dream Journals: Types, Templates & Techniques

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

What type of Dream Journal do you use?

  • Electronic Only
  • Electronic & Physical
  • Physical Only
  • Neither

0 voters

Hi all,
I’m curious about your Dream Journals, and how you store, format and process your dreams in your journal (either electronically or physically):

1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here)
2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal?
3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness? :tongue:
4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?

I do have a point with these questions, I’m particularly interested in the format that people use for their diaries (whether physical or electronic) as I have been creating a new format for my electronic dream diary.
I’ll answer my own questions first:

[i]1) I keep a separate dream journal from my LD4all journal.
2) I use AdvancedDiary ver1.2 (by CSoftLab, a fantastic electronic diary!) to record my dreams.
3) My dream diary is split into sections, like this:

  • Goals
  • Notes
  • Fiction
  • Lucidity
    (each section in effect acting as it’s own diary, but interralted with each other. I find this really effective and useful.)
  1. My diary is formatted so that regular dreams are blue, lucids are green, and hypnogogia/pompia are purple. Also I have the following template I use for recording my dreams:[/i]

Sleep:
WBTB:
Wakeup:

Notes:
Meditation:
Exercises:
[Memory notes]

[color=blue][Heading 1]
[Body Text]

[Heading 2]
[Body Text][/color]

[Lucid Heading 1]
[Body Text]

I find this template really useful when it comes to writing my dreams, gives me direction and makes the whole process easier.

2

I have my Dream Diary in the ld4all forums (electronic) and another paper journal. In the paper journel I have it in format Date, Techniques used that day, Dreams, Technique analysis. The main purpose of the paper journal is to be sure to not forget my dreams from the previous night and also to write about how effective the technique was. THe electronic version of my dreams (and I only type dreams and mabey side notes) is much more formal and detailed than my paper journal. Also I highlight my electronic version lucid dreams in blue.

By the date, the first line of the page I have written “Lucid Yes No” in which I would circle the result of the night. This way I can see my hits and misses on a given week.

3

I’ve a paper DJ near my bed in which I write my LD’s and interesting ND’s. Then I copy them into an electronic DJ.

MS Word

I’ve two electronic DJ’s. One for lucid dreams, one for interesting dreams.

In my LD DJ, each dream has a title and a date and hour. Then there is an heading before each dream:

Location
Current induction technique
Previous day events
Sleep events (when I went to bed, woke up, etc.)
Sleeping position (when I wake up)
LD duration (real time estimation)
Lucidity levels (lucidity / awareness / vividness / control)
Comments and problems

My ND DJ is divided in two columns, left column for dream events, right column for comments (thoughts association, previous day events). Sometimes, there is an interpretation chapter after the dream itself.

4

1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here)

:yes: i have one typed up in word. I used to type my dreams in dutch. Then when I started to keep my DJ on LD4all i typed my dreams in english so that would make pasting easier :tongue:

I actually started out with a written journal when i first started LDing. Later I typed it because i can type faster than write and it is nice to type with my eyes closed and my head still in the dream.

Since a few months I write down my dreams again manually. Only memorable/notable dreams get written again in my LD4all journal.

  1. What program do you use to type up your dream journal?

plain ol’ MS Word

  1. How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness?

that last one :yes: :tongue: big ball of goodness. Lol. Every year i start a new one and i just add all the dreams in there. I put the title and the date. Now i keep my written DJ it has less and less dreams in there.

In my handwritten DJ I have a lot of sketches, which is why i returned to writing my dreams that way, so much easier to doodle things i saw in the dream.

  1. And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?

:whistle:

5

Short answer: i write notes onto paper and later type up a fuller account electronically. I do not keep an LD4all journal.

Long answer:
I keep a notepad and pen by the bed to record dreams. And reading glasses so I can tell what I’m writing. And a flashlight if I wake up at night and have something to record. This is all a royal pain. I’ve tried using a voice recorder, but I felt too embarrassed to use it.

Anyway, if I wake remembering anything, I jot down the date and time, and enough notes to remember the dream.

Later I type it into a Word document. I log all my dreams, using LD to mark out the lucid few. I’ve also written up what it felt like the times I’ve tried to WILD. The only formatting is the date and titles are Header 1 so I can use the document map.

Very, very occasionally, I scan my dream log looking for dreamsigns to tally. This goes into a spreadsheet. This isn’t exactly formatted.

I’ve thought about making things look neat and orderly to help track what works, but I’m not sure what I want. I’m interested in seeing what others do to organize their dream journals.

6

1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All?

Other than Sealife/LD4all, I use my word processor and loose sheets/booklets to record dreams. I plan to create a new Loose leaf system DJ, that is organised by date and ND/LD.

First I have to design it :tongue:

2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal?

To put it online I just use wordpad. I don’t save them on my PC though.

3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness?

See above :tongue:

4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?

I use no format right now. Though I do mention in the title whether it was lucid or not. The only format I use is for online posting, which can be seen in my DJ.

7

Yes, I do keep a separate DJ; however, it’s mostly for writing down the general jist of my dreams, not spelling them out in full detail.

I used to just write mine down on paper, but my hand writing would be messy late at night, so I started typing it. I use Emacs, the one true editor, which I use for everything from programming for work to, well, keeping my DJ. I keep a scratch pad by my bed just in case I need to write something down quickly as well, although I haven’t used it for a while.

My offline dream journal is just one conglomerated ball. I used to write my affirmations and goals for the night in it besides just an outline of my dreams, but I stopped doing that. For my one on the forums, I do have a format.

For my one on the forums, I have my thoughts now, events in the dream, thoughts in the dream, and hypnagogic/hypnompompic experiences in different colors.

8

During the night I use a digital voice recorder to take notes of my dreams (this lets me capture dream in the dark with minimum effort). I then write them up in Word later on.

Format is basic
Type of Dream (ND, PL, Lucid) Dream Title
Dream

If it’s lucid I add
technique
starting time and duration

As well at end of each month I try to summarize major dream signs

9

I use electronic, I really don’t have the time to have anything more than notes as physical.

1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here)

I have a private DJ that includes side notes, more detail. I keep a few copies online.

  1. What program do you use to type up your dream journal?
    MS Word, Wordpad, whatever works.

  2. How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections?

Yes, I format my DJ somewhat…Goals I keep on a different file that the one(s) my dream diaries are on.

  1. And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?

My format for all my DJs would be: Title, Date, dream type. In my private DJ I’ll list repeative dream events/signs/etc and I include lots of notes.

Lucid, precog, etc I’ll color differently that the rest of my text. Interesting HI/SP periods I’ll type up and color differently. At the end of a dream I think is significant I’ll type some associations/possible interpretation.

10

Other then my LD4All DA, I keep only one other. A small diary book thingy and a light up pen next to my pillow. Since I’m usualy half asleep (if not more) when I write in it, its more like a giant ball of dreamy goodness. I do use a little structer though. The page woul look something like this (only hand written):

Mon July 10 1-ND-I was in a goat factory. My tourguide, a young red headed woman with a pink dress....ect.. 2-LD-I was in the goat factory agian, but this time my guide was blond and had a slightly different dress. She was very cute. I then realized I had been there before and did a RC. I looked at my hands, 6 fingers, and became lucid....ect...While in the office I realized I could feel my physical body and woke up -FA- in the woods behind my house....ect... 3-HI-WILD, 5:30, I started counting. I got to 100 and saw a long hallway with many doors. Wolf walked out of one....ect...Then my phone rang and I woke up.
Also, I sometimes don’t even write in full sentences, more like short notes with many commas :tongue: Usualy more then enough for me to remember the full(or atleast most) detail and write it out on LD4All, where I make it much neater :grin:

11

I keep a dj in a a5size notebook next to my bed.

/me just remembered that that otebook is a year old soon.

/me is shocked

A year has gone FAST !

Anywyas , i would really wantto get it in a neater book , iun order to read it myself and keep the dreams .

The next book i will get will be bought at a store and better than the one i ahve (soon finished) promise :wink:

Yeah , and Ill write tech. used , made it or not , autosuggestion worked or not and such

12

  1. No. I plan to back up the DJ, though…

  2. Firefox. :wink:

3 and 4. I kinda mushed them into one. I hope you don’t mind.

[code]Main title encompassing all dreams

Date

1: [insert dream here]
2: [insert dream here]
3: etc.

Note, all dreams separated by WBTB sessions.

Ending comments.

Goals for following night.[/code]

As for text colors, I use the default ND/LD/HI/com commands given.

13

[color=indigo]1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here) [/color]
I have three DJs online. LD4all and SeaLife for almost every dream I have and one on the Dutch LD4all with some dreams I have written down in Dutch anyway or when I feel like posting there. I have a private DJ on my computer too. It’s in English, with an exception of a few dreams.

I have a paper one too. Sometimes it only contains short notes about the dream and sometimes it contains the whole dream. Today I found out I lost a DJ. It wasn’t by the others, but I’ve lost a DJ before; it will show up again.

[color=indigo]2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal? [/color]
Ms Word.

[color=indigo]3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness? :tongue: [/color]
It’s all a ball of goodness :tongue: Yet recently I started to organise it a bit better. In the beginning it was one document, but I was tired of going to the end of the document every time. Then there was a time I didn’t have a copy of them, only for more important dreams. They were all in different documents. I saved sometimes when I was typing down dreams those in a document too. They could have the strangest titles and I wouldn’t have a clue what the dream was about.
Recently I begun to put them all in the same document from now on. Before I write down a new dream I put on Ctrl + enter and I write down the newest dreams on page 2. On page 1 every dream and title is there. Word does it automaticly if you put in the heads (?) It gives the date and then the dreams with titles I had. You can click on it to go to that page with the dream too.

I also have a document with links to my lucid dreams. Unfortuantely it aren’t many dreams yet.

[color=indigo]4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?[/color]
Well it still changes a bit now and then. In the beginning I wrote down a lot of things like mood, weather, characters, etc. I found it to hard to answer and I didn’t really pay attention to it anyway. It had more transformations and currently it is:

14

hey, that CTRL-enter thing and that it keeps track of the dreams that way in word i didn’t know, i have to try that out! :cool:

may i take this moment to say that i really like your DJ format :yes:
:peek: i’ll be changing the comment color in the comment tag to this as well, as well as changing the [title] tag to make it bigger.

15

1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here)
Yes, three!

The original: Is on my laptop computer in its third incarnation and a (so far) 292-page file. It’s in date order but in huge big lumps, many of which are unfinished entries or random notes to come back to later. Very messy, and the scroll bar doesn’t like it much either.

Dreamjournal.net: Is more organised than both the original and LD4all, but leaves no room for creativity whatsoever. You have to follow a very rigid format, and what especially irritates me is that the dates must be in American format with the month first, but I type them up in the Aussie method (day first), so I often get the dates confused on there.

My website: I only started this recently, but I’m glad I did. I’ve never liked arranging things by date, because honestly, who wants to search things by date? It’s much more interesting to look for things by subject or category, so that’s how I structured the dream journal. Under each category I list the dreams each with a brief summary and how it relates to the theme, so you can get a fair idea as to whether you’d want to read the full version or not. Plus, it gives me the freedom to showcase the names list and my dream pictures where they’re easier to find (ie, no hours of bored scrolling through unmarked archives). It’s more time consuming for me to update my website, but I think it’s ultimately worth it.

2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal?
Microsoft Word.

3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness?
I stick with the blob format (neatly paragraphed blobs, though). Too many headings just get annoying after a while. I’d rather my dreams read like stories instead of looking like carefully prepared scientific experiements - more fun! If I have two dreams in one night, I separate them into separate entries, but that’s as far as it goes for me.

4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?
I’m very proud of my category system (see Q1). As far as I can tell, nobody else has anything else like it so far. I’m also rather fond of making lists of dream-related things, such as the Names In Dreams List which I’m rather flattered to say has been ripped off about three times already by other people. Yay! I’m a pioneer (probably)! :tongue:

16

I generally find that having a template makes my diary easier to fill out, and ensures that I don’t miss filling in any informaiton. Also, it stops me from being lazy :wink:

Thanks to everyone for sharing your diary info - this has given me some ideas for ways in which I might alter my currrent diary and template.

17

I used to keep a DJ about one year ago, then stopped, and I re-started a few days ago. While these answers reflect my actual Dream Journal habits, I’m probably going to switch to a deeper, more complex type of DJ(probably electronic)as soon as I find the time. Seeing as I actually have a soft spot for tables and complex classifications, It will probably end up being very interesting…As for now:
1)I don’t keep an online DJ - while I do occasionaly read others, putting mine online would be a bit too…public for my tastes, seeing as I often have very weird dreams(and I mean very). I use a common notebook to write my dreams, with two twists: It has meditating Buddhist monks on his cover and I use my left-hand to write there, even if I’m right-handed - this way it forces to me to 'think more’when I write.
2)None, unless you consider my left-hand a program :smile:
3)It’s a ‘ball of goodness’.
4)I use a primitive template: I write the month at the top of the page(and the year, when it’s necessary), and then write the day when I had the dream(If I go to sleep on saturday evening and awake on sunday morning, I will write ‘sunday’). One thing that I started doing in my very latest dreams and which I think isn’t that common is placing the time when the dream was actually made, including short awakenings sometimes - for example the header of my last written dream is written as(translated from Italian, obviously) ‘Sunday 9(8 AM-10 AM-food-1 PM)’

18

[size=117]1)Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here)[/size]
[size=109][color=#0000BB]In all, you could say that I have three dream journals; my written dream journal, my LD4all journal, and my SeaLife journal.[/color][/size]

[size=117]2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal?[/size]
[size=109][color=#0000BB]Hmm, I would have to go with “none,” since typing them is just for posting them online.[/color][/size]

[size=117]3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness?[/size]
[size=109][color=#0000BB]It’s all one conglomerated ball of goodness! :cool_laugh: My dreams are only organized by date.[/color][/size]

[size=117]4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use?[/size]
[size=109][color=#0000BB]When I first started my DJ here on LD4all, I still didn’t have my own format figured out, so I stuck with the format discussed in the “Writing in Rainbows” topic. Eventually, I became tired of that, and searched for a new format. I stole the format that Bruno used in the Dream Theatre Act I and Act II, then adopted it to my own dream journal, with only a few slight differences. Afterwards, with the beginning of part three, I had made some changes to my format. I used a different status color, a mood addition, and less smileys. I had also changed the title to the more suiting “Late Night,” and some of you know exactly why I have made that switch. :wink: I now also have everything made convinient for me by keeping the code templates for my title and comments in my seperate notepad:[/color][/size]

[code]Heading Template:

**
Status: [color=#0000BB]**[/color]
[size=11][color=#999999]Mood: **[/color][/size]

Comment Template:

[color=#000077]Comments:
**[/color]

In-Dream Comment Template:

[color=#3366ff]**[/color][/code]

[size=109][color=#0000BB]Which makes:[/color][/size]

[size=109][color=#0000BB]I simply replace the stars with the necessary information. :grin:[/color][/size]

19

Paper Journal!

Date (00/00/00) - (Name of the Dream(s) ) - (Normal Dream / Lucid Dream)

…
…
…

20

[quote=“Snape”]
1) Do you keep a separate dream journal to the one you keep in LD4All? (if you have one here) I have new journals both here on LD4all and in a black notebook (see in signature for link)

2) What program do you use to type up your dream journal? Whatever is currently available. I used to write my dreams on the DSi, the IPhone, iPad, computer. Not programs, but different systems are kinda the same thing. :smile:

3) How do you format your dream diary - is it split into sections (ie lucid dreams, regular dreams, notes, goals, dreamsigns) or is it all written out in one conglomerated ball of goodness? :tongue: I simply have it as dreams seperated into paragraphs, and, if needed, I put something at the beginning.

4) And if it is neatly designed and formatted, what format do you use? Currently I use this format:

#1 (the amount of days used in the journal) - 00/00/00 (date)
<dream content, different dreams and memories seperated by paragraphs)

In my LD4all Journal I also use this format.

basically I have nothing special, but oh well.