“The Chinese sage Chuang-tzu dreamt he was a butterfly and on waking wondered whether he then had been a man dreaming, or might not now be a butterfly dreaming it was a man.” - Joseph Campbell

"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”
-Elias Canetti

 Yesterday we examined the various purposes that nightmares may serve; just to quickly reiterate: a) Warn us about some future danger, threat to our being - this could be an illness. b) Bring awareness to an unresolved emotionally traumatic event as in PTSD; c) A gateway to lucidity. There are others but I wanted to stick to those that are either related to the body or relevant to this program. Today let’s turn our attention to how can we best cope with these traumatic dreams. Once again, just as nightmares are multi-functional, they serve more than one purpose, there are multiple ways to cope with them…You can try these different approaches on your own or you can work with a therapist trained in their use. It really depends on a combination of factors which route you choose – time, financial resources, capacity for self-reflection and personal preference.

Many dreams are feeling based. Strong feelings are the glue that bind the various dream images together. With nightmares as you’ve probably noticed this is particularly true.  So one of the approaches that has worked well for me over the years is to really sit with the feelings that come up in the nightmare. Sometimes, that’s all that is necessary to stem the nightmare from repeating itself. Now sitting with the feeling is easier said than done for some and this is where an experienced therapist can come in handy.  The trick is how to shut or quieten the mind so that we can really be immersed in the feeling state?  The problem with having strong feelings is that there’s a lot of internal chatter that typically accompanies them. And often the internal chatter will loop itself – the same damn thoughts playing themselves over and over again like an awful TV commercial that gets played at every commercial break (thank god for Netflix). In this situation we have to train our attention to come back to the feeling itself minus any thoughts.  We need to focus on the feeling, how it feels in our body and try to let go at least temporarily the accompanying story. It is in the feeling that the real energy lies. It is this energy that is seeking release and the energy is powerful and that’s why people are often afraid to confront it. It’s not uncommon to tremble or shake when one attempts to really feel the emotion. It helps to remind ourselves in these situations that the emotions are not us. E-motion is “energy in motion”. The sensations are temporary. If we allow the energy to move, it will most likely move right through us and then a peace will follow. In the peace that follows the storm there is often wisdom and insight regarding the situation that led to the nightmare in the first place. The key it is to let the feelings move through us and in the process maybe move us. If instead we contract with fear and suppress the feelings, try to push them down because they are fundamentally energetic in nature, they will simply rattle our cage in another way – sometimes that other way is by making us sick because illness most often disrupts our lives, our usual routine, forcing us to slow down, take notice of discomfort and pain. In essence physical pain can often take the place of emotional pain. The emotional pain is transmuted into physical pain. It is better if we can just allow ourselves to feel the emotional pain directly.   If you have difficulty with this approach keep coming back to the question of “where am I feeling/noticing this emotion in my body” and staying focused on that…and if this approach isn’t working for you, simply toss it out and try another…

Another approach is to treat the nightmare as a call to action. For example, in the green fluid oozing under the car dream that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Once I recognized that this dream was alerting me to a potential gall bladder problem, the gall bladder being the organ that secretes bile, a yellowish green fluid that our bodies use to breakdown fats, much like the slimy stuff in my dream, I knew I needed to take some action.  That action was to simply cut down on the greasy fats in my diet. So I did. Consequently a week later, I had a follow up dream where the same car was now in the repair shop, hoisted in the air with a mechanic working on the very same area where the fluid had been leaking from.  So this was the Dream Maker acknowledging that the fix was working – the change in life style was effective, my body was repairing. Of course the other confirmation was from the body itself – the nausea I was experiencing had completely subsided. The good thing about nightmarish health warning dreams is that they tend to be rather direct, straight to the point – literal rather than symbolic. The Dream Maker is saying “there’s little time to mess around.”

A third approach is to change the outcome of the dream by rehearsing an alternative dream. In other words, we go back to the dream and begin to re-dream it while awake, until it takes on a story that we’re comfortable with. It may take more than one pass to bring this about. At first you might find your mind resistant to the prospect of changing the dream content but if you keep at it, you will notice with each pass the new dream is becoming more concrete and the old dream beginning to fade. This technique has proven quite effective in the treatment of PTSD. Why does this approach work? Because it is literally altering the neuronal patterns in our brain. The brain actually has a hard time differentiating between a traumatic waking life event and a traumatic dreaming event. As far as our brain is concerned trauma is trauma.  fMRI studies have shown that the same brain centers fire off in either case. So in essence what we are doing when we go back and rehearse the dream with a new more favorable outcome is we are engaging in a form of neurological pattern interrupt.  When we experience a nightmare, behind the scenes in our brain, a set of neurons fire off and create a neuronal pathway that can get triggered and reinforced over and over again. When we interrupt this neurological pathway and loop by rehearsing a new outcome in essence we are rewiring our brain.  We are now disrupting that disturbing neural pathway by reallocating those neurons to a new path. 

A fourth approach to tackling nightmares involves lucidity.  If we can become lucid in a dream (aware that we are dreaming) we have the possibility of confronting the bogeyman. If it is a person or monster chasing us instead of running from them we can choose to turn around and face them.  Perhaps ask them why they’re hounding us. They might have an interesting response or they might morph into a more benign figure when confronted with such a question or they might just disappear into thin air.  Of course the challenge here is becoming lucid in the first place and then have the gumption to turn around and face that which is terrifying. Not a small order for some but one that has proven to be quite effective for many.

Further Reading:
Overcoming Nightmares. (CH 10. of Stephen Laberge’s book, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming)
http://www.lucidity.com/EWLD10.html
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References:
LaBerge, S., Rheingold, H.  (1990). Exploring the world of lucid dreaming. New York, NY: Random House.
 
Taylor, J. (1992). Where people fly and water runs uphill: Using dreams to tap the wisdom of the unconscious.  New York, NY: Warner Books.
 
Waggoner, R. (2009). Lucid dreaming: Gateway to the inner self. Needham, MA: Moment Point Press.

                                        “I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.”
                                                                                                 -M. C. Escher

At some point or another in life almost everyone has experienced a nightmare. The word nightmare derives from the union of the English word “night” and the old English “maere” or evil spirit. Originally the word was used to describe a specific type of bad dream where evil spirits (at least from a medieval perspective) tried to mate with humans in their sleep. Over time the word became generalized to include all bad dreams.

These emotionally charged frightening messages from the night tend to wake us up rather abruptly. This is the Dream Maker’s way of telling us, “You need to pay attention to this one,” since we are oft in the habit of forgetting dreams. In other words, a nightmare is often a warning dream, giving us a heads up of some future situation that needs our immediate attention, requiring us to attend to some part of our life where we are unawares, blind.  This area could be our health. 

Certain types of nightmares are usually indicative of serious health issues.  Let me provide a few examples.   Studies of patients with cardiac disease (Ziegler, 1980) have shown that cardiac problems are often preceded with dreams of bullets or other weapons piercing the area of the chest.  In fact any dream where bullets are seen puncturing the skin and entering the body or targeting some body part should be taken seriously. The bullets could very well be alluding to an area of our body that is weak and susceptible to disease. The message here is that the target area is literally “under attack.”  The problem is under the surface, deep. Where does the bullet in the dream lodge is what one should be on the lookout for? Similar to the bullet nightmare dreams are the battle field dreams (Kasatkin, 1967).  These dreams often accompany illnesses where there is fever or infection involved. A fever indicates that the body’s immune system has kicked in. An internal civil war is being waged between the good guys (white blood cells, antigens, anti-bodies) and the bad guys (invading germs such as viruses and bacteria). Another dream theme in this category is an animal biting some body part (often rats). Once again the targeted area may be vulnerable to attack by a foreign agent (Kasatkin, 1967).

A milder form of nightmare body related dream (more disturbing than shocking) is the sewage or toilet backup overflowing dream especially in our world of poor eating habits (I’ll go eat some potato chips right now to prove my point). Here the backed up external plumbing is symbolic of our plugged up internal plumbing also known as the gastro-intestinal tract. The particular part of the internal plumbing system that is the problem will depend on the presence of other symbols in the dream.  For, examples if you see sausages in the dreams it probably suggests the intestines (shaped like a string of sausages) is where the problem lies. Once again it is the Dream Maker warning us that our system of elimination is being compromised and we might want to do something about it.

One of the most universal nightmare themes involving body parts is the teeth falling out dream.  Maybe you’ve experienced one of these. This could be purely symbolic, an indication that some event is really shaking you up on an emotional level, on a financial level (a common association with teeth falling out dreams in some cultures), but it could also portend a health warning, indicating that our structural integrity is compromised in some manner; meaning we may have severe problems relating to our bones, skeleton, jaw or teeth (Garfield, 1992).  
   
Another modern universal nightmare dream involves cars and vehicles breaking down. Not to be confused with erratic driving patterns which have a very different meaning altogether. It’s the former that usually indicate health problems or body related issues as it is the body of the car that is impaired, symbolic of our physical body, a vehicle for the soul, journeying through this life (Sabini, 1981). A malfunctioning engine therefore could indicate stomach problems as the engine is where the car metabolizes its fuel (combustion) correlating with the stomach where our food is heated up and initially broken down. A plugged tailpipe could be indicative of an obstructed windpipe. Running out of gas might indicate we are physically depleted. Fluids leaking from the car could be indicative of their corresponding fluids in the body. For example I once had a dream that a green liquid was oozing and pooling underneath my car and I knew upon awakening that is was related to bile production, bile being a yellowish green fluid produced by the gall bladder.  This made sense at the time as I had been noticing that whenever I ate fatty greasy foods I would feel nauseous the next day and bile is needed to break down fats. 

Of course, dreams are multi-functional and multi-dimensional. There are many other roles that nightmares play.  Here I’m trying to stick to the one’s that impact our physical health but many of you are probably aware of the term PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).  With PTSD a haunting dream pertaining to a traumatic life event keeps repeating itself.  People exposed to severe trauma such as soldiers returning from war or women who have been raped often suffer from this condition.  Here the Dream Maker may be attempting to alert us the to the fact that we haven’t fully digested the traumatic situation that was experienced as there is a tendency to want to bury traumatic events, cut off from them as they are often too painful to come to terms with (Taylor, 1992). Yet burying the feelings could stunt psychological growth.  For example, death on the battlefield is an emotionally charged event (probably death anywhere is an emotionally charged event) that needs to be processed and yet soldiers have been trained to disregard their feelings. The needs of the psyche to acknowledge and integrate a difficult life experience butt up against the professional training a soldier receives to ignore these very same feelings and remain focused on the mission. This can lead to tremendous inner psychic tension that erupts into waking life in the form of a nightmare. Here the nightmare acts as a facilitator in the emotional release and integration of the traumatic experience.
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Yet another function of nightmares that concerns us or will in the upcoming weeks has to with nightmares acting as a gateway to lucidity (LaBerge, 1990). We will be learning how to lucid dream (become aware that we are dreaming while we are dreaming) or for those of you who already do, up their frequency.  Here the Dream Maker might use a nightmare to shock us into an alternate state of consciousness. These nightmares are usually of a milder variety. In hindsight, sometimes even comical. For example, I once had a nightmare that I was trapped shopping in Walmart; there was no way out. I eventually realized that I must be dreaming and became lucid as I would not be caught dead shopping in Walmart in waking life, let alone be trapped inside of one!  Once lucid, I was able to punch a hole in the wall of the store and make my escape. Many dreamers who started dreaming lucidly early in life report this kind of nightmare phenomenon. They learned to leverage their nightmares to trigger lucidity.  It’s an option some of you may choose to avail yourself of when we get to the lucidity section of the program. More on this method in a future post…

Further Reading:
Training Films for Spiritual Warriors by Jeremy Taylor
http://www.jeremytaylor.com/dream_work/training_films_for_spiritual_warriors/index.html
 
References:
Garfield, P. (1992). The healing power of dreams. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Kasatkin, V.N. (1967). Teoriyasnovidenii [A theory of dreams]. Translated by Doorn, S. (2015). Breda, Netherlands.
 
LaBerge, S., Rheingold, H.  (1990). Exploring the world of lucid dreaming. New York, NY: Random House.
 
Sabini, M. (1981). Dreams as an aid in determining diagnosis, prognosis, and attitude towards treatment. Psychosomatic Psychotherapy, 36, 24-36
 
Taylor, J. (1992). Where people fly and water runs uphill: Using dreams to tap the wisdom of the unconscious.  New York, NY: Warner Books.

“Only the dreamer can say with any certainty what meanings his or her dream may have. This certainty usually comes in the form of a wordless "aha!" of recognition. ~Reverend Jeremy Taylor

A couple of days ago we looked at the presence of food in our dreams. Now let’s turn our attention to something less concrete but more charged – feelings. As you go about logging your dreams for this study (which I really appreciate you doing) there are probably instances where you’re wondering “what does that mean? What is that darn dream trying to tell me, if anything?” Unfortunately, in this experiment, interpretation of dream content is not the primary focus. There are both too many of you and too many dreams to be able to delve into this very important aspect of dreaming in depth. Some of you I know are experienced dream interpreters and for others it’s relatively virgin territory. So for those of you who are less familiar with unpacking your dreams, I just wanted to offer you a technique that has worked well for me over the years, that is relatively easy to perform and yet yields insightful results…so that you don’t have to go through your day in a state of frustration, scratching your head because you experienced a dream that left you confounded and confused…
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By now you may have noticed that one of the first things I ask you to do on the Dream Entry Form (DEF) is to identify the feelings in your dream and there’s a long list to choose from. Identifying the feelings in our dreams is one of the easiest and most direct paths to unpacking the meaning/significance of a dream. This is especially true when the imagery is bizarre and the dream narrative seems mind-bogglingly complex. By simply identifying the key feelings in a dream and then asking oneself the question, “Where are these very same feelings showing up in my waking life?” and then connecting the dots between their context in waking life and their context in the dream, insights can rise to the surface like champagne bubbles…

Here’s an example to illustrate the process…Dream:

Was outside but it was part of a school. And I was bonding with the other students but it was also the end of the term and so everyone was leaving and I was sad that these bonds that were just forming would soon be dissolved.
 
So, first I begin by identifying the feelings in the dream just like I have you do on the DEF.  In this case they were primarily sadness mixed in with a bit of disappointment. Then I ask myself where are these feelings showing up in my waking life? I right away realized that I was feeling sad that both my neighbors on either side of my office were leaving. In waking life I felt like I was just getting to know them on a deeper level and now they’d be out of the picture.  I was both saddened and disappointed by this development. An important symbol or “dot” in the dream is that the scene takes place at a school. It just so happens that the office where I work is a converted middle school. So, two of the dots, from internal and external reality, were connecting here. Now, reverend Jeremy Taylor, an amazing dream interpreter and one of my teachers always says, “Dreams never come to tell us what we already know.” So I asked myself this question because I already knew that my neighbors were taking off so what is that I don’t know about this situation, that the Dream Maker is trying to open my eyes to? I sat with this question for a while. No immediate answer arose. So I waited patiently in a receptive mode to see what emerges and all of a sudden it dawned on me that as a child having attended twelve schools in twelve years (no my parents were not diplomats) my connections with others were constantly getting severed. Now I understood this was an old wound being revisited. I immediately got a sense of “ahah.” That is what the Dream Maker wanted me to acknowledge and additionally to take some time to really feel my sadness around this issue instead of just tucking it under the rug and making myself busy.

So this is one simple way to approach dreamwork. Like any skill it takes practice.  The key is to identify the feelings first. It can also help to pretend it’s not your dream.  I sometimes trick myself and tell myself I’m watching a movie dream or a soap opera and that none of the characters are me. This allows me to get a little distance from the dream, a little objectivity, and I am more likely to catch my blind spots.

Resources:
An emotional dream dictionary:
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamthemes/feelings.htm
 
Further reading:
Can we dream emotional pain away?
http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/dreams-emotions/

Perhaps by now you’ve shared with a few of your friends, colleagues, acquaintances or partner that you’re taking part in a study on Dreams and Chronic Illness and that you’ll be using a technique called Dream Incubation Healing (DIH). How have they responded? Maybe some of them looked a bit puzzled and responded along the lines of, “What the heck is that?” or “Why would you want to do something like that?” Suppose now instead of being born in this modern era you were born in the classical Greek period, circa 300 BCE, a citizen of Athens, In that period, their response might have been quite different. It might have been, “What took you so long? Safe journeys, my friend!”

How times have changed in a couple of thousand years. In the modern era there are only two facilities where you can engage in this practice, both located in southern California. But at one time in the ancient world over 400 dream healing temples dotted the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. From present day Tunisia all the way to Rome, Italy, dream healing was a well-known and established form of medical practice.  But to partake of dream healing, one had to first make a pilgrimage to one of these dream temples or Aesclepia as they were known  after the Greek demi-god of dream healing, Aesclepius. The arduous journey was often made on foot, on horseback if one was wealthier or in an ox-driven cart if one was too infirm to walk. It might have taken you many days or weeks of travel to reach one of these healing sanctuaries as most were not located in cities but in far off natural settings of great physical splendor (can vouch for their beauty as I have personally visited three of these sites). Along the way you most likely would have encountered other pilgrims. Some heading in the same direction; others on the return journey home. Stories of healing and meals might have been shared with strangers; Sufferings commiserated.  As you got closer to the Aesclepia you might have come across one of the numerous stone tablets lining the paths that led up to them, carved with stories of prior pilgrims, detailing their symptoms and cures (nowadays one sees billboards advertising coca cola).

Upon arrival, your first task would be to soak in the baths (as most were located by hot springs), cleanse and put on fresh clothes. At long last your weary limbs would receive some much needed rest. After partaking of a hearty meal, you might lie down in one of the beautiful gardens and take in the physical splendor of your surroundings as well as bask in its healing vibes. Perhaps, a priest or priestess would visit you, and impart instruction on how to incubate dreams as well as inquire about your condition. In the evening, along with the other pilgrims, most likely you would make your way over to the amphitheater to watch a Greek tragedy, designed to stir the emotions, and facilitate a cathartic response (all three that I visited had well designed amphitheaters). In the morning you would most likely share any recalled dreams with the priestesses. They would help you interpret them and be on the lookout for certain dream signs to see if you were ready for a direct encounter with Asclepius.  If you qualified, the following night, you would be directed to sleep and dream in a special underground chamber known as the abaton. Otherwise, you would wait another day, continue to engage in more supplications (a form of prayer) and additional cleansing activities. It was in this room below the Earth’s surface, crawling with non-poisonous snakes and sealed off from light that the real dream incubation would commence. It is here that the healing dream would be granted by the god. Sometimes that dream took the form of a prescription, other times a diagnosis, but most often a direct cure in the dream state itself, interceded by none other than Aesclepius himself.

Although the practice of temple dream healing most likely originated in Egypt and was passed on to the Greeks who in turn passed it on to the Romans, we are made aware of its practice thanks to the Greek scholarly practice of keeping extensive written records. Artemedorous’ Oneirocritica, was the most extensive dream book of the classical Greek world compromising five volumes, a veritable encyclopedia of dreaming. From it we know how the Greeks went about interpreting dreams. Incubated dreams were known as “aitematica” which translates approximately to “dreams sent by the Gods upon the request of the dreamer.” We also know that not only were patients encouraged to incubate healing dreams, but the physicians themselves relied on dreams for guidance. There’s was a world where the dreaming life was no less significant than the waking one.  Dreaming and waking were on a more equal par. Imagine what it would be like if today’s physicians were to resort to their own dreams for guidance whenever they were stumped for a diagnosis regarding a patient’s illness?

Aside from temple dream healing, most indigenous societies practiced and still practice some form or another of dream healing. According to professor Stanley Krippner, one of the leading authorities on shamanism, from Siberian shamans all the way to the shamans of the Amazon rain forest in South America, reliance on dreams and dream incubation for information about health and disease was commonplace. And unlike the Greek tradition which died out, modern day indigenous shamans have kept alive the practice in many parts of the world.  
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Finally, it is important to realize that the demise of dream incubation healing in the ancient classical Greek and Roman period was not due to any new evidence refuting its efficacy or a sudden decline in interest. On the contrary, its demise was in direct relation to the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.  For Asclepius bore an uncanny resemblance to Christ of Nazareth. Both were born as humans, from the union of a mortal mother with a divine father.  Unlike the other gods of the Greco-Roman pantheons, many of whom had wrathful personalities and were quick to temper, Asclepius, like Jesus was associated with the qualities of love, forgiveness and compassion and was thus highly favored by the people. And like Jesus of Nazareth, Asclepius too healed with the laying on of hands. Many historians acknowledge that the resemblance to Christ was too great for the papal authorities to tolerate and thus began a systematic purging of the old Asclepian legacy so that the emerging legacy of Christ would stand no competition.

Additional Reading:
Reclaiming Shamanic Dreaming from the Roots of Western Culture by Ryan Hurd:
http://realitysandwich.com/156159/reclaiming_shamanic_dreaming_western_culture/

References:
Achterberg, J. (2002). Imagery in healing: Shamanism and modern medicine. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications.
Aizenstat, S. & Bosnak, R. (2009). Imagination and medicine: The future of healing in an age of neuroscience.  New Orleans, LA : Spring Journal.
Garfield, P. (1992). The healing power of dreams. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Krippner, S., Bogzaran, F., & de Carvalho, A.P. (2002). Extraordinary dreams and how to work with them.   Albany, NY:  State University of New York Press.
Meier, C.A. (2003). Healing dream and ritual: Ancient incubation and modern psychotherapy. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon.
Pappamichael E., Theochari, A. (2008).  Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Dream analsyis in second century A.D. Helenic Psychiatry, 5, 83-85.
Tick, E. (2001). The practice of dream healing: Bringing ancient Greek mysteries into modern medicine. Wheaton, IL Quest Books.

“People need dreams, there's as much nourishment in 'em as food.”
-Dorothy Gilman

Perhaps by this time, after filling out a few instances of the DEF, you’ve wondered why questions on food appear? The appearance of food in dreams is one of the most fascinating aspects of the dreaming landscape, in my opinion, and one of the most overlooked in the literature. Eating food is something we do everyday, like many other activities such as using our cell phones, going to the toilet, driving on the freeway etc.. However, the incidence of food in dreams is much higher than any of the other activities listed (roughly 15% of dreams contain some food reference).  Which makes me ask – why food? Why does the Dream Maker emphasize food, an everyday activity, but not playing with our cell phones, another everyday activity that occurs with greater frequency for many of us (appearing only 3% of the time in dreams). Aside from one other researcher, ED Kellogg III (whose article and experiment on Food related dreams is a must read if this topic interests you; link below) and myself this question regarding food related dreams has been by and large ignored by researchers.

I believe the answer may have to do with evolution. Food after all is a form of medicine. It is a part of our environment that enters our bodies and has a strong impact on our survival and well-being. The food we ingest each day is either nourishing and sustaining our bodies or destroying them.  Ed Kellogg III & I both believe based on our independent investigations that the Dream Maker wishes to provide us feedback with respect to our eating habits in order to promote health and wellness and steer us away from illness and poisoning ourselves.

This is why the DEF includes questions regarding food and the context in which it appears in our dreams. It’s the context of the dream that provides us with direction. For example, during a week where I was late night bingeing on hamburgers, one night I dreamt that I was at a Sunday afternoon barbeque on a beautiful day, a few idyllic cows lounging around me feeding on the lush green grass and pooping. As I was about to bite into a juicy hamburger; just at the moment the meat entered my mouth, it turned into a cow patty!  Yuck! Woke me up and left me utterly disgusted. Needless to say my bingeing came to an abrupt end. In a previous pilot study I conducted on Food and Dreams, four themes emerged: food recommendations; food warnings; social eating recommendations; and symbolic references. Next time you see food in a dream, pause, and ask yourself - does this food item have a symbolic meaning or is the Dream Maker trying to inform me about my eating habits and how they’re impacting my health and body…

Further Reading:
     
Dreaming Your Diet for Optimal Health by Amy Tucker (a quick read):
http://thedreamtribe.com/dreaming-your-diet-for-optimal-health/

Mind-Body Healing through Dreamwork by Ed Kellogg, Ph.D (the full enchilada)
http://www.asdreams.org/psi2007/papers/edkellogg.htm

Most people choose to keep a dream diary or journal for the duration of the study. They first record the dream in their journal and then transfer it to the Dream Entry Form (DEF). This way you have a record of the dream for your own purposes. So that begs the question, “what form of dream journal should I keep?”

In this age of technology the options are plentiful. Let's briefly cover some of them.

The most traditional approach is to simply keep a pen and paper Journal next to one's bed. The primary benefit of using a notebook is that some folks find the physical act of writing contemplative – allowing one to stay in a dreamier more creative space while recollecting the dream. However this requires one to have to do the data entry twice - once into the journal and then re-type it into the DEF. If you’re ok with that, then great…stick with what works for you.

A more efficient option is to use the Memo feature in your smartphone if you have one. This is nice because you can just speak into the memo and it will automatically convert your voice to text. Then you can just copy paste the dream into the DEF. Saves one a lot of time re-typing (although transcription isn’t always a hundred percent accurate). If you’d like to see a quick video of this method on an Android phone, click on the link (unfortunately currently I don’t own an iphone demo, though the process is probably quite similar). 

http://www.screencast.com/t/E07a5pL2iIV

A third option is to simply use a Microsoft Word document as your dream journal (or a word processor of your choosing).  Type your dreams into the word Document, date them, title them, and then copy-paste them into the DEF.

A fourth option is to just type the dream directly into the DEF; that’s if your memory of the dream is strong enough that you don’t forget it before you open a DEF.

And lastly, a fifth option is to use one of the many dream journal apps available nowadays for both iOS and Android phones that come with a lot of cool and useful features (two of the best, Dreams Cloud & Lucidity, are listed on the study website’s Resources page under the Sleep & Recall section). Most will allow you to dictate or key in your dream right into the app. Then you can categorize them in various ways, identify recurring symbols, look up meanings in dream dictionaries and a host of other nifty features. The only problem is that as wonderful as these apps are there’s no standard way to transfer the data from the app to the DEF. If you’re tech savvy you may be able to figure out how to copy-paste; otherwise it could turn into a headache. 

So to recap. Simplest, pen and paper or Word Doc; most efficient – record a memo; most fun and creative – smartphone app or pen and paper!  

Good Luck & Dream Well,

Bhaskar