Documenting Dreams

Dreams – The most wonderful thing (if I may say so) I have come across. I dream a lot and I enjoy doing it. While Microsoft gives synonyms to dream as delusion, reverie, hallucination, trance, vision; all these words fall short in defining what a dream is. Wikipedia says “Dreams are a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history”. No wonder then, this has been a field of study for years for people anxious to know what-why-how of dreams. It’s called oneirology. There are many studies done on this already and the results are available on the net. One such interesting study which I came across is “Expectation fulfillment study of dreaming”. It says dreams are need based. They have a relationship with individual’s aspirations, fantasies and daily experiences – good or bad. They regulate mood. Many a time, it so happens that you find it difficult (or impossible) to recollect your dreams. It stays on with you for short period of time when there is an abrupt ending to a dream. After that, it fades away and in spite of making valiant efforts, you never succeed in recollecting the exact sequence of events that you encountered in the dream.

How about documenting your dreams? Sounds silly huh?

Well, not really if you actually do. It’s been nearly a year that I have been documenting my dreams. I’m finding this experience absolutely terrific. When you revisit your documented dreams, you will be amazed at your creative subconscious mind. You will realize that human mind can be so powerful and limitless in its thoughts. Keep a book and a pen by your side while you go to sleep. When you experience an abrupt ending of your dream, just jot down what ever you remember of the dream. Don’t start penning down the sequence of events. List the characters/things that you recollect. This listing should be done quickly, else these will get erased from your mind faster than one would imagine. Once you do this, you can revisit these characters/things/events and connect these. This will turn out to be an unbelievable script.

Dreaming while sleeping is a normal phenomenon. Everyone does that, unknowingly. There is another kind of dreaming that can be experienced with some effort. Before you decide to take a nap, fill your mind with certain thoughts on which you want to dream. Make a conscious effort of thinking about certain thing for some time that your mind refuses to accept any offer except the one that you are feeding. I call this style of dreaming as Intentional dreaming. It might sound stupid, but this really works. You can fine tune your mind in your conscious self that you can succeed in forcing your mind to dream about only certain things. This happens in the subconscious mode of course. We can consciously make an effort in controlling our sub conscious mind. This is not a straight task. It needs consistent effort. Once this starts working, there is nothing like it. Instead of dreams regulating your mood, you yourself regulate your mood and you will have a better control over yourself.

The other day, my friend was complaining that he was dreaming a lot of weird dreams now-a-days and they were bothering his sleep. He is the same person who was once taken away by his own creative dreams and started a community called “Dreamers Club” in Orkut and the response that he got in that community was astounding indeed. My advice to him was simple.

Document your dreams!!