Decoding Dreams pt. 4 - Mapping Inconceivable Geometry
Introduction
Dreams are landscapes of impossible shapes and geometry that could only be conjured up in a mind with nothing else to think about. The abstractions and multidimensionality of their nature make them impossible to map out and every visit to dreamland is never quite the same. It can be disorienting and impossible to make sense of themes and symbolism and because of these attributes dreams can also be very difficult to remember.
A statement we often hear is that we dream every night, it’s just a matter of whether we remember the dream or not. Let’s assume this is true and that every night we are visited by a dream. This is a daily occurrence, like a sunset and a sunrise - a miracle that happens every day yet we so often miss it; spoiled by its presence we fail to see its true value. Being a byproduct of our minds we are in some ways responsible for our dreams, if nothing else we are responsible for how we deal with them and what we make of them. But to decide what to do with the information we’re given we first need to ensure we remember them.
There are several practices and ways for us to engage more deeply and meaningfully with our dreams and that part of our psyche. In this blog post, we’ll explore some of them. We’re going to be taking a closer look at dream journaling. We won’t delve deeper into analysis and dream interpretation just yet but instead set the preparatory work and the basics for it, and that’s ensuring we remember our dreams so that we can go further with them. What I’ll be discussing here is mostly anecdotal and not based on empirical evidence. Some of these methods have worked for me with varying degrees of success and others have worked less. Don’t take anything written here for a fact.
The Dream Journal
The first and most concrete thing is dream journaling. This is a practice which can be difficult to make a habit but is something very effective and easy to control once you get the hang of it. Dream journaling is much like a journal where every day you write down your dreams. Ideally, it should be done as soon as you wake up from a dream, but the grogginess from sleep can make this task more difficult. Too often I thought “That’s an interesting dream, I will write it down so that I remember” and then went back to sleep. Never, have I ever remembered a dream as clearly if I’ve gone back to sleep. It takes discipline and practice to make this routine. One thing that helped me in my dream journaling was this dream I had.
I woke up from a dream and I immediately rushed to my bedside drawer and pulled out a journal. I frantically began to write down keywords, like colours, smells, events, people and items etc. Just as I was done writing these words down I actually woke up. A bit confused and dazed I slowly came to realise that I do not have a journal and I do not take not of my dreams. I immediately went to and bought a small journal and a pen to keep by my side and this dream was the first one I wrote down. What followed was a good few months of keeping this dream journal. Being consistent isn’t easy but I found that the more you do it the easier it gets. Eventually, my writings became more and more elaborate.
I had started with just keywords like the ones in my dream but eventually found myself writing pages upon pages of details. Over the course of about 6 months, my dream journal wasn’t the only thing that was getting more detail. My dreams overall became a lot more vivid, I could recall more details in them and conversations in the dreams went from a few words to entire paragraphs. Colours went from faded to crystal clear. The most amazing thing to me, however, was one dream I had where I for the first time could remember smells in a dream. This was an entirely new sense that I had never thought could be engaged in dreaming. The benefits of dream journaling are very clear to me and in my experience is the absolute best practice for remembering and improving the quality of your dreams. It’s not easy, however, and I haven’t engaged with a dream journal in a very long while.
If you can find the time and discipline to write down your dreams it will profoundly impact how you engage with your dreams. To ease into the habit start with just keywords, if you have the energy you can write more, the most important thing first is consistency. Whenever you have a dream you write something about it down. Journaling and reflecting on your dreams is important, so also take the time to look back and read some of your past dreams. You might find new insights into your unconscious. Your ability to journal immediately after a dream will have to do with your mental clarity and energy levels: both are influenced by the quality of sleep you have.
The Sleep Quality
The quality of sleep will impact your dreams. Most people probably know of REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). This is the part of our sleep cycle that is commonly believed to be responsible for dreams and a host of other important things. Like emotional processing and memory consolidation. There are generally viewed to be four stages to sleep: two degrees of light sleep, followed by deep sleep and finally REM sleep. REM sleep is unique in a lot of ways but notably, it’s the stage of sleep where brain wave activity is the most similar to wakefulness. The idea that dreams only occur in REM sleep however is a common myth. Dreams that do occur in REM sleep are generally experienced to be more vivid or clear. As to why that isn’t exactly clear, but perhaps it has something to do with the brain wave activity. Nonetheless, we can determine that our quality of sleep and what kind of sleep we get can influence the clarity of our dreams.
If your sleep quality is poor it can lead to anxious or stressed dreams. It can make it hard to analyse them and poor sleep is more prone to give you nightmares and can even make it harder for you to remember your dreams at all. There are a lot of different ways to ensure good quality sleep and a lot of it is very unique to the individual. A regular sleeping schedule is one. There’s too much regarding the quality of sleep to cover here, so I suggest you go and do your research and experimentation.
Sleep is very important for a lot more than just dreaming and having a good quality of sleep will improve your life in more ways than one. There’s a lot of information about it out there. Minimise screen time before bed, a good temperature in your room and so on. Take the time to figure out how you best achieve good quality sleep. Personally, the most vivid dreams I’ve had have come with good-quality sleep, but I want to say that sleep doesn’t have to be deep and of high quality for interesting or rewarding dreams.
You can still have vivid dreams even in shallow sleep, and one of my personal favourite states to be is sleep-drifting. Sleepdrifting is this state between sleep and wakefulness, right on the edge as you are about to fall asleep. You’re not in complete control of your thoughts but you’re also not just experiencing them like a dream. I find this state to be very rewarding both creatively and just consciously. It’s a fun state to be in. This state isn’t achieved in deep or REM sleep. Look over your quality of sleep but know that it’s not all that is important, good dreams can even come in a little afternoon nap. It’s more important you take the right steps to remember the dream.
The Dreamer’s Diet
Diet is always a highly contested topic, and it’s no different here. I remember reading a study long ago that certain foods could have an impact on dreams. People eating blue cheese reported weirder or more vivid dreams. Diet has a lot to do with your quality of sleep, and it’s very individual there I believe. Some people sleep better on an empty stomach and others with a bit of food in there. I think changing your diet to dream better is a bit silly. Something that definitely can have an impact on your dreams however is a large variety of plants and substances. Yes, drugs.
I do not recommend or encourage anyone to do anything illegal or to use any substance of any kind, but historically a lot of different plants have been used by people across many different cultures for their interactions on dreams. Blue lotus is an example of a plant that was used by the ancient Egyptians to “induce powerful dreams” in the user. Most commonly prepared as tea, this plant was sacred to Egyptians and played an important role in their relationship with dreams. Some more common drugs that we know can affect our ability to remember dreams are cannabis and alcohol.
It has been shown that users of either or both substances report fewer dreams. Interestingly with cannabis, chronic users often report rarely experiencing dreams while using the substance. However, when stopping or taking a break from their use they experience unusually vivid and abstract dreams. This lasts for a few days before they report their dreams going back to normal. While people don’t use these substances for dreaming these and other substances are commonly used as a sleeping aid. One downside to a lot of sleep aids is that people report not experiencing their dreams. There’s literature discussing a wide variety of substances for both sleeping and dreaming and the effects they have on the dreams of the users. Like opium dreams and even fly agaric being used as a sleeping aid, said to instil visionary and psychedelic-like dreams in the user. Again, I don’t recommend pursuing any of these or any other substance to experience or improve your dreams.
There are better and safer ways to do it.
Final Words
There are a lot of other things people write about when it comes to remembering your dreams, and they range from silly to downright crazy. Like drinking a lot of water before bed so you wake up around your REM sleep. We won’t discuss these methods further, but I encourage you to go out there and do your own research and find your own way. See what works for you and what doesn’t. Out of the things I have personally tried the one that has stuck with me and has been of most use is the dream journal.
I don’t have any experience journaling or taking notes on e.g. your phone when waking up as I did what the dream instructed me and I’ve only ever journaled my dreams with pen and paper. You might have varied success with different forms of notetaking. I think there’s a strong case to be made for the benefits of pen and paper, and they’re not costly. Make sure you get some good sleep in and maybe try stuffing your face with blue cheese before sleeping for those psychedelic dreams? Whatever you find works for you stick with it, and the more you do it the easier it will get and you will soon find that dreaming is much like any other skill. It can be practiced and honed and getting better at it opens up a lot of different doors in your life.
When your dreams are clearer and you remember more of them you will find that dream analysis becomes easier and your dreams can enrich your life in more ways. You can find inspiration and creativity expressed in them and newfound meaning can be drawn from its well. Next time we will discuss dream analysis and how to draw inspiration from our night minds.
