Learn how to start a dream journal

Do you want to start journaling your dreams but have no idea what to do or how to get started? Find out how to start and keep a dream journal. 

Did you know that by age 75, you would have spent a third of your life sleeping? That’s 25 years of your life! In addition to that, you spend at least 2 hours each night dreaming. That’s a lot of dreams during your lifetime! But the best part is that God uses your dreams to speak to you at night. 

There are so many life-changing things that God will reveal to you through your dreams. He’ll give you guidance, direction, encouragement, and warning. He’ll even give you revelation about your purpose and destiny. 

So it’s important to pay attention to your dreams. You need to understand what God is saying so you can apply His guidance to your life. One of the best ways to do this is to start a dream journal to keep track of your dreams.  

Why are dreams so confusing?

Dreams are rarely literal. They’re almost always symbolic. That’s why they’re so difficult to understand. God uses a unique dream language of symbols and metaphors to speak to us in our dreams. 

The people, places, or things you see in your dreams usually represent something else. To understand what your dreams mean, you’ll need to uncover their meaning with guidance from the Holy Spirit and dream interpretation skills.

Why you should start a dream journal

Dream journaling is essential for understanding dreams. It helps you keep track of what God is saying and remember the details of your dreams, which we tend to forget so easily. When you have your dreams written down, you can read back through the details and work on interpreting their meaning.

As you review your dream journal, you may gain new insights into a dream that you didn’t understand before. You may also remember some additional details about a dream that you need to write down. 

You can also keep track of reoccurring dreams and symbols. This is usually a sign that there is a deeper meaning to your dreams that you need to explore. All of this will be easier to do when your dreams are organized in a dream journal. 

How to journal your dreams

How you record your dreams depends on your personal preference. Your dream journal can be a physical notebook or a digital notebook on your phone, tablet, or computer. An important thing to remember when you start a dream journal is to have one dedicated location to record your dreams and keep them organized.

Physical dream journal

Choose a notebook or journal that you are comfortable writing in. Then, try and stick to writing your dreams in one notebook at a time. You want to make it as easy as possible to locate and review your dreams. 

You’ll eventually accumulate quite a collection of journals as the years go by, especially if you’re an avid dreamer. And it may become more difficult to locate specific dreams. I would suggest creating a spreadsheet or document to index your dreams. Add the date, a title, and relevant keywords from your dream. Then you can search for the keyword to get the date you had the dream and locate it in your journal. 

Digital dream journal

There are many note-taking apps available, such as Evernote, OneNote, and GoodNotes. They’ll sync your notes across all your devices so you can use your tablet, phone, or computer to record your dreams. 

I prefer to use the Notes app on my iPhone. I always have my phone nearby, so it’s easy to grab at night when I need to write a dream. And I won’t disturb my husband by turning on the lights. 

I create a new folder in the notes app each year and a new note for each dream. It’s easy to search through my dreams by typing in a keyword. Since my phone is with me everywhere I go, I can record additional details about my dreams that I might remember during the day. 

How to have a successful dream life

What you do before you go to bed and after you wake up in the morning can affect the quality of your dreams and how much you remember. Here are some bedtime and morning routine tips to help you remember your dreams to start recording them in your dream journal successfully. 

Before you go to sleep:

• Keep your dream journal nearby. Ensure your notebook or electronic device is near your bed so you reach it easily when you wake up. 

• Wind down and relax. Try to limit distractions at least an hour before you go to sleep so your mind is calm and relaxed. Avoid watching certain TV shows and films, or you may find yourself dreaming about them. Limit your use of electronic devices because they can interfere with your ability to fall asleep.

• Pray. Invite God to speak to you in your dreams and reveal what he wants you to know. Ask him to help you remember your dreams when you wake up and understand them. Also pray for protection against nightmares, insomnia, and sleep disruptions.

• Go to bed early. Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to having a good dream life. We dream during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When we are excessively tired, we spend very little time in REM sleep and spend the majority of the night in deep sleep. You won’t dream much and will have difficulty remembering them when you wake up. So try to get to bed at a reasonable time and aim to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night.

When you wake up:

• Try to wake up naturally whenever possible. Being jolted awake suddenly with an alarm clock can interfere with your ability to remember your dreams. If you really need an alarm to wake you up, try using relaxing music or a soothing sound that will wake you up gently. 

• Look at a visual dream reminder. Put one somewhere you’ll see it when you first wake up, as a reminder to write your dream. It could be a picture on your wall or a letter board that says ‘dream’ or ‘remember your dream.’ Use whatever wording jogs your memory. If you use your phone first thing in the morning, try adding a dream wallpaper to your phone lock screen. 

• Write your dream, even if it’s 3 am. We tend to dream the most between 3-5 am. If you wake up in the middle of the night, write down some details about your dream, even if it is just a few bullet points or words. They can be enough to jog your memory when you wake up so you can write your dream in more detail. If you go back to sleep, you’ll likely forget your dream by morning. We begin to forget most dreams within 5 minutes of waking up, so write them down as soon as possible.

• Think about your dream and pray. If the details of your dream are fussy when you first wake up, spend some time in prayer and think about your dream. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember it and understand what it means.

Record your dreams

Your dreams are symbolic rather than literal most of the time. Nearly everything you see in your dream will have a symbolic meaning and provide some context for understanding your dream. 

You’ll need to write down what happens in your dream, describing what you see and anything you feel. But try to keep it relatively simple. Don’t worry about grammar or being neat. And don’t get too carried away describing every minuscule detail. 

Some specific details are more relevant to dream interpretation than others, and they’ll give you important clues for understanding your dream. 

Here are some prompts to help you focus on the important details you need to include when you start your dream journal. Don’t worry if it’s a bit overwhelming at first. The more you practice writing your dreams, the easier it will become.

Dream information

• Date and time. Important for keeping track of patterns and reoccurring dreams. Your dream could be linked to what’s happening in a specific period of your life.  Or you may find yourself waking up at the same time each night, which could be significant. 

• Write a descriptive title. Write a few words to describe what happens in your dream, such as ‘I flew over a skyscraper’. This will make it easier to identify the dreams in your journal.

• Your current location. If you’re somewhere other than your home, it could be relevant to dream interpretation. Perhaps you have specific types of dreams when you’re in a certain place. For example, my dreams tend to be more vivid when I’m back home in the UK. 

• Description of your dream. Describe what happens in your dream, just like you’d describe the storyline or scene in a movie. But don’t worry if the details aren’t in sequence to begin with. You can always go back and edit them after you’ve captured them. Just write freely and get as much information down as you can remember. 

Dream details

• Where did your dream take place? Was it at work, church, or in a vehicle? If it was your home, which specific room? The location of your dream can give clues about the area of your life the dream is about. For example, if your dream occurs at work, it’s likely about your work or career.  

• What did you see, hear, sense, feel? – Describe what you saw, any sounds, words, or conversions you heard, and any sensations you felt. Also note if you sensed anything like someone watching you, a good or bad presence, or someone being deceptive. 

• What emotions did you feel? The emotions you feel in a dream can be a response to situations you’re going through in your waking life. So, record how you feel when you wake up and any emotions you felt in your dream.

• Take note of numbers. Maybe you saw 2 chickens or the number 70 on a sweater. Numbers are very significant because they all have a meaning. Although dream imagery is usually symbolic, numbers are an exception. They usually represent the same number in waking life. 

• Note what color things are. Was the car red? Or was the hat blue? Each color has a specific meaning, so there will be a reason why something is a certain color. 

• Was the overall color of the dream itself light or dark? This can give some indication of the source of the dream. Bright and colorful dreams tend to be from God whereas dark, muted dreams can be from the enemy. But this isn’t always the case, so don’t rely solely on these elements to determine the source of your dream.

• Note the people you see and their names. When people you know appear in your dreams, they often don’t represent who they are to you in your waking life. They usually represent someone or something else. For example, seeing your father can sometimes represent God. The meaning of their name, characteristics, or relationship to you will give clues about what they represent. 

• Have you had this dream before? God will give you recurring dreams when he’s trying to get your attention. It could be about an issue that needs addressing or something that’s going to change.

• Note anything significant that happened during your day. Your dreams can be influenced by events from your waking life. You may dream about something that happened during your day or characters and events from something you watched. Note what happened during your day, who you met, and what you watched to provide context. This will be helpful if you interpret your dream at a later date.

• Thoughts and impressions. Write any initial thoughts, ideas, and insights that come to you about the meaning of your dream.

Draw or illustrate your dream

Sometimes, you’ll see things in your dreams that are so strange that words don’t do it justice. So try drawing it. I once had a weird dream about goldfish swimming around in the lampshades of my ceiling light, so I did a quick drawing on my iPad. 

Don’t worry if you’re not artistic. Just draw something, even if it’s stick figures. A simple drawing can help you remember your dream later on. You could also use Google to find images that match what you saw. At one point, I kept dreaming about a ginger cat, so I found a picture on Google and added it to my dream journal. 

Write what you remember

There will be times when you wake up knowing you had a dream, but don’t write it down because you only remember fragments of it. Don’t dismiss those dreams. Write the fragments of the dream you do remember. Those few small details could be enough to get a general sense of your dream for interpretation. It will also help you keep track of recurring themes, patterns, and symbols. 

Write the important details first 

You may find yourself writing your dream from the beginning of the storyline, but by the time you get to the middle or near the end, you’ve forgotten the rest of it. Try writing the main points of the dream first, then go back and fill in the details of what you saw and felt. If you tend to forget details, write those first before you write the main storyline. 

Understanding your dreams

When you start your dream journal, you can examine the details of your dreams to uncover their meaning. When you understand your dreams, you’ll understand what God is saying to you. Then, you can apply his direction and guidance to your life. 

The Holy Spirit can reveal the meaning to you. But most of the time you’ll have to go through a dream interpretation process to understand your dream. Read my article, How to analyze your dream in 4 steps, where I go through this process in more detail. 

Dream interpretation is something you can always revisit at a later date. Just be sure to review your dreams regularly. Often, the meaning of your dream will become clearer as time goes on. 

You can consult a trusted Christian with experience with dream interpretation to help you understand your dream. But ultimately, you are the best person to interpret your own dream, together with revelation from the Holy Spirit. You’ll always have a better understanding of what the symbols in your dream mean to you personally and how the events in your life relate to your dreams. 

Final thoughts 

Keeping a dream journal will help you remember and understand your dreams so you can apply God’s guidance to your life. Even if you’re not able to interpret your dreams yet, you’ll have them ready and waiting for you when you are. So, start a dream journal. It’s one of the most important habits you can develop for hearing God’s voice. 

Other helpful resources

• God Is Speaking To You Through Your Dreams. Learn How To Hear Him
• Powerful Christian Books To Understand Your Dreams
• 5 Reasons Why You Need A Dream Journal

Pin for later: