How to remember your dreams: a beginner's dream journal
The memory of a dream is very fragile and goes within minutes of waking. To read your own dreams, the first step is to catch them. A dream journal is not hard; it only takes a few small habits.
Why write it down
A forgotten dream cannot be read, and a dream held in memory is quietly rewritten, becoming more logical and more like a story. The version written down on waking is closest to the dream as it was.
Studies also find that people who often notice and record their dreams recall them much more often: the more you value them, the better you remember.
One sentence before sleep
To remember more dreams there is a simple method for bedtime: after lying down, say calmly to yourself "tonight I will remember my dreams", two or three times, and sleep. In research this kind of going to sleep with an intention helps many people, or at least makes them more willing to recall on waking.
A few other things help as well: sleep enough and keep regular hours, since people who sleep too little have shorter dreams; drink less before bed, as alcohol suppresses REM sleep; and use a gentler alarm sound, because being jolted awake scares dreams away most easily.
The first minute after waking
On waking, do not move and do not reach for your phone. Keep your eyes closed and let the pictures of the dream rise by themselves. Move, or think of something else, and the dream scatters easily.
Keep pen and paper by the bed, or open a blank note on your phone. It need not be well written; keywords will do. Catch the picture first and tidy up later.
Write the feeling first, then the plot
What to write first is the feeling on waking: fear, shame, relief, reluctance to leave. A feeling is harder to make up than a plot and is the most important clue for reading a dream.
Then write what happened, where, who was there and what you did. Writing in the present tense ("I am walking through an old building and the light keeps flickering") makes the details livelier. Do not forget the date, and you can give each dream a little title.
What one page of a dream journal looks like
No elaborate format is needed. Something like this is enough:
Date: 31 October (Saturday) Feeling on waking: panicky, a little ashamed Dream: I am in an old classroom; the teacher hands out the paper and I cannot answer a single question. Someone outside the window is calling me, but I cannot see who. Yesterday: asked a question in the afternoon that I had not prepared for. What it makes me think of: afraid of being found out that I don't know.
Five items are enough: date, feeling, dream, yesterday, what it brings to mind. "Yesterday" and "what it brings to mind" can be filled in slowly after waking, not on the spot. Over time you will find these two lines are often the most valuable.
A few small tricks
Do not skip a detail because it is absurd; the absurd details are often the most interesting. If you cannot remember it all, write what you remember, even a single picture.
If you wake in the night, a couple of lines on the spot are more accurate than recalling it in the morning. When you cannot remember a dream, you can write "did not remember today"; the habit itself raises recall.
Look back from time to time
After a week or two of entries, leaf through them: do any people, places or feelings keep returning? Which dreams came on the days of high pressure? The value of a dream journal lies not in the meaning of each dream but in these patterns: they tell you where your mind has been lately.
Bringing the journal to a reading
Once written, if you want her to help you read it, put "the feeling on waking" in the first sentence, then tell the dream, and finish with one line on what has been happening lately. She will listen to the feeling first, then the story, and work with you to line the dream up with your life.
The journal is yours: in a notebook or a notes app, others cannot see it, and any part you do not want known you need not say. If a dream upsets you, you do not have to keep it to yourself; telling it is itself a help.
Questions people ask
What if I cannot remember my dreams at all?
Almost everyone dreams, though not everyone remembers. If you keep still and recall first on waking for a few days, most people begin to remember some fragments.
How long should a dream entry be?
There is no requirement. A few sentences will do. What matters are three things: the date, the feeling and the key pictures.
What do I do after writing it?
You can tell her one dream that stayed with you and let her read the picture with you. Or keep it and look back in a few days.
Phone or pen and paper, which is better?
Whichever you will actually reach for at once on waking. Pen and paper cannot be interrupted by messages, while a phone's notes app is handier. If you use the phone, dim the screen first and put it down when you have written, without drifting on to other things.