Continue the waking life practices during the day. When you’re ready to bring the practice to your dream life, consider setting an intention. Setting an intention is a beautiful practice of self reflection. Consider if there is something that you wish to learn more about, a problem you’d like to solve, are you seeking creative inspiration, or wishing to let something go? It’s ok to simply wish to dream well, this too is an intention.
Deciding that you are interested in remembering your dreams and expressing the desire to remember them is an important step in improving dream recall. Concretizing that wish with action is the next step. Decide how you will record your dream experiences and have resources arranged close at hand, perhaps on your bedside table, so you can use them easily without waking fully, or getting out of bed. These tools may be a notepad or a voice recording device or video. Focus your attention on the wish you want to remember and understand before you go to sleep. Keep your intention in your heart, perhaps on your breath, as you slip into slumber.
Even if we don’t remember our dreams, dreaming itself positively impacts mental health. Dreams help the mind sort through the events of the day, process them, and store them in the right places in our psyche. Getting enough sleep, having uninterrupted sleep, and waking gently aid our goals. Take actions to not be jolted awake by an alarm clock.
Upon waking take time before letting the thoughts of the day ahead come in. Stay in bed and touch into the space between awake and asleep. Allow yourself to slip back and forth and notice if a dream from the previous night is available. In this amorphous space between waking life and sleep you may find yourself more able to read the encoded messages of dream, which can be metaphorical, symbolic, and like the field of art, sensible and nonsensical at the same time. Seek to capture essence, meta themes, the arc of the dream’s keynote.
When you feel complete in this you might take a moment to write down key points. Below are questions that may bring forward your dreams’ meaning and message.
Is there a message my heart is wishing to convey to me?
Does the dream suggest changes that I may wish to consider?
Does the dream contain an unpredictable element?
Does it reveal that something is influencing me?
Does the dream reveal a task or responsibility that is meant for me?
In what way, if any, did the dream relate to love, courage, forgiveness, action, letting go? Gather the themes whatever they are.
If you felt fear in the dream, consider what scared you and what an appropriate response may be. One may try to renter a dream with a wish to change the narrative to a more positive one.
How did you feel in the dream? Calm and centered, confused, urgent, perceptive?
Did something about the dream inspire you, invite you to make a change, provoke further thought?