Dream diaries.

[Guest]

Anyone keep one?

I'm in psychotherapy and keep having vivd dreams with various different plots, a lot of which I jolt awake from, a few of which are just plain nightmares. Would keeping a dream diary clear out this subconscious clutter and make me have less, or just encourage more? I am just getting overwhelmed by them and it's starting to make me so tired from jolting awake all night that I don't attend therapy cos I am so exhausted.

[themind]

Hey Karuna,

I think this is a great idea.

I'm going through a very similar experience of having nightmares which wake me up several times a night, and then I feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired the next day.

It totally sucks because it's like we can't even control our minds when we are asleep, much less awake!

So yeah, I truly believe dreams are a reflection of the state of our subconscious minds and exploring the themes can be helpful for therapy.

Here's to a good night of sleep!

[checkerboards]

i love keeping track of my dreams, mostly because they're funny and wrong in so many ways. (this morning's adventure involved myself as a dwarf, complete with waist-length beard, being made a slave in the sith lords' space station/supermarket. and then everyone escaped via a tiny purple car in the parking lot.)

but with nightmares, it really helps me to write them down and then look hard at them, sometimes with the aid of a dream dictionary. for a long time i had near-daily nightmares about being chased in various surreal situations. once i figured out why i was being chased (the real-life issue that was causing the dreams), i had fewer being-chased nightmares. and now that i've mostly dealt with my real-life issue, i hardly ever dream about being chased anymore.

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/ is the site i use to look up random dream-things.