Do you dream frequently? Are you left bewildered and wanting more, desperately trying to understand the meaning of your dreams after waking up from a rejuvenated or rather exhausting slumber?
If yes, you should try dream journaling. For dreamers recording and analyzing their dreams can be an enjoyable pastime. With being an activity that allows creative exposure, dream journals also let you understand your subconscious better.
When looking for inspiration, the information is sparse. Hence we have compiled a list of dream journal examples that will meet your artistic, organized, and even curious expectations at once.
With the help of these ideas, you can train yourself to start lucid dreaming, fix an unhealthy sleep schedule or achieve better control over emotions by resolving conflicts.
7 Dream Journal Examples
#1. Mind Mapping
One of the main motives of dream journaling is to unravel all the hidden mysteries behind dreams. When writing a dream journal, you want to optimize your writing in a way it saves time and increases retention ability.
The task of recording dreams as soon as you wake up, to avoid losing the dream memory, is a daunting duty. To help with this problem of remembering more in less time, mind mapping can be your solution.
You can represent a central keyword or idea in your journal in a way that words, tasks, and key features of that idea get arranged around it. You can create a personalized diagram arrangement with words resonating with your dream and its dream symbols.
More than anything, it can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Feel free to let loose on any creativity restraints. There are endless ways of shaping a mind map. Also, try incorporating flow charts and shapes within your flow chart that indicate different emotions, actions, and reactions.
Therefore, from being a software product to a figure on paper, you can keep it classy with a single monotone shade or add a pinch of color to make it look vibrant. The vibrancy proves to provide added inspiration during dream journaling.
Mind map journaling examples that will help kick start your dreaming journey are:
- Basic mind map
Basics never betray, and using this elementary mind map method can be beneficial for people looking to start their dream journaling course.
Begin by writing the dream title and date in the middle and construct dream symbols around it. Surround the dream symbols with descriptive words like action words (verbs), colors, and adjectives.
Bonus Tip: You can also include feelings and emotions to make the interpretation easier.
- Sunburst shaped mind map
Contrary to the traditional method, this mind map follows the shape of a sunburst figure. This one starts by centering attention on the dream title and date.
After doing that, you can write thoughts, actions, feelings, and descriptive words that come to your mind to make it look like beams emerging from the centered shape, thus finishing the sunburst look.
Tip: Bold or highlight the words directly related to your real-life while making mind maps. It will help in faster dream interpretation.
#2. Personalized Journal
Creating a dream journal can become a rewarding experience if you devote time and effort to maintain your journal.
After all, it is a book that holds some of the most vulnerable parts of your life that often go unseen even by the people closest to you. Thus, personalizing your journal and adding a bit of your uniqueness to its bleak pages can help establish an innate connection with the journal.
When something becomes visually appealing, we tend to gravitate more towards it and spend time to make it more aesthetic. If you are an artistic soul who thrives on the imaginative aspect of dreams, this dream journal example will be the perfect match for your tastes.
Even stationary enthusiasts will find this hobby indulging because you get to choose from a wide range of decorative options available, namely, acrylic craft paints, stickers, photographs, markers, fabric, magazine and newspaper cutouts, and washi tapes.
The most gratifying part of creating a personalized dream journal is its independence from fancy supplies. You can use every nook and cranny of your creativity while curating the journal to suit your taste.
From torn bookmarks to used pages, the creative ability has no bounds, and the possibilities for artistically gifted people are endless.
Some ideas you can try while starting are:
- Use columns
If you like neatness and clarity in your projects, using boxes and columns can be your way of satisfying your inner perfectionist.
While maintaining the aesthetic quality of your dream journal, it also ensures one dream entry is not mixed up with another as everything is bound in boxes, providing a clear distinction. This dream journal example will assist your future self with easy references.
- Stack the papers
Digging the vibrant colors and multitude of textures you come across while going about doing your daily task?
When you have a piece of paper too ornamental to use for general purposes, use it in your dream journal. Widen your artistic abilities and experiment with various textures, colors, materials, and sizes.
From remains-of-newspaper to coffee-stained pages of old notebooks, you can use them all here and let your creative spirit rule your dream journal.
- Bookbinding
Buying a store-made dream journal is convenient and offers you more of a scripted path to follow during dream journaling. But if you are looking to try your hands at an entertaining DIY project, you can create a dream journal from scratch! The pages can be as organized or vibrant as you want. They can even have a customized font with pre-printed text.
Amidst the horde of these endless choices, you can also select the type of paper you want for writing, such as handmade paper or recyclable paper. By utilizing the bookbinding technique, you can easily make a dream journal personalized with your touch radiating in every corner.
#3. Rob Vincent’s Dream Journal
Lucid dreaming is not unknown to dreamers. Although, remembering lucid dreams can be a tedious task. Therefore dream journaling is a favorite amongst lucid dreamers.
If you are a beginner in lucid dreaming or someone looking to expand their know-how by seeing the examples left behind by other people, the Rob Vincent dream journal will suit you remarkably.
This dream journal example may not be the most organized way, but it’s a fascinating dream journal blog that has been around for a few years and gives tremendous insight into the world of lucid dreaming. The log entries are concise, highlighting the date and time.
Following this example, you don’t delve into a lot of detail about your dreams, but rather the focus is on the after-effects and how you feel the next day. Is anxiety pressing down on your throat or curiosity trying to take a deeper peek into your subconscious?
With the use of this example, you journal your thoughts and mood swings, if any. The main objective is to highlight a few key feelings and emotions instead of writing long entries and losing your train of thought along with it.
Above all, reading through the entries in the example journal can help you identify if the lucid dreaming effects that you experience are common to all. This journal example is specifically better for lucid dreamers as you get to focus on the details, which is suitable for writing when in a sleepy state just after waking up.
The dual advantages it offers are especially eye-catching. With the freedom to decide on journal entry lengths, flexibility in application is also present. You can choose the medium that caters to your needs the best, namely, digital, audio, and classic pen and paper.
#4. Andy Zaitsev’s Dream Journal
For people who have a knack for organization and like to segregate things, this dream journal example will be a dream come true.
Memory is a fundamental factor when you start to journal dreams. Remembering when which dream was recorded can get chaotic if you have been dream journaling for a long time. To keep the records segmented and organized and maintain their track, take inspiration from this journal example.
In Andy’s journal, he separates his dreams into categories. Like lucid, non-lucid, out-of-body experiences, and dream analysis. Here too, the focus is slightly more on post-dream activities such as interpretation and forming connections.
What’s more, his journal is a collection of dreams dated from 1996 to 2003. Even with a colossal accumulation of dream logs, it has nice tabulations, and references are simple to find.
The length of the dream entry is adaptable to your will, and there is no set word count that you have to meet. This lack of rules can motivate you to write more regularly since it decreases the chances of getting burnt out by reducing the workload and making the dream journaling process a delight instead of monotonous.
What’s more, the striking feature of this journal is that the dream entries resemble regular diary entries a lot. The dreamer writes about their dream as a casual happening in the day. They enact actions carried out after waking up, recording the effects felt throughout the day because of what they dreamt the previous night.
Due to this detailed structure with less to no restraints in functionality, it delivers exceptional performance for the people searching for an easy-to-understand, inspirational dream journal option since the shift from diary entries isn’t that huge.
#5. The Elder Dreams
Writers love to create, whether cooking up novel ideas or simply settling on a title representing their hard work.
Thus, this dream journal example is a match made in heaven for writers. It gives them exposure and room for creativity that people dream journaling may crave by using custom titles for journal entries.
The Elder Dreams is a journal written by Dan Curtis Johnson from 1988 to 2005, and it draws its inspiration from comics since he was a comic book writer.
In this journal, the entries are separated by their specific years. Under each year are dream logs written during that time. But, the fun element in this journal example is the addition of titles.
When you are recording your dreams every day, the process loses its spark after a while. By adding the extra exercise of thinking of a title that suits your journal entry for a specific day, you can rejuvenate your interest in dream journaling. Even better, it offers direction when you glance around the journal at once.
Moreover, in this journal, the focus is on dreams. The entries try to describe what happened in the dream world to their maximum potential. The customized title captures interest, as it acts as a preview of the dream journal content when the dream entries are reread in the future.
Using this journal for inspiration can give you that needed edge and spice to rev up your writing mood while also improving the retention power. If you practice writing solely based on your dreams, your retaining ability will eventually advance.
With a sleek design that is visually enrapturing and provides an impressive output, this dream journal inspiration can quickly become a hit amidst dreamers.
Bonus Read: Here are 7 Egyptian mythology films you simply cannot miss!
#6. John Dubois’ Dream Journal
The people who want to learn about their dreams are creative by nature. They are curious and always want to explore. For people looking for inspiration that can feed their inventive soul, also providing satisfactory results in dream interpretations, the John DuBois dream journal will be a befitting choice.
The feature that makes this journal stand out from other examples is that John DuBois’ separated his journals by themes. The dream diary has entries spanning from 1991 to 2007 and offers valuable insight into the inner workings of the dream world.
By seeking inspiration from this example, you can sort out your dream entries by emotions or themes surrounding mood patterns, such as conflict, fun, threat or injury, sci-fi, and futuristic visions.
This separation method can allow you to reach an assessment and conclusion on your dream analysis quicker, as you can study the themes and their recurring frequency all at once.
Additionally, this way of dream journaling can simplify the self-reflection process and make the task of resonating with older dream logs more effective. The theme-based classification gives a clear-cut way of identifying the recurring patterns of your dreams.
#7. Dream Journal Templates
Before embarking on your dream journaling journey, it is crucial to set a goal. There are a variety of things you can achieve by keeping a dream diary.
Namely, stronger hold on feelings and emotions, start lucid dreaming, solve inner conflicts, and correct sleeping issues. By taking inspiration from dream journal templates, you can have a particular goal in mind.
Achieving aims becomes less burdening when there is a clear start and focus from the beginning. To determine what factors will affect the information of your dream journal, refer to the following templates:
- Dr. Eric H. Chudler’s Template
With a basic foundation, this template includes spaces to record when you wake up and when you go to sleep. It can help in keeping track of the sleep cycle, ultimately solving sleep-related problems.
- Savetz Publishing’s Free Medical Forms Template
By relying on a more dream-oriented approach, this template has detailed options for a dream diary. It has spaces designated to write not only dreams but also their interpretations.
Over that, you can also keep track of how many apprehensions were spot-on using this template.
Conclusion
Dream journaling can be a great hobby. In addition to the outlet it gives to creative minds, it also forms a deeper self-connection. Meanwhile, it improves the quality of life by resolving issues like inner conflicts and an unkempt sleep schedule.
Looking for dream journal inspirations is a fantastic way to keep the interest in dream journaling intact. To top it up, it rewards the dreamer a break from monotonous writing and broadens their perspective’s horizon.
Bonus Read: Still unsure whether you should start a dream journal or not? Read these reasons and the benefits of keeping a dream journal.
An enthusiastic dream journaler who has connected sleep-time visions with real-life occurrences in the past and present, Karandeep believes in tapping into the subconscious and demystifying strengths, insecurities, and deep-rooted desires. Besides identifying the interconnectedness of dreams in his personalized dream journal, he continues to study the significance of celestial objects and their relation to mythological tales that keep modern society intrigued about past civilizations.