How to remember your dreams
Sep 20, 2023
Each morning, I wake up bleary-eyed, barely conscious, still halfway in Dreamland, and I grab my dream journal. I scribble down whatever I can catch from my dreams before they dissolve back into the ether. I’ve been doing this for nearly thirty years and I can’t imagine it any other way.
This practice is sacred to me, so much so that I’ve nearly ended romantic relationships with partners who couldn’t understand my need for space in this liminal moment. The slightest touch, interaction, or spoken word from the dense physical realm will, more often than not, cause my dreams to disappear like foam dissolved by the brush of a hand. When people tell me they don’t “remember” their dreams, what they’re often saying is that they don’t know how to defend this wispy territory so fiercely, that they don’t hold this interstitial space so dearly, that they don’t know how to catch their dreams.
Why do dreams disappear into the ether like this?
When we dream, we’re literally on a different wavelength. Our brains have different electromagnetic wavelengths based on the type of activity they’re engaged in. The slow-moving theta wave dominates in Dreamland whereas, when we wake, we lurch into fast-paced beta wave domination. Theta waves are the waves of the Dream—think a slow, dreamy wave lapping at the ocean shore—whereas beta waves are the waves of active thinking and problem-solving, more like the quick reactions of a surfer! The two CAN co-exist, but they often don’t.
So, the art of catching your dreams is partly the art of mastering that transition from theta to beta—staying just enough in the in-between that you can turn on a dim light, grab a pen, and translate the images drifting away on the surf before the ocean of Dreamland swallows them whole. Catching your dreams is, if you will, the art of body surfing. If you want to better remember your dreams, you have to learn to body surf the liminal space between the vast watery depths and the reliable shore. Keep a pen and journal by your bedside and let me know how it goes!
If you want to learn more about improving dream recall, as well as basic dreamwork, this course is a great place to start.
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