It all started on the morning of Friday, October 29. I had fallen asleep sometime after midnight because I just wasn’t ready to go to bed yet, but also because I couldn’t stop guzzling water (this is an interesting period symptom of mine that I’ve recently discovered, so if you resonate with me on any level, please let me know). Six hours later, I begrudgingly lifted my head off my pillow and began the trek to my bathroom because *surprise, surprise* my body was refusing to allow me to hold my bladder for any longer. As I was sitting on the toilet, all of my dreams from that night came rushing into my mind like how the flood waters from Hurricane Harvey came cascading into my backyard, and I instantly went to jot them down in my Notes app.
I spent the next hour transcribing these events because my dreams are imagery-heavy to say the least, and more importantly, I wanted Future Brittany to have an exquisitely painted portrait of the events that Past Brittany experienced. Once I finished, I went back to bed because I still had another two hours to slumber before my alarm officially went off.
When I woke up for real this time, I thought back to the events that I had recorded in my Notes app, and a part of me began to wonder if I had just written a New York Times bestseller because I was flabbergasted by what I was reading to put it mildly. 1) A girl from high school came into my freshman dorm room and was going through papers that I had meticulously placed on my trunk, and I didn’t think to question her?!?! 2) I was inside this nautical-themed hotel, and I was in the same location as a person I’ve been seeing in my dreams since high school, but the dream ended before we formally met?!?! This last one really got under my skin.
I know it’s preposterous of me to question a set of dreams that I had so eloquently documented, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how all of this could happen within the span of a couple of hours. (Side note: Remember when I mentioned that I recalled all of my dreams whilst sitting on the toilet? Yeah? Well, when I first woke up, I only remembered one of those dreams, so hopefully this explains my difficulty comprehending where all the other details came from.)
Jokes aside, I’m aware that these dreams did indeed happen and that they aren’t just figments of my imagination. However, I say all of this to say that we should all make it a priority to set aside a couple of minutes (or almost an hour in my case) to write down our dreams, even if we can only recall flashes of people, places, and things that we saw or heard. There are many benefits to doing this, but for the sake of time, I’ll share just a few of them with you.
Documenting your dreams is therapeutic, and it’s a great way to just lay everything out there.
In our waking reality, we are bombarded with so much information, and oftentimes, it takes us awhile to parse through all of this data and figure out what we should keep and what we should let go of. Our dreams are the one place where we can be passive (in a sense) and allow things to naturally play out. So, when you wake up in the morning and remember your dreams, rather than chalking up the events that took place to “your imagination running wild,” have fun with it. Use your dreams as a starting point for your daily journal. When you allow your stream of consciousness to flow, you’ll be surprised at what you can learn.
Dreams serve as portals to your waking reality.
Dreams tend to be exaggerated versions of our waking reality, so with this in mind, they can serve as a tool for problem-solving. You can use them to figure out how events in your dreams relate to things that you might be growing through in your life. And yes, I say “growing through” because we don’t “go through” things. No, no, no! This type of verbiage will not do. Why? Because people, places, and situations happen “for us” and not “to us,” and yes, I will certainly take a penny for my thoughts.
Recording your dreams can be an enjoyable experience.
When I have a dream that stumps me, sometimes I’ll look up dream symbolism on Google. Whether it be numbers, colors, names, etc., I read up on the significance these tidbits may hold in my life. Of course, take your findings with a grain of Pixy Stix powder because you might not resonate with everything (or anything) that you read, and that’s totally fine. At least you can laugh about it :)
I hope by giving you a glimpse into my mind that you’re able to not only laugh, but also see how fun journaling about your dreams can be. So with this in mind, come along with me, and let’s head out to explore your *cue music* wildest dreams.