How to keep a dream diary
Dreams disappear in a few minutes. A dream diary is a place to catch them before they go, in the same diary you already keep. You do not need a separate notebook, and you do not need to know what a dream "means" before you are allowed to write it down.
Write it before you do anything else
The useful moment is the one just after you wake, before you check a message or get out of bed. Keep the diary where you can reach it. A phone is fine. Type fragments. Order does not matter. If you wait until breakfast, you will remember the mood and lose the pictures.
Put the date in the title, and the word dream, so you can find these later: "Dream, 12 March" is enough. A tag such as #dream does the same job. Then write whatever is still there.
What to catch
- The place, even if it was a place that does not exist.
- Who was there. Use whatever name your dream used.
- What happened, in the order you remember, not a cleaned-up plot.
- The feeling on waking: frightened, amused, sad, nothing much.
- A color, a line of dialogue, a sound. One detail is better than a summary that says "it was weird."
Half a dream is worth keeping. "A station, my old school bag, I was late, I woke annoyed" is a real entry. Do not fill the gaps with things you are no longer sure of. If you only have an image, write the image.
Leave the interpretation for later
You can add a line about what it reminds you of, after the dream itself is down. Keep that line separate, so next year you can still see what you dreamed and what you guessed. A dream diary is a record of dreams, not a dictionary. The same image can mean nothing for months and then line up with something you are living through. You will not see that if you decide the meaning on the morning it happens.
Read them back once in a while, a month at a time. Look for people, places, and feelings that repeat. Ignore the nights you did not write. Everyone forgets some.
Keep it private
Dreams are often more revealing than a careful daytime entry, and they name people who did not agree to be in them. Leave the diary private. If you ever want one dream entry to be public, take the real names out first. How privacy works is in how to keep a private diary.
A short example of the shape, not of a particularly interesting dream:
Dream, Thursday. A kitchen that was also a train. My brother was there and would not sit down. I kept offering him tea and the cups were full of sand. I woke up thirsty and a bit sad. No idea why. Writing this before coffee so I do not lose the sand.
More ways in, if the morning is blank: what to write in a diary.