DAYS 1 AND 2

DREAM RECALL

Before you can become conscious in your dreams, you must master some basic tenets of dream control. A major requirement for successful dream control is the ability to remember, appreciate, and record your dreams. On Days 1 and 2 of the Creative Sleep Program, therefore, you will learn special focusing exercises to help you recall your dreams. You will also learn to record your dreams in your private dream journal.

Dream Alert — Because some preparation is required, read all the instructions for Days 1 and 2 before you begin.

Part I: Setting Up Your Dream Journal. Your first task, to be carried out on Day 1, is preparation of the dream journal you will use for the rest of the Creative Sleep Program. Your personal dream journal should be a notebook that you can store under your pillow or carry around during the day. We suggest Dreams and Waking Visions by Mary Michael and Barbara Andrews, or an easy-to-carry spiral memo book. You should also select a special pen for your dream journal. We suggest a free-flowing felt-tip pen that will enable you to write while lying down. The pen used for writing in your dream journal should not be used for anything else. You may also find it helpful to clip a penlight to your dream journal, in case you find yourself remembering a dream in the middle of the night.

Take your new journal home and place it, along with the pen and penlight, under the pillow on your bed. Say to yourself, This is where I'll be recording my remembered dreams. Then leave the notebook under your pillow until you're ready to go to bed.

Part II: Remembering Your Dreams. The second part of the dream recall exercise can begin anytime after you've set up your dream journal. It will begin on Day 1 and continue through the morning of Day 2.

Begin by sitting alone in a public place during some quiet part of your day and observing yourself and your surroundings. Observe the other people around you and repeat these words: Everybody here has dreams. Consider the meaning of this phrase and try to imagine what the various people around you might have dreamed last night. Consider your current surroundings and ask yourself what they might dream tonight. What might you dream tonight?

Then, quietly say to yourself, From now on, I'll remember my dreams. As soon as you acknowledge your willingness to remember your dreams, let go of the whole idea and forget about it for the rest of the day, until you're lying in bed, drifting off to sleep.

Dream Alert —If you feel particularly ambitious, you may suggest to yourself that you wake up throughout the night as you complete your dreams. With continued practice, you may find yourself waking after quite a number of successive dreams on a particular night and remembering each of them. While you might not wish to practice such an intense exercise on a regular basis, it can occasionally lead to some surprising insights, while also significantly increasing your ability to recall your dreams.

Later, after you've gone to bed, gently reaffirm your willingness to remember your dreams. Once again, let go of this thought the moment that you acknowledge it, and avoid putting any psychological pressure on yourself. Then fall asleep.

To retain your dreams as completely as possible, you must first understand that dream memories can be as fleeting as your next breath of air. Therefore, whenever you start to wake up, be it in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, do not open your eyes or even move. Instead, stop and focus entirely on recalling your dreams.

Toward this end, you must arrange your sleeping environment to avoid even the tiniest distractions. If you usually sleep with or near another person, ask them not to disturb you before you get out of bed in the morning. If you usually wake up with the aid of an alarm clock, we suggest that you use a clock radio and set it to wake you with classical music instead of a buzzer. Better yet, arrange for a friend or family member to gently rouse you from sleep.

Don't pressure yourself to remember detailed and convoluted dream descriptions in exact chronological order. As you have probably found when trying to recapture other memories, such as the title of some forgotten song, dream memories are best approached with subtlety and grace. They must be allowed to steep, to emerge gradually and spontaneously into your conscious waking awareness.

You are most likely to remember details or fragments of your most recent dream upon first awakening. The thoughts, feelings, and images pertaining to this dream can often be gently followed in reverse order, gradually guiding you back toward subtle recollections of earlier dreams.

Recollections of earlier dreams, however, are typically as fragile and fleeting as soap bubbles. These dreams, after all, are composed of feelings and images gently blowing through the hidden passages of your unconscious mind. Any sudden movement in your thoughts, any momentary distraction, any attempt to force the memory can shatter the bubbles and cause the images to evaporate before they emerge in your conscious awareness.

Remember, you must relax, and most important, you must give yourself time to remember your dreams. If dream images don't instantly float to the surface of your conscious awareness, just lie quietly for a while and see what happens before turning your attention toward anything else that may be on your mind.

Part III: Recording Your Dreams. Dream journals have been kept in one form or another throughout recorded history. Though we cannot absolutely prove the theory, we would be willing to bet that even cave paintings created by the earliest human beings have at least occasionally represented images that first emerged in dreams.

As civilization evolved, dream journals took the form of written records...