Dreams are more than just your brain’s reruns from the day or for swapping weird dream stories with your friends and colleagues. Dreams can be powerful messages about problems or stresses in your life. If you have regular dreams about the same situation over and over, being trapped or running late or being shamed in public, your subconscious is trying to tell you something – and you should listen.
It can be hard to remember your dreams for more than a few minutes after you awaken. Keeping a dream journal can help you keep a record of those messages from your subconscious. There are other benefits too.
Benefit 1: Improve your problem solving
Once you start keeping a dream journal, you’ll see how your dreams reflect what’s going on in your waking life. Taking the time to note down and analyze your dreams sends a signal to your subconscious that you’re listening. And as you listen, you get more insight into your problems, and your dreams become easier to understand and solve.
You can even “pre-program” your mind to solve problems by affirming that you’ll get the answers you need before you fall asleep. If you need more evidence that Affirmations work and can change your life, check out the Affirmations collection here on the site.
Benefit 2: Reduce your anxiety
Bad dreams, the ones you wake up glad to escape from, can tell you a lot 
about your deepest fears. They can help you pinpoint areas of your life where you can take steps to avoid the fear that surfaces in your dream. Consider that you may get a message via symbols instead of easily understood plain language, and you’ll open your mind to many more possibilities.
Journaling enables you to process the issue that’s causing anxiety. Writing down your dreams in a journal (see also benefit #1 above) can help you to decipher the symbolism and metaphors later. Check out our collection of Journaling posts for tons of helpful information or sign up for our Jot It Down course for six ways to make journaling work for you.
Benefit 3: Connect with your creativity
Some of the world’s greatest thinkers, writers and artists have had inspiration come to them in dreams. Einstein is supposed to have dreamed of his theory of relativity and thereby changed the world of physics.
Keeping a journal of your subconscious dream life allows you to tap into your creative mind. The logical part of your mind quietens, while fantasy and imagination take over leading to some of the stranger aspects of dream life. Capturing these images and stories in your dream journal can give you a world of innovative ideas to explore.
Benefit 4: You’ll remember more of your dreams
Getting into the habit of writing down your dreams will encourage your
conscious mind to access your dream life. Journaling tells your mind that this is important, and your brain’s filters will reset to prioritize capturing your dreams. It puts dreams on your radar!
As your dream journaling becomes part of your routine, your dream recall will improve, and you’ll find you remember more of your dreams and increased details. You might even find you start to have lucid dreams where you become aware that you’re dreaming and can alter the narrative of your dream.
