DREAM JOURNAL

Sigmund Freud wrote that "Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious". He wrote several books on dreams, dream content, and dream interpretation. Everybody dreams, though there are those who say they do not. This is perhaps because they cannot recall their dreams. Most dreams occur during REM sleep, which takes up about 25% of total sleep time and occurs on an average of every 90 minutes. This exercise is designed to help you become more aware of your dreams, how often you dream, and what (if anything) you can learn about yourself from your dreams.

First, staple several sheets of loose leaf paper together, around 10 should suffice (not pages ripped out of a spiral notebook), or get a small note pad. This is going to be your dream journal.

Grades will be based on: following directions, insights gained, and thoroughness. This assignment falls in place of test 2 and will not be accepted after the date of test 2. If you have any questions, please see me IN ADVANCE of the due date. Start recording your dreams right away, and continue until you have about 10 to 12 dreams.

On Dec. 10, 2004, the day your classmates take Test 2, you will hand in your journal in 3 Parts. Part I will consist of your 10-12 dreams. Part II will consist of three to five paragraphs. In this section, analyze one of your dreams. Your first paragraph or two should be your analysis of your dream. Your second one or two paragraphs should attempt to analyze the same dream from a Freudian perspective. Part III should be an analysis of common themes within all of your recorded dreams.

To complete the Dream Journal assignment, follow these steps...

Reminder, Notes, and Tips:

Part one of your dream journal may be handwritten. If there are any dream entries that you do not want read, please mark these "Personal" across the top of the pages. Parts II and III are to be typed and double-spaced.

Hand in all three parts by the due date.

Tips to help you remember your dreams:

• relax and keep telling yourself that you WILL remember your dreams
• create a comfortable sleeping environment (you probably already have one, so don't do anything different because of this assignment)
• these dreams do not have to occur at night, dreams that occur during naps can be just as revealing
• if you can't remember a dream, when you wake up, just write the first words that come to your mind, as you look at them, a dream may come back to you.
• if you really get stuck, you can think about dreams you have had before, especially those that are reoccurring

Tips for dream analysis.  Ask yourself the following Questions:

• Were there any common threads, common ideas, running through the journal?
• Are your dreams bizarre? Mundane?
• Which dreams are most disturbing? Why? What do they mean to you?
• What common symbols or objects did you record? What do you think these symbols mean?
• Were you able to control your dreams as you remembered more and more of them?
• How are your dreams relevant to your waking life?
• Was the content of both journals identical on any days? What does this tell you?
• What seems to be the main function of your dreams?