This month’s way to self soothe is by being in nature. It’s long been known and proven that being outside and preferably in nature can improve our mental health. Take a Short Walk The simplest ways are often the most effective. Such as going for a short walk from your...
Dream Journaling
The Art of Self Soothing
There is so much going on in the world now. It’s hard watching the news, in fact I am more likely to just quickly check a news ap than I am to watch the news in real time. Many people I speak to are unable to watch the news at all because they struggle to think of the...
Interpreting Dreams
In the last of my series on dreaming we look at common images and symbols in dream interpretation. I love working with the unconscious and find dreams fascinating. We can think of them as metaphors for what might be going on in the dreamer’s life and/or the...
Nightmares and Night terrors
It seems difficult for people to talk about their nightmares. Even if the person has told me during their assessment that they suffer from nightmares, I often find people don’t talk about them in any detail until we have been working together for a while. Maybe by...
Types of dreams
Types of Dreams Every dream is as unique as the dreamer, but there are specific types of dreamsthat most commonly find their way into my consulting room. These are daydreams, vivid dreams, recurring dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares and night terrors. This month, I...
Dreaming
Photography by Gregory Pappas on UnsplashPsychotherapy and Dreams During an initial consultation with a potential client, I often ask about their dreams. Do they dream regularly? Do they have significant dreams from childhood? Do they have recurring dreams? This is...
Time for a Mindset Spring Clean
March is a hopeful month. Officially the first month of spring with emerging colour, bulbs bravely shooting through the ground and trees starting to sprout buds. A couple of years ago in the UK we had a mini heatwave in March. With the unpredictability of the climate,...
Cyber Bullying
Cyber Bullying When researching this subject, I was shocked to see the number of people who had taken their lives due to cyber bullying and sextortion. Between March 2019 and March 2020 19% or one in five children between the age of 10 and 15 in England and Wales...
Male Influencers
The MeToo movement has been wonderful for women’s rights and furthering awareness of sexual harassment and abuse. I know very few women who haven’t experienced sexual harassment at some point in their life and there is now an ability for women to have a voice, be...
What’s Your Online Persona?
Who Do You Think You Are? How Do You Want To Come Across Online? We all know someone who exaggerates their life online – we see the ‘official’ glitzy positive image they put on social media. For example, posts of holiday snaps look amazing but, when we meet to hear...
How To Remember Your Dreams
I often work with people who dream frequently and are interested in their dreams. Many suffer from nightmares and night terrors which they remember vividly. I will be exploring these in a later post. But a lot of people don’t remember their dreams. This is a shame because our unconscious dreaming world is a powerful tool, often throwing light on challenges we may be facing in the present. So how can we begin to remember?
We all dream during our sleep. Dreaming happens during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase. This usually occurs towards the end of a sleep cycle. A sleep cycle usually lasts about 90 minutes and we can have several of these throughout the night. Potentially there are several pockets of time to remember our dreams, although it is perhaps easiest and most convenient to record the ones right at the end of our sleep as we wake in the morning.
It is possible to train ourselves to remember our dreams to some extent. If we tell our unconscious that we want to remember our dreams and drift off to sleep with the intention of remembering, this may encourage it to happen. Like many people who record their dreams, I find the easiest time is just before waking, when I’m sleeping relatively lightly. As I stir, sometimes mid-dream, I reach for my dream journal and pen and hastily scribble a few words. This will often be enough to prompt me to remember my dream later when I am fully awake.
How To Keep A Dream Journal
It helps to value the process of recording your dreams. One way to do this is to treat yourself to a really nice journal and a pen you find comfortable to write with. That way it’s a pleasure to write, even if it’s just a few scribbled words when you are only semi compos mentis!
Obviously, it makes sense to keep the journal and pen by your bedside for easy access, so you’re not fumbling around in the dawn light. To begin with, it can be quite an effort to wake yourself up enough to make notes, but hopefully it will be worth it when you are able to fall back asleep with enough of an interesting dream to explore later in the day.
Dream Apps
An alternative to a journal is to record dream fragments on a phone or tablet if you keep these in the bedroom. There are several apps available to enable this:
How To Reflect On Your Dream
If you want to reflect on your dream either alone or with someone, it’s best to have as much detail as possible to work with. It’s always good to find some time in the day, the earlier the better, to give the dream your attention.
Here are some prompts to ask yourself:
What did you write down?
Can you remember the dream from your notes?
What can you remember about it?
Who was in the dream?
Where did the dream take place?
What happened in the dream?
What were the feelings you experienced in the dream?
How did you feel immediately on waking up?
How do you feel now remembering it?
It can take time and determination to foster this habit. But give it a try, it could lead to you getting to know your dreams and therefore yourself much better!
Photography by Claudia Mañas on Unsplash