The single most important thing you can do to start a dreaming journey is to write down all your dreams. Forget about getting lucid right away; start recording every single dream. Make it a daily practice. Experiment with different journaling approaches until you find something that you will stick to for the long run.
For me, that’s a massively detailed spreadsheet that captures 88 different stats as well as complete dream narratives. As someone obsessed with data, my dream journal had to be a useful tool for studying trends and patterns while generating insights at scale. I can quickly sort by theme, lucidity level, dream character, emotion, dream sign, and so much more. I can look at average times I have lucid dreams, how daytime moods might affect dream moods (and vice versa), how much sleep produces the most dreams - the possibilities are endless. I’ve learned so much about myself and my dream world this way.
It certainly takes a lot of time and dedication to “manage” dreams this way, but I attribute my high-level of recall and lucid consistency to this approach. I created the spreadsheet two years ago, and at the time of this entry have since recorded 2,157 total dreams with 360 lucid (17%). I absolutely love it. Ask for a stat, and I can deliver (probably).
I’m currently working on a smaller-scale version of this spreadsheet and other database solutions for dreamers to use. Stay tuned for that in the future! In the meantime, if this kind of thing is your jam, you can get started by creating a simple spreadsheet for yourself. Start tracking just a few things that interest you the most. Let me know how it goes!
xozz,
Allison
