Black Book
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Dream journals can help you to increase dream frequency, dream recall, the vividness of dreams, and even lucidity during dreams.
The most important thing, especially when starting out, is forcing one’s self to wake up just enough to write down the dream before drifting back to sleep. Especially for beginners, dreams are often forgotten within 5 minutes, even if at the time it truly feels like the memory will last. In fact, humans often have multiple dreams a night but they just don’t remember them. I have had many nights where I’ve had over 10 different and distinct dreams, and I am positive I was only able to remember all of them because of my practice of writing my dreams down daily.
Get in the habit of making yourself wake up just enough to write down the dream, perhaps even just writing down keywords to help jog your memory when you fully wake up later (“dog pond shack” could be all you need to later remember your dream was about a dog swimming through a pond before being called into a shack), and at that time you can fill out the dream entry fully. A side benefit of this is when falling back asleep again, you may have a higher chance of achieving lucidity in the next dream as you have become slightly more conscious.
A tip is to have one’s phone within arm’s reach and to set it to the lowest brightness, also putting night mode on if available, with your phone’s notes app open and ready. This way you can easily write down your dreams without the bright light of the phone screen blinding you or without having to fumble through your phone to find the notes app. If you are like me and are sensitive to light, this still can be rather uncomfortable, but if you have your keyboard layout memorized well, you can type without needing to look too much. An alternative is having a pen and paper by your bedside, which may be the easiest way since you are likely able to write without having to look at the paper. However, this has the trade-off of your dreams not being secure behind the passcode of a device, and also you cannot as easily search through your dreams as you could on your phone’s notes app with its search bar, for example.
Another tip which will increase lucid dream frequency and/or unconscious astral projections, is to read a book about the subject daily. For example, read 1 or 2 pages every day of a book such as Robert Bruce’s “Astral Dynamics.” This book has many interesting stories and tips from the author on both lucid dreaming and astral projecting. Bringing your mind to the subject at various points throughout the day is very effective at stimulating dreams, and I personally had a significant increase in lucid and astral experiences during the time in which I was reading this book (and actively trying to apply some of its methods).
An exercise you can perform is called a “reality check.” Throughout the day, try to test if you are actually dreaming or not. For example, try passing your hands through each other. Or stare at your hand and see if its form shifts at all (during a lucid dream, it might waver or even melt away). For this to be effective, you have to BELIEVE that you are actually in a dream, and that your hand will, in fact, pass through the other hand with no resistance. The goal is if you practice this exercise enough times every day, you will inevitably try to perform a reality check while you are actually dreaming! And then the reality check will, hopefully, trigger lucidity. A rather frustrating experience I had myself in the beginning, was that I would perform a reality check while I was in a dream, but my hand would actually appear solid and would behave normally just like in waking life – and then I would say to myself, “Oh, I guess I’m actually awake!” before kicking myself when I’d eventually wake up and realize what really just happened… I rectified this annoyance eventually by making myself truly BELIEVE I was in a dream whenever I’d perform reality checks every day.
One more tip for beginners which is relevant for both lucid dreams and astral projections, is to keep your first experiences short. The longer you let these experiences last, the higher chance you will forget parts of it. As you get better at remembering them, you can let these experiences last longer and longer. Of course, make sure you write all of the details down in your journal as soon as you awaken!
These are the different types of entries I make within my dream journal. I begin each entry with one of the prefixes which I have put in parentheses, before writing out the dream / experience. This way I can quickly tell what type of dream it was when reading through my journal later.
Fragment (F): A dream fragment is when you only remember a tiny fraction of a dream, and not the main plot of the dream. For example, you know there was a soda machine in the dream that had some significance, but you don’t remember anything else about it. This can be useful to write down as it may trigger remembering more about the dream if you read this entry again later in the day.
Dream (D): This denotes a regular dream during which one was not aware at all that one was dreaming.
Lucid Dream (LD): A lucid dream is a dream in which one is completely aware they are dreaming, AND they are actively and consciously choosing their own actions within the dream.
Half Lucid Dream (HLD): A half lucid dream is peculiar but can be common; it is a dream in which one knows they are dreaming, but is not consciously in control of their actions despite this. They are still unconsciously taking part in the dream as it plays out, despite their “dream self” being aware it is a dream.
Day Dream (DD): Most people likely have experienced a day dream: when one is fully awake, but is zoning out from reality and taking part in a dream in their mind. These are often weak and rather short-lived, as reality tends to pull one out of this.
Lucid Day Dream (LDD): Believe it or not, you can become lucid within a day dream. This has happened to me: I was fully awake going about my day normally, and I happened to enter a day dream in which I was at a grocery store at the checkout counter. The clerk seemed to be talking directly to my subconscious, telling me I was forgetting something. This triggered lucidity for me, and once I realized I was in a dream, I forced myself out of it, snapping back to reality in surprise.
Vision (V): When you are awake but perhaps in meditation, and a vision of something significant appears in your mind (or even an important message from a God for example).
Past Life Memory (PLM): When a dream is clearly more than a dream, and you have a strong feeling it may be a memory of a past life.
Astral Projection (AP): An astral projection is when your astral body is detached from your physical body, exploring in the outer-astral realm, rather than just within your own mind (in contrast to lucid dreams).
False Awakening (FA): This is often a part of another dream and not isolated by itself, but it is useful to know this term. A false awakening is when you “wake up” from a dream, but you are in fact still dreaming. You may, for example, think you’re getting out of your bed, walking around and performing actions, and this can go on for a while until you actually wake up.
Déjà vu (DV): This occurs while awake, and is the feeling you were in the same exact situation before, down to minute details. After practicing writing dreams for some time, you may actually find you can remember that you DREAMED this exact situation months prior! Humans are psychic beings, and dreams can be prophetic glimpses into possible futures.
Sleep Paralysis (SP): Sleep paralysis is a rather infamous phenomenon. This is when you are awake consciously, perhaps even seeing through your physical eyes, but your body is still under a paralysis from being in a sleeping state. One may or may not see visions during this time, which may be rather unpleasant, but not always. This should not deter you from practicing with dreams and is something to learn to deal with rather than have fear about.
* (?): For all of these classifications, you can also add a question mark after it if you are not 100% sure that your experience falls within that category. For example, if you are unsure if you actually astral projected or if it was just a lucid dream, you can mark it as “AP?”
This should be a good starting point for you to start your own Dream Journal. My dream journal spans close to a decade of entries, and I can see on what dates I had a specific dream, all the way back to over 9 years ago! There are more aspects of dreaming that can be covered, such as dream symbolism or how to make the most out of dreams in which you achieve full lucidity; this could be covered in a part 2, but I also recommend reading Robert Bruce’s “Astral Dynamics” which touches on these topics as well. This book is available for free. However, this is an older version of the book (though it is the one I read); the newer version is from 2009 and contains new methods and experiences from the author, with some older methods being changed or removed.
Thank you all for reading, and I wish for all of you to have many wonderful dream experiences!
Hail Father Zeus, Mother Lilith and all of our Beautiful Gods!
-Black Book
The most important thing, especially when starting out, is forcing one’s self to wake up just enough to write down the dream before drifting back to sleep. Especially for beginners, dreams are often forgotten within 5 minutes, even if at the time it truly feels like the memory will last. In fact, humans often have multiple dreams a night but they just don’t remember them. I have had many nights where I’ve had over 10 different and distinct dreams, and I am positive I was only able to remember all of them because of my practice of writing my dreams down daily.
Get in the habit of making yourself wake up just enough to write down the dream, perhaps even just writing down keywords to help jog your memory when you fully wake up later (“dog pond shack” could be all you need to later remember your dream was about a dog swimming through a pond before being called into a shack), and at that time you can fill out the dream entry fully. A side benefit of this is when falling back asleep again, you may have a higher chance of achieving lucidity in the next dream as you have become slightly more conscious.
A tip is to have one’s phone within arm’s reach and to set it to the lowest brightness, also putting night mode on if available, with your phone’s notes app open and ready. This way you can easily write down your dreams without the bright light of the phone screen blinding you or without having to fumble through your phone to find the notes app. If you are like me and are sensitive to light, this still can be rather uncomfortable, but if you have your keyboard layout memorized well, you can type without needing to look too much. An alternative is having a pen and paper by your bedside, which may be the easiest way since you are likely able to write without having to look at the paper. However, this has the trade-off of your dreams not being secure behind the passcode of a device, and also you cannot as easily search through your dreams as you could on your phone’s notes app with its search bar, for example.
Another tip which will increase lucid dream frequency and/or unconscious astral projections, is to read a book about the subject daily. For example, read 1 or 2 pages every day of a book such as Robert Bruce’s “Astral Dynamics.” This book has many interesting stories and tips from the author on both lucid dreaming and astral projecting. Bringing your mind to the subject at various points throughout the day is very effective at stimulating dreams, and I personally had a significant increase in lucid and astral experiences during the time in which I was reading this book (and actively trying to apply some of its methods).
An exercise you can perform is called a “reality check.” Throughout the day, try to test if you are actually dreaming or not. For example, try passing your hands through each other. Or stare at your hand and see if its form shifts at all (during a lucid dream, it might waver or even melt away). For this to be effective, you have to BELIEVE that you are actually in a dream, and that your hand will, in fact, pass through the other hand with no resistance. The goal is if you practice this exercise enough times every day, you will inevitably try to perform a reality check while you are actually dreaming! And then the reality check will, hopefully, trigger lucidity. A rather frustrating experience I had myself in the beginning, was that I would perform a reality check while I was in a dream, but my hand would actually appear solid and would behave normally just like in waking life – and then I would say to myself, “Oh, I guess I’m actually awake!” before kicking myself when I’d eventually wake up and realize what really just happened… I rectified this annoyance eventually by making myself truly BELIEVE I was in a dream whenever I’d perform reality checks every day.
One more tip for beginners which is relevant for both lucid dreams and astral projections, is to keep your first experiences short. The longer you let these experiences last, the higher chance you will forget parts of it. As you get better at remembering them, you can let these experiences last longer and longer. Of course, make sure you write all of the details down in your journal as soon as you awaken!
Dream Entry Prefixes
These are the different types of entries I make within my dream journal. I begin each entry with one of the prefixes which I have put in parentheses, before writing out the dream / experience. This way I can quickly tell what type of dream it was when reading through my journal later.Fragment (F): A dream fragment is when you only remember a tiny fraction of a dream, and not the main plot of the dream. For example, you know there was a soda machine in the dream that had some significance, but you don’t remember anything else about it. This can be useful to write down as it may trigger remembering more about the dream if you read this entry again later in the day.
Dream (D): This denotes a regular dream during which one was not aware at all that one was dreaming.
Lucid Dream (LD): A lucid dream is a dream in which one is completely aware they are dreaming, AND they are actively and consciously choosing their own actions within the dream.
Half Lucid Dream (HLD): A half lucid dream is peculiar but can be common; it is a dream in which one knows they are dreaming, but is not consciously in control of their actions despite this. They are still unconsciously taking part in the dream as it plays out, despite their “dream self” being aware it is a dream.
Day Dream (DD): Most people likely have experienced a day dream: when one is fully awake, but is zoning out from reality and taking part in a dream in their mind. These are often weak and rather short-lived, as reality tends to pull one out of this.
Lucid Day Dream (LDD): Believe it or not, you can become lucid within a day dream. This has happened to me: I was fully awake going about my day normally, and I happened to enter a day dream in which I was at a grocery store at the checkout counter. The clerk seemed to be talking directly to my subconscious, telling me I was forgetting something. This triggered lucidity for me, and once I realized I was in a dream, I forced myself out of it, snapping back to reality in surprise.
Vision (V): When you are awake but perhaps in meditation, and a vision of something significant appears in your mind (or even an important message from a God for example).
Past Life Memory (PLM): When a dream is clearly more than a dream, and you have a strong feeling it may be a memory of a past life.
Astral Projection (AP): An astral projection is when your astral body is detached from your physical body, exploring in the outer-astral realm, rather than just within your own mind (in contrast to lucid dreams).
False Awakening (FA): This is often a part of another dream and not isolated by itself, but it is useful to know this term. A false awakening is when you “wake up” from a dream, but you are in fact still dreaming. You may, for example, think you’re getting out of your bed, walking around and performing actions, and this can go on for a while until you actually wake up.
Déjà vu (DV): This occurs while awake, and is the feeling you were in the same exact situation before, down to minute details. After practicing writing dreams for some time, you may actually find you can remember that you DREAMED this exact situation months prior! Humans are psychic beings, and dreams can be prophetic glimpses into possible futures.
Sleep Paralysis (SP): Sleep paralysis is a rather infamous phenomenon. This is when you are awake consciously, perhaps even seeing through your physical eyes, but your body is still under a paralysis from being in a sleeping state. One may or may not see visions during this time, which may be rather unpleasant, but not always. This should not deter you from practicing with dreams and is something to learn to deal with rather than have fear about.
* (?): For all of these classifications, you can also add a question mark after it if you are not 100% sure that your experience falls within that category. For example, if you are unsure if you actually astral projected or if it was just a lucid dream, you can mark it as “AP?”
This should be a good starting point for you to start your own Dream Journal. My dream journal spans close to a decade of entries, and I can see on what dates I had a specific dream, all the way back to over 9 years ago! There are more aspects of dreaming that can be covered, such as dream symbolism or how to make the most out of dreams in which you achieve full lucidity; this could be covered in a part 2, but I also recommend reading Robert Bruce’s “Astral Dynamics” which touches on these topics as well. This book is available for free. However, this is an older version of the book (though it is the one I read); the newer version is from 2009 and contains new methods and experiences from the author, with some older methods being changed or removed.
Thank you all for reading, and I wish for all of you to have many wonderful dream experiences!
Hail Father Zeus, Mother Lilith and all of our Beautiful Gods!
-Black Book
