Dream Journal - Beginner

A dream journal may be the most important part of lucid dreaming. Without a dream journal, you may have lucid dreams, but chances are you won't remember a thing.

A dream journal is simply a journal write down your dreams from the night before. This may seem like it might not be necessary, like you can remember your dreams without one, but it's extremely hard to remember your dreams without a journal. You're mind will react to the journal and remember your dreams naturally if you write them down, but it will forget them if you never open up a dream journal. So basically, make one. Here's what you have to do if you ever want to remember your dreams:

Preparation:
1. Either go buy a journal or use the online dream journal at lucidipedia.
2. Either put your dream journal and a pen next to your bed or a pad of paper and a pen.
3. Get some sort of light to use when writing down your dreams in the middle of the night. I like a small flashlight because I can see the paper without it waking me up as much as a regular light.

Usage:
1. Before going to bed repeat the following. "I will remember my dreams." Repeat it as much as you want and truly believe that you will remember your dreams. Don't just say it, believe it. I can't stress enough how important belief is in lucid dreaming. I'll have a whole post on belief sometime in the future.
2. Every time you wake up think, "what was I just dreaming?" Don't move, just keep your eyes closed and think. Try not to fall asleep while thinking. Some people find it helpful to jot down notes while they are thinking while others find it helpful to think out the whole dream and then write down notes to remember it in the morning. Try both and see which works best for you.
3. In the morning grab your dream journal and open it up to a fresh page.
4. Put down the date and the time, if you have the time when you fell asleep and woke up.
5. Give your dream a catchy title. Something so that you can look at it and go, "oh right that's what that dream is about."
6.Give your dream a genre. This can really help to differentiate between your dreams and can be a useful dreamsign.
7. Write down whether you were lucid or not. It might also be helpful to include how lucid you were since there are many different levels.
8. Write a detailed description of your dream. Everything you can remember from the dream should be in your description.
9. Highlight or underline anything that seemed out of the ordinary in your dreams. Anything that could have tipped you off that you were dreaming. These are your dreamsigns and noting what type of dreamsigns you are having will be the best way to become lucid. My next post will be on dreamsigns.
10. Make a list of dream characters. Sometimes a certain character will be in many of your dreams and this becomes a dreamsign.

Some people, I'm one of them, think that this takes much to long and they get tired of it. But there's hope for us lazy bastards out there. You don't need to keep an ultra super detailed dream journal forever. When starting out, write down every single detail. When you get good at recalling dreams and it comes naturally, you can start only putting down dreams that you especially liked, or leaving out some of the details in your dreams. Just make sure that you continue to recall your dreams with as much clarity and detail as you had before. If you can't remember dreams as well, go back to writing a detailed journal for a while.