When we dream, our brain is trying to work out a problem that has been troubling us. Our dreams help us heal emotionally by attempting to solve a known issue or even something in the back of our minds — something that we haven’t been dealing with for reasons that might be too devastating.
Our brain attempts to resolve interrelationships among all the unresolved issues we have by randomly replaying representations of everyday events in our lives. You might consider those random dreams weird, but they’re a way of attempting to sort out memories of daily occurrences.1
Outstanding issues are especially crucial to resolve for a healthy mind and to live a productive life. When I need to resolve challenging matters, I sometimes take the time to sit and meditate on them. I try to think my way through it to develop a constructive solution.
However, that isn’t always easy to accomplish, and that’s when our brain takes over while we sleep. The trick it uses is to combine random, sometimes weird episodes, which can form a more natural chain of misguided thoughts that lead to the constructive solution we need.
How often have you had concerns about an upcoming event, and you didn’t feel comfortable attending? Yet, you knew you had to be there and be involved with the occasion.
Well, those concerns were in your head, and you weren’t getting anywhere with all the worrying and disturbing thoughts.
Then one morning, you realize you had dreamt about it as if it had happened already. But maybe the circumstances in that dream were a little weird and confusing.
In reality, your brain was preparing you for the event, so you performed better without the stress your daily thoughts were creating.2
Dreams help us resolve issues when feeling confused, giving us peace of mind. The work is done subconsciously in REM sleep. That’s Rapid Eye Movement, and it is the time when you are dreaming.
During REM sleep, the brain is free of stress and can process and resolve problematic issues that contribute to our well-being.3
What is our brain trying to achieve as it pieces together a somewhat meaningless series of events? Our mind is trying to organize our thoughts.
We might be struggling to complete a creative endeavor. A dream while we sleep can provide the inspiration we need to piece together what we couldn’t do during our waking hours.
When we recall a dream we just had, we might envision the precise result we wanted to accomplish.
For example, Paul McCartney’s hit song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream.
Sometimes, a thoroughly new idea comes to mind from a dream. For example, have you ever woken up from a good night’s sleep, realizing you have the solution to a problem you went to bed with unresolved?
Your brain was working on that problem while you slept. Neurons readjusted to form new connections, making the solution clear when you woke up. We often don’t remember our dreams. But I assure you that you do dream. And when you remember those dreams, you have the advantage of applying their wisdom to problem-solving.
So it’s a great benefit when you do put effort into remembering your dreams. The following additional points will explain how to achieve that.
We tend to forget dreams quickly after waking up. However, I discovered that when I talk about my dream immediately upon waking, I tend to remember it. I’ll tell you why that happens.
As dreams occur, they exist in the neocortex. That’s the part of the brain focused on our attention and planning processes. That’s short-term memory.
When we speak about a dream we just had, the memory of it is preserved in the hippocampus section of the brain. That’s responsible for long-term memory.4
We can produce the same effect by writing about it before we forget.
The most important thing is not to move when you wake from a dream. Just lie there for a while thinking about it. Try to recall as much of your dream as you can. If you move, or worse, get out of bed, then you will undoubtedly forget it.
I decided to write down everything I remember from a dream the moment I woke up, so I wouldn’t forget it. Sometimes I wake up immediately after a dream in the middle of the night, and I find that it is the best opportunity to remember it. That’s because it just occurred before awakening.
If we don’t wake up in the middle of the night but sleep through the entire night, then when we wake up in the morning, we usually don’t recall the dreams we had. REM sleep peaks long before we wake up in the morning.
We have a better chance of remembering a dream if we wake up during it or soon afterward. So, it’s crucial to quickly write down everything you remember from the last dream before you forget it.
If you do that every time you wake up from a dream, you’ll be creating a journal you can use to track related stories.
You may use a different routine that works for you, but I like to use my mobile phone. I leave my phone near my bed for this purpose.
When I wake from a dream, I lie there for a minute to recall it, with as much detail as I can.
Then I quickly take my phone and record the details with my phone’s voice memo app. I don’t type it. The middle of the night, while still feeling groggy, is the worst time to try to type. I know I can transcribe it at another time.
However, sometimes I use Apple’s Siri, and I dictate the information. However, sometimes that messes up, and when I read what it typed, some words are entirely different from what I said, and I can’t recall what I actually spoke.
But I’m getting off the topic. Use whatever method works best for you.
I have three specific rules I made for this process:
To remember the full extent of the dream so you can enter the entire episode in your journal, you need to lie there for a while in the same position you were in when you woke up.
While in this position, think about the dream you just had. If you get out of bed, you might soon forget it.
Note that a journal does not include any form of interpretation. It’s just a storyline in a linear sequence as it occurred.
Your dream story may seem fragmented with no meaningful flow. That’s the way many dreams occur. Don’t try to make sense of it while adding the information to your journal. That comes later when you review your journal.
Your dream journal will provide a narrative that you can analyze and learn what your dreams mean. There might be a common theme among them.
A journal referencing several dreams could provide answers or enlighten you about things you didn’t even know were on your mind. For example, you might see a pattern of concerns that you have had subconsciously.
You might think certain things were so absurd that they can’t have anything to do with reality. But while you’re dreaming, it all makes perfect sense. It’s when you awaken that you consider it total nonsense. But it’s not.
Your brain is trying to piece together psychological activities, emotional responses, subjective experiences, external stimuli of recent life events, and possible childhood trauma.5
Now you can give mindful attention to issues presented in your dreams and maybe even resolve matters that were previously hidden from your conscious mind.
I once dreamed that I woke up and started my day. I got dressed, ate breakfast, and went to work. But then, suddenly, I woke up again and realized I had only been dreaming about that entire day.
Who’s to say that the second time waking was also just another dream within a dream?
Dreams have a strange way of expressing reality at times. There is usually a hidden message if you pay attention and think about it.
The methods I discussed will help you make sense of it in your daily life as long as you retain the information your brain is trying to piece together. You never know. You might just be dreaming.
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