We’ve all been there, having woken up in the early hours of the morning, our hearts firmly lodged in our throats and a feeling of…what?

Well that’s just it isn’t it? Once we are awake we generally forget the images and emotions that roused us. This is why its a good idea to keep a dream journal. It doesn’t need to be a special book or magically embellished journal, a simple notebook will suffice, just the right size to fit onto your bedside table or to keep on the floor near your bed, somewhere where it can always be within easy reach.

When you reach that point of waking, reach for your journal and pen. There is no need to waste time trying to form sentences or keeping things grammatically correct, just jot down quickly the things that you remember. It may be nothing more than a few words to start with, perhaps tunnel, chased and scared are all that come to mind, once you have regained some of that composure that seems to vanish from us when we wake up with a jolt, look at the words that you have written, or perhaps the images that you have drawn, and focus on them a little more.

So, you wrote down tunnel. What can you remember about the tunnel, was it dark or light, was it stone or brick? You may remember you touched the side of the tunnel wall and it felt damp, whatever springs to mind write it all down and do the same for each of the original words. For example chased, were you running or in a vehicle? What did the ground feel like beneath your feet? Why did you feel scared? Did you know what or who was chasing you? You will find that for each question you ask, your answers will provoke a further question until you get to the point where you have reconstructed your dream in it’s entirety.

You may now have pages of disjointed words and scribbled images, but take them all and place them into a time line so that you can follow your dream through, like a short story from start to finish. Are you still scared or do you know what your dream was representing and now have a clearer idea of why you had the reaction that you did?

An exercise like this may seem difficult to work through at first, but its a skill that comes with practice and repetition, you will find eventually that you will be able to use this restructuring process in other areas in your life as a general aid to memory, as well as ending up with books full of weird and wonderful short stories.