My Weird Dream Journal Experiment
So last Tuesday night I had this crazy dream about flying over my old elementary school on a giant pizza slice. Seriously, pepperoni clouds and all. Woke up laughing, but then I got curious. Figured, why not dig into this “interpret your dreams, live an alternate reality” thing folks keep mentioning? Didn’t have a clue where to start.
First thing Wednesday morning, I grabbed my old coffee-stained notebook – the one I used for grocery lists in 2019. Figured it was better than nothing for a dream journal. Plonked it right next to my alarm clock. Bam, commitment.
Thursday night? Nothing. Blank. Nada. Woke up remembering zip. Felt kinda dumb staring at the empty page. Almost tossed the notebook.
Friday was the turning point. Instead of jumping outta bed when the alarm screamed, I forced myself to lie perfectly still. Eyes shut tight. Tried grabbing any leftover dream scraps floating in my sleepy head. And there it was! Just a tiny piece. Something about chasing a purple cat through a library filled with cookbooks. Wrote down every weird detail, fast, before it vanished. Felt messy: “Cat purple. Books recipes? Running… shelfs tall.” But hey, it was something!
Did this forced stillness thing every morning since. Got slightly better at catching those slippery dream bits. Made it a dumb little ritual: Alarm off → Don’t move → Gently feel around for dreams → Scribble like a lunatic.
Started seeing patterns after about a week, totally accidentally. Realized stress days meant way more “being chased” dreams. Happy days? Lots of floating or finding weirdly satisfying objects. Felt like my sleeping brain was secretly gossiping about my waking life.
Then came the “alternate reality” part. Sounds fancy, huh? Totally isn’t. I literally just started pretending the weird stuff in my dreams was actually happening in some other version of me. That purple cat chase? Instead of brushing it off as nonsense, I thought: “Alright, Alternate-Reality-Me is clearly dealing with some library-sized anxiety mess right now. What’s MY equivalent? Oh right, the tax paperwork.”
- Felt lost in a dream maze? Asked myself where in real life I felt stuck.
- Dreamt about flying effortlessly? Used that happy/light feeling later that afternoon when a work call got tense.
Didn’t require magic apps or expensive courses. Just my crappy notebook, forcing myself to be still in the mornings, and playing a dumb “what if this dream meant something?” game with myself. Sometimes it clicked, sometimes it didn’t. Didn’t work for crap on days I stayed up too late watching reruns.
Now? I won’t claim to be some dream guru unlocking cosmic secrets. But paying attention to that weird night-time movie? It gives me this little extra layer to my day. Like I’m secretly living two lives. And honestly, staring at tax forms feels slightly less awful when you picture a purple cat running away from them.
