How to remember your dreams

Horoscope Nikki has some simple tips to help you remember your dreams.

Where would we be without sleep? Completely exhausted and in a heap of trouble, no doubt, but more than being just a physical rest for our bodies, sleep has an important role to play in our mental and spiritual wellbeing too, which science is only just beginning to understand.

There are lots of theories about dream analysis and what our dreams might mean, but it’s not always that easy to remember your dreams – and if you can’t remember it, how can you interpret it or learn from it?

Follow these simple tips for getting better acquainted with your nightly wanderings.

• When you first wake up, lie still for a moment or two concentrating on your dream – you’re more likely to remember it if you let your body “come to” before you start to sit up.

• Start a dream diary. It doesn’t have to be anything posh – a simple notepad will do, but keep it (and a pen or pencil, don’t forget those!) by your bed and try to get into the habit of writing in it as soon as you sit up.

• In your diary, write a quick account of the whole dream if you can remember it – but if you can’t, just write whatever snippets you still have in your head, even if it’s just a vague impression or feeling.

• Whether you have a notepad or not, try telling someone else about your dream as quickly as possible. Maybe you could get into the habit of sharing with a sibling or parent over breakfast – this can be hilarious, and will definitely help to cement the dream’s details in your mind.

• Don’t look up an interpretation in a dream book or online – at least, not yet! Dream guides can be great fun and startlingly accurate, but it’s more important that you think about what a particular symbol means to *you*. Different things mean different things to different people. To you, an elephant might mean power, or strength or nobility. To me, it might mean something altogether different following that unfortunate incident at the safari park…

• Did you wake up at an inconvenient moment? Are you not sure where the dream was heading? Did you know that if you “ask”, you can often pick up a dream from where you left it on the following night? Yes, really! Try it and see! You can also daydream your way to a solution – take a quiet five minute to re-experience the dream during the day and see where your imagination takes you. Awake or asleep, the imagery is coming from the same place in your subconscious, so why not?

• If you’re finding it difficult to put a dream into words, it can often be helpful to sketch, draw or paint it instead. It doesn’t have to be an actual picture – recording textures, shapes and colours is just as valuable.

Don’t be discouraged if you find it hard to recall many dreams when you first start. These precious fragments are incredibly easily lost in the chaos of an early morning start on a school day, or jolted out of our heads as we contemplate how much we’ve got to fit in on yet another busy day. Practice really does help, though, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly your dream recall improves if you make a deliberate effort with it.

Our dreaming minds have access to information which can help improve self confidence, heal, take the worry out of major decisions, delight, inspire and soothe us, so it’s well worth taking the trouble to delve into your dreams.

Have you had a weird or symbolic dream recently, tell us about it in the comment box:

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Astrologer and mind body spirit author Nikki Harper. Nikki’s lunar astrology book for teens, MoonSurfing for Teens, is due out in Autumn 2012 – find out more at www.facebook.com/moonsurfing