The Question of Dream Journals — Take 2
I guess I still haven’t totally recovered from my move, because I’m still thinking of all those cardboard boxes filled with journals … dream and day journals. I wasn’t sure where to put them all in my new apartment; so one kitchen cabinet is crammed with boxes! (It’s a good thing I’m not a big cook – that space would be perfect for some nice CorningWare casserole dishes or whatever it is that lives in the cabinets of people who love to cook.) The rest are stacked in a closet.
Somehow the day journals don’t concern me, but I wonder about saving all those piles of pages of dream reports. A dream is so beautifully ephemeral, it almost feels wrong to save and store years and years of them. The dream barely wants to be remembered – (it slips out of consciousness as we roll over to turn off the alarm) – let alone reified.
And yet, thanks to those dream journals, I can tell you exactly what I dreamed on February 12, 2006, (well that’s cheating, that was one of those life-changing dreams that I don’t need to look up in a journal to recount image for image, but more on that another time), or November 1, 2009, or … you get the picture. Keeping all those dream journals feels like I’m idolizing something that should be let to breathe in and out of being in one glorious sigh. I want to have faith that the dreams will always be there, and last night’s dream is all I need for today. Each dream will be remembered for exactly the right amount of time and when it’s done serving the dreamer it will slip into the world of memories lost, along with all those breakfasts and car rides and trips to the grocery store that are easily and effortlessly forgotten.
Dreams are written on darkness in wisps of light – they are not carved in stone, they are not definitive statements. Perhaps they don’t want to be captured and caged on the page.
Hopefully, before my next move, I’ll have a clear decision about what to do with all those journals … whether I should set them free (shred? Burn? Recycle?) or box them up and put them on the moving truck yet one more time. (Opinions please!)
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Keep them, you must!
Each dreamed begged to be written so it could be saved, savored and honored. Peruse an old journal and compare some of the dreams to recent dreams — where have you grown? — where are you stuck?
Have you learned something since the old dream that you can now apply — and grow?
I hope you decide to keep them.
The journals aren’t going anywhere just yet. This is a perennial dilemma for me, but of course I can’t part with the journals. It’s certainly true that the dream journals, like the day journals, show me where I’ve grown, where I’m stuck, etc. The younger generation will have it easier, as I’m guessing they’re journaling on computer and will have just a flash drive or two to cart from home to home 🙂
I would agree with Bobbie Ann—there are treasures in them!
And btw, what was that dream from Feb 12 2006?:))
xo