Dream journal guide

How it works

Capture first, details later. The journal opens on a single box. Write whatever you remember, in any order, and save. Then, now or later, add a title, the symbols, characters, places and emotions in it, how vivid it was, whether it was lucid, a nightmare or a recurring dream, a sketch, and notes about your sleep.

Nothing is lost half-awake. What you type is kept on your device as you write, and a saved dream waits on the device until it reaches your account, so it survives a closed tab or a lost signal.

What you wrote on waking is kept. If you rewrite a dream later, the first version is stored alongside it and can be shown. Memory reshapes dreams quickly, so it can be useful to see which details came at once and which came afterwards.

The night it belongs to. A dream recorded before 3 pm is filed under the night before; from 3 pm, under tonight (a nap or an evening entry). You can change the date.

Nights with nothing recalled can be logged with one button. They do not appear in your journal, but they count for your recall rate, which is otherwise flattering.

Tonight. Before sleep you can set an intention and the techniques you mean to try. In the morning the intention is shown above the capture box, and the techniques are filled in on the dream you record.

Your symbol library. Every symbol, character, place and emotion you tag becomes an entry listing each dream it appears in, with room for your own associations. Scryway has no dream dictionary. Dictionaries of dream meanings disagree with one another and with the dreamer; the associations that matter are yours.

Patterns counts what you have recorded: nights logged and recalled, lucid dreams, nightmares, what recurs, and which techniques were tried on nights with a lucid dream. These are descriptions of your own records, not findings about what causes what.

Privacy. Dreams are among the most personal things you can write down. They are stored in your account only, readable by you alone, never shown to anyone else or used for anything but your journal. Each recalled dream also has an entry in your journal, where you can add an interpretation, tags and later reflections. Export everything from export; deleting a dream removes its journal entry too.

Remembering more dreams

Almost everyone dreams every night, mostly in REM sleep, but most dreams are forgotten within minutes of waking. Habits that commonly help:

• Keep the journal where you sleep, and write before you do anything else, even a single image or feeling.
• On waking, stay still for a moment with your eyes closed and let the dream come back before you move.
• Set an intention to remember as you fall asleep.
• Read back earlier dreams now and then. Keeping a dream diary is itself associated with remembering more dreams.
• Enough sleep helps: the longest REM periods come late in the night.

Lucid-dreaming techniques

A lucid dream is one in which you know you are dreaming. You can log the techniques below for any night. Research on inducing lucid dreams is limited: a 2012 systematic review (Stumbrys and colleagues, Consciousness and Cognition) found no method that reliably worked, though some looked promising, and later studies led by Denholm Aspy reported lucid dreams in a minority of participants using MILD or SSILD combined with wake back to bed. Results vary widely between people.

Bedtime intention to remember

Telling yourself as you fall asleep that you will remember your dreams.

Read back earlier dreams

Reviewing your journal to become familiar with your own recurring dream signs.

Reality checks

Asking several times a day whether you are dreaming, and testing it (reading a line of text twice, looking at your hands), so the habit carries into dreams.

MILD (mnemonic induction of lucid dreams)

Developed by Stephen LaBerge: on waking from a dream, rehearse it while repeating an intention such as “next time I am dreaming, I will notice I am dreaming”, and imagine becoming lucid in it as you fall back asleep.

Wake back to bed (WBTB)

Waking after about five hours of sleep, staying up briefly, then going back to sleep, usually combined with MILD or SSILD.

SSILD (senses-initiated lucid dream)

Cycling attention between sight, hearing and bodily sensation for a few rounds while falling back asleep, usually after WBTB.

WILD (wake-initiated lucid dream)

Trying to pass from waking straight into a dream while keeping awareness. It can bring vivid hypnagogic imagery or sleep paralysis.

Looking after your sleep

• Sleep matters more than any dream. Techniques that interrupt sleep, such as wake back to bed, are best used occasionally, and not at all if you have insomnia.
• Sleep paralysis, waking unable to move, sometimes with a sense of a presence, is common and harmless but can be frightening. It passes within seconds to minutes.
• If nightmares are frequent or distressing, or dreams relate to trauma, talk to a doctor. There are effective treatments, such as imagery rehearsal therapy, given with professional support.
• The journal never wakes you or plays sounds during the night.

Not yet here

Voice notes with optional transcription, gentle reality-check reminders, and linking dreams with readings, meditation and texts are planned for a later stage.