How to Build a Dreamwork Practice
Dreams are a product of humanity’s psychological and spiritual evolution, acting as a direct window into the inner workings of your heart and mind. They assist you through the human experience by helping you process memories, learn new information, detail your emotional states, show you who you are at your core and what you currently need, and can expand your spiritual connection. The key to accessing all of this inner assistance lies in dreamwork: the process of acknowledging, analyzing, and applying the wisdom of your dreams to better your life.
In this post we’ll cover the basics needed to build dreamwork practice from supportive sleep practices to dream interpretation and analysis. Developing a dreamwork practice is a simple daily addition with maximum benefits for your mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
Step 1: Supportive Sleep for Dreams
It can be difficult to remember your dreams without supportive sleep so the first step in building your dreamwork practice is all about enhancing your capacity for zzzs!
Prioritizing and supporting sleep can benefit much more than dream recall including your immune system, brain function, hormone regulation, learning capability, memory, emotional capacity, physical restoration and so much more. Every area of your life that benefits from a good night’s sleep can further aid the ultimate goal of dreamwork: to use and understand the information within you to better your own life.
Get Enough Sleep
There’s a lot of information out there regarding how much or how little to sleep, quizzes for different sleep types, and devices to more deeply analyze your sleep patterns but good sleep simply starts with understanding your body’s needs.
Some people are early morning risers while others need to sleep in until mid-morning to feel fully rested. Whether you go to bed at 9pm or 1am, finding what works best for you is important.
If you’re unsure of what your sleep needs are you can start by keeping track of when you naturally feel like going to bed and when you wake up without an alarm. Keep note of how you feel first thing in the morning and then again later in the afternoon. Try experimenting with different bedtimes and for different durations to find what works best for you.
If you have an exceptional amount of difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up in the middle of the night you may have a sleep disorder and should reach out to a sleep professional.
Acknowledging and incorporating your individual sleep needs (to the best of your ability—as a parent I understand some difficulties) is important for a dreamwork practice.
Fun Fact: Did you know that back in the day (medieval times and older) people used to have biphasic sleep? They would go to bed for “first sleep” at sundown but would wake up for an hour or two in the early morning to read, chitchat, have sex, meditate, and anything in between before going back to bed again for “second sleep” until morning. Honestly, that practice would support the Wake Back to Bed method to engage lucid dreaming!
Create an Optimal Sleep Environment
If you’ve ever struggled to fall or stay asleep in a hotel room you’re not alone. Sleep, while necessary to our survival, is also an extremely vulnerable state and hyperawareness can negatively affect the quality of our sleep. Creating an optimal sleep environment directly supports the quality and duration of your sleep which, in turn, supports the ability to recall your dreams.
Some suggestions for an optimal sleep environment might be:
Using a static noise machine or auditory sleep app if you are a light sleeper.
Implementing blackout curtains if you naturally sleep later into the morning.
Make time for a safety check before bed if you sleep better knowing the doors are locked.
Room temperature has also been shown to impact sleep quality with a cooler temperature recommended for better sleep. Being too hot or cold creates a higher probability of waking up in the middle of the night and disrupting your sleep.
Identifying and setting up an optimal sleep environment can be a game changer when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep and prioritizing your dreamwork practice.
Implement a “Brain Dump”
It’s pretty hard to fall asleep when you’re constantly thinking about all of the things you did or did not do today, how your friend’s reaction to that one comment is making you question your entire life’s choices and, oh, you need to follow up with your coworker in the morning about that one thing!
Take a deep breath and carve out some space to clear your mind with a brain dump.
Studies have shown that limiting screen time before bed can help your brain and body wind down and prepare for sleep. In place of that screen time, I would suggest introducing an end-of-day review, gratitude or journaling practice to help clear your mind of all of those last-minute thoughts.
Literally dump everything out of your brain!
A brain dump gets all those last-minute thoughts and ideas out of your head and into a dedicated storage space where you can answer them tomorrow. If it’s within the first 10 minutes of laying down, I’ll grab my phone and make a note of anything rolling around in my brain which helps open up some mental load for dreams.
Supportive sleep directly affects your ability to recall dreams. Start building your dreamwork practice by ensuring that you’re getting enough sleep, have a calm environment to fall asleep in, and that you clear your mind before bed.
Click here to learn more about sleep science and how that knowledge can support dreamwork.
Step 2: Dream Recall
Let’s start by clearing up a major misconception: everyone dreams! Even if you don’t remember your dreams, you are dreaming every night—it’s a part of your ability to learn, form memories, and psychologically evolve as you grow and age. Some people just aren’t used to recalling their dreams but anyone can learn!
Successful dream recall doesn’t always happen overnight. In fact, it typically takes about 1-4 weeks of consistent, daily effort to begin regularly recalling your dreams. This is because your brain needs time to physically form your dream recall pathway.
Build a Dream Recall Pathway
A dream recall pathway is a type of neural pathway or neural network. Neural pathways are the avenues that transport information from one part of the brain to the other.
Our habits are great examples of developed neural pathways in action.
Exercise is a common habit example: if you desire to feel fit, strong and healthy you know you need to exercise. You begin acting on your desire by exercising but it’s difficult at first because it’s something new. However, you find that the more you regularly engage in exercise, the easier it becomes to convince yourself to do so which then builds exercise into your weekly routine.
From a neural pathway perspective: the more you act on your desire to feel fit, strong, and healthy through exercise, the more you navigate the exercise-related pathway in your brain. Over time, that neural pathway becomes well-travelled, making it easier to mentally navigate until it requires very little mental effort to go exercise.
It’s the same technique for dream recall!
Take your desire to recall your dreams and begin writing something down every single day in a dream journal (either a physical journal or something on your phone). Even if you don’t remember a dream, write something down like how you think you slept or what emotions you feel upon waking.
By engaging in the action of journaling you travel your brain’s dreamwork neural pathway every morning, indicating that you’d like to recall your dreams. You take the desire for dream recall and connect it to the physical action of recording your dreams.
Over time, your brain will put more effort into recalling your dreams the more you carve the pathway and value the result.
I cannot stress enough that the key to dream recall is to continue forming its neural pathway by engaging your dream journaling habit with consistency.
As a dream interpreter, I’ve coached many people on dream recall and the journey is completely unique for each individual. For some, it only takes a couple of days of journaling to begin recalling dream details but for others it can take a month or more of consistent daily journaling.
My advice: don’t give up right away and don’t compare yourself to others, the payoff is worth it!
Wake with Intention
Just as good sleep and your journaling habit support dream recall, so too does your wake-up routine. Instead of getting out of bed and immediately jumping into your day, a slow, intentional approach to waking can bring forward more dream content.
When waking with intention it’s important to first BE STILL.
Welcome your awareness consciously, not with physical movement. Simply lie there for a few minutes without moving. Limit the amount of physical stimulus that can siphon resources away from your mental focus for dream recall.
As you lie still with your eyes still closed, replay what you can from your dreams or create a list in your head of the main events. Try to recall as much detail as possible. After you’ve remembered all that you can, then open your eyes and start to get up as you reach for your journal.
This method of intentional waking zeros in on your dream recall pathway and begins to build the habit.
Sharing Your Dreams
Another way to support dream recall is by sharing your dreams with friends and family. Whether you talk about them at the breakfast table or quickly message a friend on the way to work, sharing your dreams brings them from your inner world to the outer world.
This transition, from something in your head to something rooted in conversation, further solidifies to your brain that the information in your dreams is valuable. Over time the amount of value you put on your dreams, the more your brain will work to retrieve the content.
Once you’ve set yourself up for a good night of sleep and are able to remember your dreams with more and more detail, it’s important to focus on recording your dreams.
A dreamwork practice builds on and expands across your dreams over time. Being able to reference a past dream where you might find common, repetitive themes or similarities can be greatly beneficial in gaining more insight to your subconscious so that you may use that information to better your life.
For more on dream recall, read my article, Dream Recall: How to Remember Your Dreams.
Step 3: Dream Journaling or Recording
Whenever you journal or record your dreams you anchor them into waking life.
This solidification of your dream in the waking world acts as the bridge between dream recall and dream interpretation. Additionally, having a dream repository available for reference can help you identify patterns, recurring themes, and imagery unique to you which can all provide even more information on your inner world.
I recommend 2 different ways to record your dreams: a physical, hand-written dream journal or a voice recorder or voice recording app.
Studies have shown that when you physically write something down you retain the information longer and learn more about yourself in the process. By writing down your dream you bring it even further into your waking reality.
However, I personally record dreams on my phone. While you can voice record them, I’ve found typing them out to be more beneficial over time as I can store my dreams in a digital journal and easily search for past content and themes.
Either way works just fine but if you’re new to dreamwork and struggling to recall your dreams, I’d suggest a physical dream journal until you get the hang of it.
5 Aspects of Focus
To get the most detail from your dreams I recommend focusing on these 5 main aspects in order:
General series of events (this happened, then this, then this…)
Emotion (what was the main emotion of the dream, what were underlying emotions)
The physical location(s) or backdrop of the dream
Any people or archetypes present
Lastly, the details: objects, smells, sounds, symbols, tastes, etc.
It may also be helpful to implement a gravity scale: a dream interpretation tool I created to help me measure the “weight and intention of significance,” or gravity, of any given dream. It is a single number from 1-10 (1 being the lowest and 10 the highest) that you add to your dream journal entry after determining the dream’s gravity. This number not only helps you identify high-impact dreams, but can show you personal dream trends, help you navigate common pieces of imagery that frequent particular types of dreams, and find patterns.
Click to read my article on The Gravity Scale: A Dream Interpretation Tool.
After recording your dreams it’s time for interpretation and analysis.
Step 4: Dream Interpretation
Dream interpretation is so much more than memorizing a list of definitions or meanings putting it together; dream interpretation is the exploration of your internal conversation via your unique symbolic language.
Your dreams and nightmares depict your subconscious communication and, therefore, are the essence of you.
You will always be your own best dream interpreter based on your individual life experience and perspective. However, large cultural and geographical groups of people tend to see the same meaning in most forms of dream imagery which is where a professional dream interpreter can be useful (though they should always ask you to reflect on any personal significance.
My go-to example is the imagery of a dog in a dream. Most people associate dogs with the concepts of loyalty, love, or companionship. However, let’s say someone was attacked by a dog and developed a fear of them in waking life—they certainly wouldn’t associate a dog with loyalty! To them, the imagery of a dog in a dream would likely symbolize something they fear which would give the interpretation a totally different meaning.
This is why personal context is so important!
I could go-on about dream interpretation for an eternity so we’ll just briefly cover my personal dream interpretation formula, a self-interpretation example, and how to use a dream dictionary in combination with self-interpretation.
Want to get into the nitty-gritty? Check out my detailed dream interpretation article here.
Meg’s Dream Interpretation Formula
It’s simple:
Imagery List + Definitions + Weave = Interpretation
After recalling and journaling your dream, make a list of all the important pieces of imagery or other context. Then, define those pieces of imagery individually while taking into account your personal context. Finally, weave the underlying narrative together and interpret how it applies to your waking life.
Here’s an example:
A Dream from February 2024
“I was a small bird and I told my friend I felt like I should migrate this year. I felt that I was ready. I started flying up to a higher altitude but it was hard to get loft and my wings weren't strong enough yet so I got into a tree and rested. Then I flew to a taller tree. It went on like this until I was able to start the adventure.”
Imagery List
Bird
Friend
Wings
Trees
Definitions
Bird: A creature that has the ability to fly and experience freedom, see from the “bird’s eye view” and travel across great distances.
Friend: A part of me that represents camaraderie or the concept of companionship. Potentially also accountability (telling your friends something to keep you accountable).
Wings: The mechanisms of flight. The part of the bird’s body that allow it to travel.
Trees: In the context of this dream, they represent stepping stones and form a path to take me higher.
Weave
“In this dream I’m the bird, meaning that I have decided I’m ready to move forward in life. I’m ready to experience more freedom and see the bigger picture. I’m ready to “migrate” or move in the direction of nature’s divine call. I tell this to my friend, communicating with the people in my life that I’m ready to try something new. I spread my wings but recognize that I need to build up my strength and form some habits before I’m able to truly take off. I take one step at a time until I’m able to get up into the sky and move forward. I’m taking the steps.”
Interpretation
We could technically stop with the Weave above but I like to really make the messages of my dreams clear so I continue on explaining things until I find what resonates within me.
“In my waking life (and back in February 2024 this was true for the time) I’m branching out into new territory. I recognize that there’s more I want to do outside of dream and nightmare interpretation. I am about to explore writing a book, connecting with galactic beings [in my out-of-body experiences], and spiritual expansion. I know I’m ready and I know I want to move in this direction but I really do need some practice first.”
This ended up being true as I listened to the advice in this dream and followed through with it.
In March 2024 I developed a daily writing habit that eventually led to a Eureka! moment in April 2024 where I finally understood how I needed to write my first book, How to Heal Your Nightmares, which is now published! I also began practicing galactic connections through meditations, dreams, and out-of-body experiences. Along the way I learned several tools to help me.
All of this can stem back to the moment I knew in this dream that I was “ready to migrate” and that I was going to climb up and up into the trees (the stepping stones and habits that lead to success) to reach a space of strong flight.
Dream Dictionaries
Dream dictionaries are best used when you get stuck in your self-interpretation process.
They can present us with a series of suggestions to spark creative thinking and get the interpretation juices flowing again but please note that a dream dictionary is a tool—not an authoritative dictation. Read through the list of definitions in the dictionary and use your gut or other context of the dream to pinpoint the exact meaning to you.
As an example, let’s say I google “dancing in dreams meaning.” The search brings up a ton of articles all with varying definition lists. I read through the potential definitions and pay attention to how I feel about how I was dancing in a dream:
You’re looking for passion (meh)
It’s a form of self-expression (that kind of resonates for me…)
You’ll celebrate something soon! (nah, I don’t feel like it’s predictive)
You need to work on decision-making skills (what?)
You’re full of joy (that’s pretty applicable for my life right now…)
After feeling into it I decide that the action of dancing in my dream most likely represents a form of joyful self-expression!
For more on dream dictionaries, including how to choose the right one for you, read my article on the subject here: Dream Dictionaries: How to Use and Choose One.
Step 5: Dream Analysis + Personal Growth
Everyday when I wake up I try to recall my dreams. While I usually remember at least something, I don’t need to spend time interpreting every dream to apply and use that dream for daily support, I only need to acknowledge the emotion I wake up with.
The emotions in our dreams show us what’s really going on internally. When we acknowledge where we’re at inside, we can meet ourselves there with grace and support.
When I wake up from a nightmare or a fear-based dream I recognize that something difficult is troubling my mind. For me, this usually indicates that my emotional and social capacity will be low that day. I acknowledge where I’m at and use the dream’s information to adjust my day accordingly. If I have a lot of meetings with people where I’m supposed to be bubbly, I ask if we can regroup at another time. If I can’t reschedule, I lead those meetings by stating that I have a limited capacity today so that others’ expectations can also be adjusted. I also will try to put extra emphasis on calm meditation, taking a nap if I can, or relaxing a little more than usual, defining it as a self care day.
There are many other ways to apply the emotions of your dreams to the day at hand:
When you wake with excitement and energy, look at your to-do list and see what additional items you might be able to tackle.
When you wake feeling loved, make sure to spend extra time with your partner or friends and give them the fullness of your attention.
When you wake from an imaginative, sci-fi, or hyper-realistic dream, try and apply your creativity wherever you can that day.
…you get the point.
When you step into your day based on the emotional space of your dreams, you may be better able to utilize the particular focus of energy that’s already there. Not all dreams need to be interpreted to be beneficial to your waking life. Sometimes, it’s just about the overarching observation!
For more on using and applying your dreams for self-evolution and betterment, check out my article here: Your Personal Evolution Through Dreamwork.
Putting It All Into Practice
Tonight, as you’re getting ready for bed, begin to implement the elements of a dreamwork practice.
Acknowledge your realistic sleep needs and make your space extra comfy or supportive. Leave a dream journal and pen on your bedside table or download a journaling app on your phone. In the morning, set aside some extra time to interpret and analyze your dreams before putting it all into practice!
In making your dreams a priority, you make yourself a priority and there is great power in that.
Whether you’re already a vivid dreamer or someone who hasn’t remembered their dreams in years, there has never been a better time to expand and get started!
Thanks for reading! For more on dreams check out:
The Dream Axis podcast (real dream interpretations with dreamers from around the globe)
Dearest Waking Dreamer, Meg’s subscriber-only dream interpretation newsletter column (submit your dream for interpretation and get your dream questions answered!)
My book, How to Heal Your Nightmares, a memoir and guide for facing your nighttime monsters and using their wisdom to heal your life
Read more on this blog or subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, Dream Notes, to stay up-to-date with everything I release!
