Great Tools for Remembering Your Dreams

What Our Dreams Are Trying to Tell Us?

During the past few weeks, I had two dreams where I was a nurse and I was also not a nurse.

I am a nurse, and things that you do in your daily life come up in our dreams.

How can we remember our dreams better? Things that helped me:

Go to bed with the intention to remember your dream in the morning

Close your eyes and focus on a specific question before you fall asleep

In the first dream, I remember there were hallways with patient rooms. A lot of patients were elderly. I was going into a room to check on one patient who needed some help; and needed their medications. I remember the patient was a woman and someone else came into the room to help me. I recall multiple carts of bottled water in the hallways. I thought that was strange. I started to look around. I was walking back in the hallway and saw a lot of people. They were sitting on benches, wearing clothes to travel.

All of a sudden, there was this notion that I had to be there to care for these elderly patients, but I also needed to leave soon. I could only be there for a certain number of hours. In my mind, I was thinking about who would take care of these patients after I left. There was no answer, and the dream kept going. I did not know if anyone would step up to take care of the patients after I left.

I had to hurry because we had to leave. There was a huge boat and a few people on the boat that I knew in the dream, but do not know in real life — at least not in my current life. There was a woman and a man I can recall, and the captain was the uncle of the woman. We got special living arrangements because the woman knew the captain.

The boat had an amazing number of cabins on the top of the boat. I was walking from cabin to cabin to find where I was going to sleep that night and I saw a lot of people. I was wandering around for a while, looking for my bed. I still remember how the boat looked, but can’t describe it. I thought the arrangement of the cabins was unique.

There’s a lot more detail than I can remember from this dream. The dream seemed very long and detailed.

Part of the reason I still remember this dream is because it involved patients and nursing, which is part of my everyday life. It was strange, even in the dream, to leave patients to get on a boat and go on this huge trip across the ocean, so it sticks in my mind.

Writing down any part of the dream that you remember as soon as you wake up.

You can explore your dream state by intentionally setting an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night or by drinking a lot of water before bed, which will wake you up to go to the bathroom.

When you wake up in the morning, or even in the middle of the night, focus on what you remember. Take a second before getting out of bed, while you are in between dream and awake state. Focus on the pictures and sensations you were feeling before getting out of bed.

Another recent dream I had was very interesting. I know in my dream that I was responsible for multiple patients that were in the rooms. They were not regular rooms. They were furnished. This one elderly patient, who I was taking care of, was not feeling well. There was a whole family in front of the entrance.

When I walked into the room, there was a huge king bed. The patient was sitting on the bed and I had a feeling that I needed to check his blood sugar. When I did that, there was a lot of blood, which was unusual. I was surprised at the amount of blood when I only needed a tiny bit.

His blood sugar was five.

I knew, even in my dream, that this was impossible. Somebody would not be awake, talking to me. He would have not have been able to sit, stand or walk with a blood sugar of five. I looked at this man in my dream and didn’t understand how it was possible to be alive. I knew he needed to eat or drink something, so I gave him some juice.

I remember talking to the family as I was walking out. I realized this was not a room. Although there was a big door to get into his place, it was a cave. When I looked down, I saw more doors and more caves. All of a sudden, I was following a man, climbing up a mountain across a canyon to take a better look at the caves.

This man appeared to be a firefighter or search and rescue person. There were a lot of people around. I ended up on top of the mountain to look across the caves. The man was telling me that I have to step back and look at the situation from a different perspective. I understood exactly what was going on. I remember the view was beautiful. The rocks were yellow, red, and brown and I saw the cave, the people, and the family in front of it.

I also saw far behind the caves. I was someone else, looking at a bigger picture of what is going on.

I can recall the exact details of the man I took care of, seeing the blood sugar of five was so striking and impossible. I focused on that one specific moment and recalling even the clothing he was wearing. His hair was gray and short, and his sweater was green with a specific pattern in front. He was wearing brown pants. I also saw the faces of the all the other people standing around.

In both dreams, nursing appeared and something else also appeared — journey and travel. Looking at things from a broader perspective.

To help remember a dream, focus on one detail, then broaden that one specific detail to help remember other parts of the dream.

Writing in a journal can help trigger a memory of a dream. Reading previous dreams that you wrote about, can also trigger memories of a current dream. When you write down your dream and read it again and again, more and more details will come to light.

Practice a simple meditation or deep breathing technique before you fall asleep.

Focusing on your breath is a simple way to calm your mind, increasing oxygen to your brain and being in the present moment. Staying still in the present can prolong your dream state and help you remember what you were dreaming.

Be consistent.

If you want to figure out your dreams, it will take time and practice. You might not be successful right away and you might not remember all of your dreams. Over time you will remember more and more.

Please share your dream experiences with me in the chat.

Thank you for reading.

Happy writings,

Gabriella