simon's dream project
the flip side of reality
june 7, 2003
why keep a dream journal?
It is always so important that I write about my dream experiences as soon as I awake. For one, thinking about them just after I experience them is the only way to commit them to some sort of usable memory. When you first awake you are still somewhat in that dream state of mind and if you wait too long it yields to the rational sort of thought that is more useful during the waking hours. In this brief transition zone you have the ability to both remember the images and bizarre logic of dreams, while simultaneously being able to think rationally about them. It is a narrow window of opportunity.
Even now, a few hours after recording this morning's dream events, I find myself at a loss to fully recreate vivid memories of the adventure that transpired. I can recall the series of events, and I remember the titles of the emotions but I cannot put myself back into that state of mind the same way we can (through memory recall) put ourselves back into last month's trip to San Francisco, or Thursday's ham sandwich, or losing our virginity.
But had I not spent a few moments recalling the dreams in the few moments after waking, I may have lost everything forever, save for the fleeting feeling that I felt good, or that maybe I dreamt about flying.
This demonstrates the usefulness of dream journaling. Over the last few months I have developed this model of how dreaming works. I have no idea if a cognitive scientist would shoot my theory out of the water with a flick of her pinky but for now the model is working for me:
During a day's worth of experiences our senses gather such an incredible amount of data. We don't have nearly enough time to process it so we selectively use the bits that have relevance during our daily experiences and the rest is stored in a sort of buffer; a temporary memory bank that can store a day's worth of experience. When our body shuts down to sleep (for physical regenerative reasons?) our brain is still partially active so evolutionarily it makes sense to use it constructively rather than to just sit idle.
The memory buffer must eventually be cleared so throughout the night we take the random bit of information from it and the brain just pieces the pieces of information together in random ways, trying to make associations that may be useful in the future. The metaphor I imagine is a person trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together by picking two pieces at random and trying every side to see if they fit.
It is this random yet methodical processing of data that somehow get through to our sensorium as the experiences of dreams. The process can be thought of as an imaginative, associative form of thinking very different from the logical process we use during the day. And when we first awake, our brains are still in that mode, but all memory of it resides in some short-term memory that is erased very soon. The only way to lock those experiences into long-term memory is to express them and think about them while we still have access to them.
I'm sure that the learning done during dreams helps us out in subtle ways, regardless of whether or not we commit the dreams to long-term memory. But I believe they can do so much more for us using this technique. Think of it as a deliberate patch between the conscious and subconscious.
And as I said, these morning sessions may be an opportune time to take advantage of an unusual mind-state. In future experiments I will think about complex issues or confusing problems during my post-dreaming sessions, in an attempt to test if the brain truly is working in a unique and useful way at this time.