How to Control Your Dreams

Controlling your dreams is one of the most captivating experiences a human being can have. Have you ever wanted to re-dream your most imaginative dreams, or simply be the king or queen of your sleeping subconscious?

Buy or start using a small notebook. This will be your dream journal, or a dream diary. In your dream journal, you'll write down what you hope to dream and what you remember dreaming.

• Set the journal close to your bed and keep a pen nearby so that you can quickly write down what happened in the dreams you remember when you wake up. If you leave it any longer, the memory quickly fades.
• You could write your dream journal in a word processor on a computer, but it's recommended to write it in freehand. You'll spend more time putting pen to paper, making a larger connection in your brain between the dream and your recording of it.
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  Write down what you want to dream about in your notebook. Call this your target dream. Do this every night before you go to sleep. You are imagining the environment you want to experience when you fall asleep.
  • Draw pictures and write down directions, using lots of detail. In fact, put in as much detail as possible; get to the point where you think you may have too much detail. Even the smallest things are important.
  • The trick is to tell yourself what you are going to experience when you dream, so that you can become aware of your dreaming state while you dream.
  • Don't watch television or movies before you go to bed, or you may dream about what they involved instead of your target dream.
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    Record your dreams. Every morning, as soon as you wake up, write down your dream. Even if you didn't have the dream you anticipated having, write it down. See "Tips" below for recommendations on what to record.
    • Like an athlete practicing a routine, you are training your mind to recall its dreams. The more consistently you train your mind to recall its dreams, the sharper and more heightened your dreams will become.
    • Write down any parallels you remember between your target dream (the dream you wanted to have) and the dream you actually had. Be as specific as possible. Think about the similarities and differences. When interpreting the dream, keep in mind that dreams do not offer exact images or answers to your questions the way that your brain does in a waking state. Instead, the brain communicates by means of metaphors.
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      Read through your target dream. Every night, right before going to bed, go through it as many times as possible to set it fast in your head.
      • After reading something one or two times, your brain thinks it knows what the words mean and gets lazy: it only processes the outline of the words and not their sense. Be sure to fully grasp the sense of your target dream so that you feel you know it inside and out before you go to sleep.
      • Lie down, close your eyes, and think hard about your target dream. Think of specific details.
        • Daydream about the images from your target dream as they appear in your subconscious. Your subconscious will generate a lot of images that have nothing to do with your target dream, so cycle through the ones that are irrelevant and try to focus hard on relevant images.
        • Imagine the sounds and dialogue in the background of your target dream; really try to hear them in your mind. Try to feel the sensations associated with your feeling, mood, etc.
        • If no sounds or images appear clearly, try reading through your target dream again in your dream journal.
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          Walk through your target dream. Do this in the first-person point of view, from start to finish. Imagine what it would seem like through your eyes.
          • Try to walk through the target dream in the exact sequence you expect it in your dream.
          • Think hard, but maintain a calm posture. Do not get tense. Just relax.
          •  with these images and sounds in your head. Remember to record your dreams, whatever they are, when you wake up.