“I had the most wonderful dream last night!” “What do you think this dream means?” “I had a nightmare.” What is it about dreams that make them the topic of so much thought and conversation, including conversations we’ve had with Samuel over the years? In this two-part blog post I’m going to condense some of Samuel’s teachings about dreams, starting with how to remember them (part one), and then moving into the types of dreams he talks about and how to interpret them (part two).

According to Samuel, dreams are a vital part of our physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual growth. They’re so important that even poor sleep with dreams, he says, is better than sleep without dreaming.

While most of us learned in school that good sleep is a requirement for good health, Samuel takes that a step further saying that it isn’t just the sleep, but the ability (and time) to sleep and dream that the body needs to repair and renew. Dreams, Samuel says, help us work through stressful situations going on within our waking life, thus helping our mental and emotional bodies function better. And probably best of all, he teaches that dreaming can be an outlet for the Spirit to function outside of our limited time/space “reality,” giving us opportunities to learn what our Spirit needs from this life to advance, and our dreams can even provide an opportunity to serve others all while we’re sleeping! Dreams are important!

The vital first step: remembering our dreams

While I know a couple of people who seem to be prolific dreamers who remember their dreams in vivid detail, most of us have to learn how to recall our dreams. The good news is that yes, Samuel has a technique for that: keep a dream journal.

A dream journal is a means by which you teach your brain to remember your dreams, Samuel says. It’s simple enough to start—you begin by keeping a pen and a journal (it can be a pad of paper or a spiral notebook, it doesn’t need to be a fancy bound book, or it may even be simpler to use your phone if you keep that by your bed) by your bedside so that immediately upon awakening you can write down your dream(s) before you forget it.

If you don’t remember a complete dream, no problem, write down any fragment of the dream you remember. And if you don’t remember even a fragment of a dream, write down that you don’t remember any dreams—but be sure to write that down! It’s the consistent process of writing down what you remember from your sleep that begins to retrain your brain to the importance you place on remembering your dreams.

Samuel says that at first, you might have a week or more of “I don’t remember my dreams” written into your journal, but don’t be discouraged because reminding your brain daily that you want to remember your dreams allows you to progressively begin remembering full, “living color” dreams.

Once you’re regularly remembering dreams, it’s time to start interpreting those dreams. In Part Two we’ll discuss patterns and personal symbology, as well as the types of dreams Samuel talks about, but until then start keeping a dream journal.

The dream journal is a very effective first step in all of Samuel’s teachings about dreaming. Leave a comment below if you’re willing to try a dream journal for a month or so, and report how it’s going for you. Or if you already use or have used a dream journal, how it has helped you with your dreaming.