That's it. My New Year's resolution is to keep a dream journal.

[derby378]

I was sleeping last night, and this really goofy song popped into my head. It was a country-and-western song in the key of D major, and the lyrics had something to do with brains.

Then I woke up. I had a sore throat, so I took a lozenge and let it dissolve while playing the song back in my mind. Finally, I went back to sleep.

When I finally had to get out of bed for work, I realized that I forgot the melody and the lyrics to the song! Gone forever! The next Billboard hit (or at least a candidate for Dr. Demento's Funny 5), and it's been reabsorbed back into my cerebral cortex. Or maybe my medulla oblongata, which is where anger impulses are processed, because I'm still in disbelief over letting the song slip away.

You do realize that In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree... almost suffered the same fate, right? Samuel Taylor Coleridge got interrupted by a visit from a friend of his before he could transcribe the whole dream onto paper, which meant the rest of Coleridge's mental journey was also irrevocably lost.

So I'm keeping a dream journal. I'm going to document my madness for posterity, by golly gee willikers.

Bookstore, here I come - try to have a distinctive design waiting for me when I get there.

[Elidor]

1. Writing them down actually seems to help with recall

Not just in terms of recalling the one you're writing down, but with dreams you have yet to have, too.

I have dreams that play like movies, with all the elements of a plotline. And though the scenes seem very familiar, I've never actually seen any of them in a movie. I haven't been writing them down lately, but there's a lot of good material to work with if I wanted to develop some characters and create a story around them.

[tigereye]

2. my husband has kept one for quite a while

he has found it quite interesting. Enjoy. Plus dreams create great material for stories, art and songs.