People’s eyes often light up when they tell you about exciting dreams they had. If you decided to listen to them, you may be invited to understand them better, but you might also understand yourself better in relation to their natural configuration of dreams.

My earliest memory of discussing a dream goes back to when I was fourteen. I was with one of my closest school friends of three years in an empty classroom of our after-school art club. Unlike many other clubs I was previously part of, which required intense physical stamina and mental resilience, there was little to no supervision in the art club – the perfect window of time for students to make paintings peacefully and quietly. On that day no other students came to the room assigned for the club. Leaving us as free as can be, it was unlikely we would pick up a brush, as two girls needed time to catch up.

Left alone in an empty room with an orange-colored sunset peeking through the windows, we determined that the art teacher was gone for the day. That idea was enough to spark an inventive twinkle in my friend’s eye, and I knew she was ready to share an interesting story.

What came out of her mouth was a strange tale: she had been drilling and exploring elaborate underground tunnels. The entire story came from a well-remembered dream she had the night before. While my friend’s voice echoed through the room, I was enthralled by how she shared the experiences with unusual liveliness. As she was moving with her narration rather quickly I started to fill in ‘an imaginatory scroll’, the thumbnail picture translation of her story only a few inches away from my eyes as I anticipated the retelling of her expedition might take quite a while. After some time, I glanced at the clock on the wall above my still-narrating-friend and realized forty minutes had already passed. The small task of improvising the visualization still helps me remember some highlights of her old dream today.

With little time to get to know friends at school and considering this was an era long before mobile phones, I remember feeling that listening to a friend’s dream seemed like a mysterious pathway to understanding someone better.

Being a chronic light sleeper as a little girl seems to have made me a vivid dreamer, but it had only gotten pronounced before I graduated college, then starting a new job.

At age fourteen, my favorite work of art was Giorgio De Chirico’s “Mystery and Melancholy of a Street ,” followed by numerous works by René Magritte, both of which I found in my school textbook of modern and contemporary art, resembling the general feels of my nightly dreams. At home, an obscure children’s artist’s beautiful book has claimed a permanent spot on my old bookshelf. Despite strongly evoking a child’s terrifying nightmare drawn with full-gradient, smooth graphite pencil against a white background, it reminded me that there is never really a place to speak about dreams in our lives; however, there really should be.

My strong interest in dreams and picture books lead me to pursue art and I graduated from Academy of Art College (now University) in San Francisco with BFA in Illustration, in the field of children’s book illustration and graphic design.
By the time I stumbled onto a job as an entry-level graphic designer at Sanrio Inc., (as a side note, I remembered later that I clearly promise to myself as a child, browsing in a toy store and talking in my head; “Whatever this company is called, I will be working here making drawings like ‘twin dolls of stars’ and a ‘white cat with a round red bow’ someday”, so I kept my word of ‘future dream’ to my little self) I began having constant, perplexing, otherworldly dreams of odd scenarios – not in any way nightmarish but vivid enough to exhaust me, as remembering every detail of a dream meant I was far from resting my mind or brain.

As my dreams became more intense, I began to feel caught somewhere between my work day and my dream life, with nowhere to hide and simply rest. Hoping to rescue my sleep-deprived self, I tried using dream dictionaries to decode mysterious plots, but found they rarely aligned with my own 'felt' experience. In the end, my take from the dream dictionaries was that there was more to dreams than what common interpretations seemed to suggest.

The peculiar dreams continued popping up in waves with no sign of ending. I decided to try focusing on how they might benefit me – perhaps there were some clues and messages to help with problems I was facing in my waking reality. I started writing them down whenever I felt the urge to remember them. Over time, the small habit of dream journaling began to take on more meaning. I found out that this short writing activity helped me identify common patterns in my dreams. What initially seemed chaotic might have had some order under the surface, and after I noticed that pattern, it made the experiences feel less tense. Once I felt some relief from the dreams, the writing process became more enjoyable. Entering a new situation every night during sleep didn’t feel quite as shocking or unsettling now that I had my dream journal to find references to other dreams.

Whether it was an intense dream or a more relaxed one, looking back at the small yet growing pile of entries in the journal was exciting, and I was finally able to laugh at the strangeness of some of the stories. From that point on, I started picking up some of the odd and funny dreams and shared them with the people in my life who enjoyed listening to them.

Perhaps they are more than “Just dreams”
After learning about the advantages of lucid dreaming through Stephen LaBerge’s pioneering work and attending the Active Dreaming workshop of Robert Moss in 2017, I discovered that there are myriads of adults who are fascinated by dreams just as much as children are.

My long intrigue of sleeping vision and the joy of recounting ‘real’ night time stories (as oppose to imagination) was my inspiration behind Dream Journal Illustrated, a dream log to share collection of illustrated night dreams. The dream log includes some of my most-enjoyed pieces from the past as well as some recently unearthed mysteries.

For some reason, I have a knack for remembering dream sceneries for extended period of time better than I can remember objects or people of waking life, so I depicted the dream imageries just as I remember them and created a typeface for the dream log to complement the fantastical tone of a dream. My hope is that this website inspires readers to explore their own unique dreamscapes and reflect on them through journaling and to discover more about themselves.

Having a good rest is just as important as dreaming
The best part about dreams is that you might have a chance to discover something fascinating every night. By becoming more conscious about them, you could discover unique techniques to recall the things you want to remember.
While dreams are fascinating, testing and choosing the right pillow (and equally the preferred firmness of the bed) to sleep on is extremely important, as no dreamers should feel like a sleep-deprived person over dreams like I was for a long time.

It took me years to realize that the standard fluffy pillows or ‘tall’ pillows were not a good fit for me, which had been instead ruining my good night sleep. There were years when I tried to use two tiering baby pillows or folded towels as pillows, with only a small noticeable improvement.

As a child I used to enjoy slumbering on a fairly flat, small cotton pillow or a flax pillow of my own. Combining the best parts of both, I currently use two flat flaxseed long neck wraps side by side (to gain the width for the length of the head) with the ability to raise the height by folding the edges over for side sleeping options. This pillow format plus soft cushion earplugs were the ultimate solution for my good night’s rest, and unlike large pillows I get to pack them in my suitcase for travels as well.

Some dreams are to be kept just for yourself – but fun dreams are great for sharing
Paying closer attention to your dreams may help decipher hidden messages and inspire you to reflect on their meanings in your waking life. With practice, you might even be able to experience a lucid dream state and remain fully conscious while dreaming.
I found that learning new skills and techniques added to the fun and entertainment when sharing dreams, but slowly uncovering things about myself has been just as valuable.

I hope you will discover new meanings and inspirations in your dreams!
Share fun dreams with like-minded dreamers over tea, coffee, or a special French hot chocolate!