In an interview, therapist and author Marion Woodman suggested that the dreamer use a tape recorder to record his/her dreams:
“I myself like the idea of a tape recorder because it catches the exact quality. Often you wake up in the morning and you don’t even remember putting that dream on the machine and it’s poetry.
“The unconscious goes in the rhythms of the heart…in an ordinary reading you’d say, ‘I went to my father’s in the dream.’ But if you have that on a tape recorder, it might come out, ‘I went to see my father…my father…I went to see my father…’ See how different it is? And it will pick up that rhythm and the power of the emotion, which is lost, very often, when you wake up.”
Well, I’ve tried the tape recorder. But for reasons other than the ones Woodman gives.
After waking in the night from a dream, I usually write a few notes down. However, these notes are sometimes illegible and/or unintelligible (see post for November 19).
But when I wake up, I don’t want to rouse myself too much. For one thing, I might lose the dream. For another, I want to be able to get back to sleep. So, I don’t turn the light on. I write in the dark, half-asleep.
I thought tape recording might solve the problem for me. But too often my words were slurred or mumbled or too soft to hear.
If you do try recording your dreams, you could repeat the dream two or three times into the mike for clarity. If nothing else, that’ll help imprint the dream on your memory.
The interview was released on tape a few years ago by Sounds True, under the title, “Dreams: Language of the Soul”. I don’t think it’s currently available.
© 2009, Michael R. Patton
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taking new steps: http://mythsteps.wordpress.com
