{"id":5409,"date":"2013-01-10T07:03:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T12:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=5409"},"modified":"2013-01-10T07:03:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T12:03:33","slug":"six-games-to-play-with-your-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2013\/01\/six-games-to-play-with-your-journal.html","title":{"rendered":"Six games to play with your journal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
pages from an old RM journal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When you write in your journal, you are keeping a date with your Self. I’m giving “self” a big S because I’m talking about something bigger than the everyday mind, so often prone to distraction, or mixed-up agendas, so driven by routines and other people’s requirements.<\/p>\n

A date with the Self should be\u00a0fun.\u00a0<\/em>Here are six everyday games to play with your journal:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Write Your Way Through<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever ails you of bugs you or blocks you, write about it. Getting it out is immediate therapy. If you keep your journal strictly private (which is essential, by the way) what you put down in these pages can be your everyday confessional, with the cleansing and release that can bring. It’s funny how when you start by recording your woes, something else comes into play that brings you up instead of down and can actually restore your sense of humor.<\/p>\n

When you see and state things as they are, you already begin to change them. Keep your hand moving, and you may manifest the power to re-name and re-vision symptoms, challenges and difficult situations in the direction of resolution and healing.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Catch Your Dreams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every time you remember a dream, record it. Date your entry and give the dream a title. By giving a name to a dream, you are recognizing that there’s a story to be told, and you are now in process of becoming a storyteller. Also jot down your feelings around the dream; your first feelings on waking are the best guidance on what it is telling you.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Make a Book of Clues<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world is speaking to us through coincidence and chance encounters and symbolic pop-ups, giving us clues to the hidden logic of events. Once we start paying attention, we’ll find that synchronicity is a fabulous source of navigational guidance. Write down in your journal anything unusual or unexpected that you notice during the day. Suggestion: note in your journal, what appears on the first vanity plate you spot each day..<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Collect Pick-Me-Up Lines<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I did\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0say “pick-up lines”! One of the things I treasure in my own journals, and in those of famous dead people that I read, is the collection of interesting and inspiring quotes that grows once we get into the habit of jotting down one-liners that catch our attention. Some recent examples from my own journaling:<\/p>\n

Because we are stars, we must walk the sky –<\/em>\u00a0song of Bushmen lion shamans
\nAn idea is salvation by imagination –<\/em>\u00a0Frank Lloyd Wright
\nYou have other centuries to play with<\/em>\u00a0– Seth, in Jane Roberts’\u00a0The Nature of Personal Reality<\/em>
\n<\/em>Coincidences are spiritual puns<\/em>\u00a0– G.K.Chesterton
\nEZ GOES – vanity plate on a car in front of me<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Make Your Own Dictionary of Symbols<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your journal will become the best dictionary of symbols you will ever read. Most humans dream of snakes, or of being pursued, and this is part of our common humanity and our our connection with what Jung came to call the objective psyche. But the snake in your dreams is not necessarily the snake in my dreams, and what is pursuing you in the dreamspace may be very different from what is chasing me.<\/p>\n

As we journal dreams and symbolic pop-ups in the world,we’ll notice that the symbols that appear to us take us beyond what we ordinarily know, and that they are never still, but constantly evolving. Thus the wild animal that scared you in one dream may become your ally when you brave up in a later dream. Or what seemed to be your childhood home turns out to have many more levels than you remember, opening a sense of expanding life possibilities.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0Write until you’re a writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sit down with your journal every day and keep your hand moving, and before you think about it, you’ll find you have become a writer. Whether the world knows that, or whether you choose to share your writing with the world is secondary. You are writing for your Self, and without fear of the consequences. You are giving your writing muscles a workout, and you’ll find that tones up your whole system.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0you keep your secret book, you’ll discover more, and more will discover\u00a0you. There are deeper games you’ll now be able to play. You’ll find yourself straying off the tame and settled territory of the everyday mind, into the wilder borders of\u00a0imagination, where the Big story of your life can find you.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>For more games to play with your journal, please read\u00a0Active Dreaming: Journeying beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you write in your journal, you are keeping a date with your Self. I’m giving “self” a big S because I’m talking about something bigger than the everyday mind, so often prone to distraction, or mixed-up agendas, so driven by routines and other people’s requirements. A date with the Self should be\u00a0fun.\u00a0Here are six…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,25,34,14,29,16],"tags":[848,1558,954,1557,99],"class_list":["post-5409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-conscious-living","category-creativity","category-journaling","category-story","category-writing","tag-creative-writing","tag-dream-dictionary","tag-dream-journal","tag-journal","tag-symbols"],"yoast_head":"\nSix games to play with your journal - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2013\/01\/six-games-to-play-with-your-journal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Six games to play with your journal - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When you write in your journal, you are keeping a date with your Self. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5412,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions\/5412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}