Coats, Peggy  (Winter, 1999). Dream Journalling Software…Is it for You? The Association for the Study of Dreams Cyberphile. Dream Time 16(1).

Wilkerson, Richard Catlett (Winter, 1999). The Internet as a Dream Journal. The Association for the Study of Dreams Cyberphile. Dream Time 16(1)

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Dream Journal Technology

This issue of the Cyberphile features special guest, Peggy Coats, who will be reviewing several dream journal software products. Peggy will also be your host for the 1999 Santa Cruz Computer Café and I have included after her article some more information on this as well as some secrets about the ASD Web site. Also, to compliment Peggy’s article, I’m including a section on the Internet itself as a Dream Journal. - Richard

Dream Journalling Software…Is it for You? – by Peggy Coats

As computers become more of a fact of life for all of us, it’s inevitable that the process of keeping a dream journal, and working with our dreams in meaningful ways, should also be fair game for the software developers. Depending upon your tastes and techno-orientation (-phile or –phobic), the idea of recording and interpreting your dreams with the help of your computer may, or may not, be appealing. If you’re open to looking at an alternative to handwritten or word-processed dream-keeping, however, the following sampling of dream journalling and interpretation programs may help point you in a direction that’s perfect for your own personal exploration.

This review covers five journalling products: Alchera, Awaken98, DreamWave, Dreamer, and Interactive Dreaming. While these are not the only programs on the market, they are the most fully developed (i.e., not in a testing stage) and readily available. Each product is reviewed in terms of navigation/ease of use, help and tutorials, dream journalling, diary or day journalling, search capabilities, dreamwork methods or techniques, symbol dictionaries, dream theme tracking, interpretation and analysis, formatting/editing, and file export/import. A simple comparative summary of these key features is contained in the table below.

Alchera
Alchera is the Aboriginal word for the mythic Dreamtime. This program is extremely easy to use, yet is surprisingly rich in features. The screen is designed like a web-page, with hyperlinked text, and a sidebar containing easy access to the online manual (which includes animated demos), dream descriptions, and symbol lists. This makes navigation through the program quick and simple. With Alchera, you can record and track characters, emotions, lucidity levels, and dream series; you can also drag-and-drop or cut and paste words, phrases, or other important information from dream to dream. Dreams can be recorded directly in the space provided, or can be copied from another word processing program. Because the program features a standard Windows interface, editing and formatting is relatively simple, both onscreen and for exporting as a printed document. In addition to being able to look up interpretations for symbols in a dream dictionary (based on the work of author Tony Crisp), you can also add your own personal meanings and symbols to the dictionary. Each dream can be "coded" to identify characters, symbols, and locations, and, once recorded, these symbols can be re-used in other dreams by clicking from a handy drop-down list. Dreams can be searched by key words or expressions, resulting in a list of dreams matching the criteria specified. Alchera also offers games and dreamwork methods, including free association, role-playing, story rewriting and Senoi tactics, to guide you in the interpretation of your dream. As an added bit of fun, you can create pie charts or bar graphs comparing the appearance of characters or locations in your dreams to those of the average dreamer. For more information: http://www.xs4all.nl/~hbosma/alchera/index.html  

 

Awaken 98
Awaken98 is also a feature rich application, but is a little more complex and difficult to use than the other products reviewed. Each dream is recorded in a two-sided notebook interface, which includes tabs for symbols, descriptions, interpretation, and notes or day journal. The notebook can be set to three levels of interpretation or dreamwork, from simple to in-depth. Browsing multiple dream workbooks is possible but not easy. You can also create your own dreamwork model, or configure any of the visual aspects of the program. Dreams can be recorded and interpreted either by your own preferred method, or through use of wizards which walk you through category, content, background, feelings, concerns and questions. Although Awaken98 doesn’t include methods or help for interpreting your dream, it does offer extensive tools for tracking symbols, feelings, locations, actions, and themes. The fully editable symbol dictionary includes icons for each symbol, and drag-and-drop capabilities. Search capabilities are likewise sophisticated, but take some getting used to. Awaken98 is the only one of the programs reviewed which offers many alternatives for file or content export/import, as well as for extensive editing and formatting capabilities, including adding pictures to your dreams and journals. For more information: www.awake-software.com 

DreamWave 
Dream Wave offers playful information on recording and interpreting dreams as well as beautiful illustrations and a searchable dream journal, all accessible in an easy-to-navigate format.  This program is the simplest and most intuitive of the group, and will appeal to the artist in you. It is also designed to be interactive with DreamWave’s website. DreamWave includes four primary features: Dreamages (a poetic primer on remembering one’s dreams), Scribe (the dream diary), Dreamings (dream themes with sample dreams and interpretations) and Temple (an online guide to uncovering the underlying tone of the dream, and developing tasks to carry it’s message upward into waking life). DreamWave can be used as either (or both) a dream journal and daily diary, and includes a text editor and database, allowing the dreamer to format font styles and colors, and to conduct searches by keywords, titles or dates.  Dreams or records can also be sorted and browsed with ease, making it simple to intuitively follow or identify dream patterns and themes. DreamWave’s "Help" feature is extensive and helpful, providing step-by-step guidance for all aspects of the program. DreamWave’s website, which integrates seamlessly with the software, is also a visual delight, full of compatible dream activities and participatory dream games, all enhanced by a highly textural environment containing art, poetry, color and movement. For more information: http://www.dreamwv.com

Dreamer  
Dreamer includes a dream journal, search capabilities, a symbol dictionary, and the ability to associate themes and words with dreams, and to attach notes or keywords to journal entries. Assembled in a simple Windows graphic interface, Dreamer is quick to install, user friendly and simple to understand. The main window allows the user to navigate between the Tracker, the Dictionary, Help and Security, which provides options for password protection. Using Dream Tracker, new dreams can be recorded in a text window, and have keywords and notes associated for later searching and browsing. The dream database can be searched by date, keyword, or text, making it possible to find similar characters, themes or settings with ease. The Dictionary is completely user-defined -- e.g., the dreamer creates the definitions and meanings for symbols which feels most powerful to him or her. This allows the dreamer to enter definitions based on personal dreamwork, as well as research which might have revealed meaningful content. Included with the software is a user’s guide, offering quick starts and simple tutorials to familiarize the dreamer with the system.  Dreamer’s main drawbacks, compared to the other products reviewed, are its lack of resources for dream interpretation and somewhat limited search capabilities. For more information: http://www.skysystems.com/ 

 

Interactive Dreaming 
Interactive Dreaming is a new and unique multimedia software program, combining a dream journal and database with user tutorials and interactive exercises, aimed at integrating  personal dreamwork with individual creativity, spontaneous learning and intuition. Extremely easy to navigate and use, Interactive Dreaming is the first dream software program to take full advantage of computer multimedia capabilities, incorporating sound, moving images and dreamer participation with a wide range of practical and informative materials, including a bibliography and references to dream-related web sites. The main menu is divided into fourteen modules representing different aspects of dream theory or dreamworking, visually arranged around an image symbolizing the  human mind. Subject areas include an introduction to dreams, the language of dreams, journalling, intentionality, building skills, creativity, personal change, improving recall, nightmares or frightening dreams, solving problems, pleasurable or helpful dreams, dreamwork, pre-lucid dreaming, and lucid dreaming & beyond. Dreamers can follow the path of the modules in a linear fashion for a progressive instruction in dreamworking techniques, or can select a module at random based on the demands of the dream itself. Each module includes text, audio, interactive activities, tools, and concepts. Of special interest are several guided visualizations and a sound recorder, which enables the dreamer to enter voice notes about their dreams. Although Dreaming includes a dream journal and search capabilities, its strength really lies in its educational and interactive capabilities. For more information: http://www.dreamcd.com. 

Summary

Which program is right for you? It all depends on your needs and comfort zone in working with a computer. All these programs offer basic dream and day journals, search capabilities and some degree of file formatting and export. Most are easy to use and navigate, but Awaken98 is somewhat more complex, and therefore is not as simple to immediately pick up and use. Alchera and Interactive Dreaming offer the most extensive techniques and methods for initiating dream interpretation and analysis. DreamWave is the most intuitive and artistically oriented, and also the simplest to use. Dreamer is the most rudimentary of the group. Still can’t decide? Why not try them all?

Summary Comparison of Dream Journalling Software

Ease of Use

Help

Dream Journal

Notes or Diary

Search

Methods

Symbol Dict-ionary

Dream Themes

File Export or

Import

Dream Inter-pretation

Format and Edit

Alchera

***

***

^^^

***

^^

^^

^^^

^^^

^^^

^^

^^^

^^^

Awaken98

**

**

^^^

**

^^^

^

^

^^^

^^^

^^^

^^^

^^^

DreamWave

***

*

^^

**

^^

^^

^^

^

^^

^^

^^

^^

Dreamer

**

**

^

**

^^

^

^

^

Interactive Dreaming

***

***

^^

***

^^

^^

^^^

^^

^^

^

^^^

Key: 

*** Easy     ** Moderate     * Difficult or complex
^^^ Above Average      ^^ Average      ^ Limited, or below average


Peggy Coats 
is Director of The Dream Tree, an online and offline resource center for dreamers in Los Altos, California, and the News Director of Electric Dreams, an online e-zine dedicated to developing a global dream community. Peggy has been recording and working with her dreams since 1972; is a member of the Bay Area Dreamworkers Group; coordinates the online Research Requests for ASD; and has been involved with dream-related projects on the Internet since 1995. www.dreamtree.com
email: pcoats@dreamtree.com


 

2

The Internet as a Dream Journal – by Richard Wilkerson

The most common way to record a dream today is in a dream journal. However, this was not always so. Early dream sharing was most likely verbal and done around a village fire. Whoever else happened to be awake at the time acted as the journal, a human surface against which the dream was recorded. Rather than the private and isolated act that keeping a journal has become, the dream was originally distributed across the social network.

Contemporary dream groups have helped bridge this gap between the isolated dreamer and his/her society. But since we don’t wake up within direct earshot of the group, sequestered journal keeping remains our primary recording medium. The Internet can’t yet give back the intimate social experience of the village fire, but it does offer new opportunities in social recording and processing. With a few selections, one can both record and share a dream at the same time. The dream might go out anonymously to a general public or be shared with more personal details in an intimate group.

E-mail will automatically stamp a date and time on your dream record. Even if you send the e-mail to yourself, this creates a dated journal. Many e-mail programs offer special mail boxes, that will automatically sort through both incoming and outgoing e-mail. Most people use these for sorting incoming mail from a particular topic area or person, but they can just as easily be used to keep a record of dreams.

E-mail can be further configured to distribute to a group. Different groups now online offer different methods for recording your dreams and getting different types responses. Willem Linschoten offers a group called the Daily Analyst. Willem is a psychiatrist but offers the group as a public exploration of psychoanalytic dynamics. Participants, mostly from the Netherlands and America, create a living journal of dream adventures against a heuristic background of educational essays and comments.

The Daily Analyst - http://callisto.worldonline.nl/~cb008448

For those who like group projects, mutual dreaming and psychic dream tests, the Intuition Network offers the e-mail list dreams@intuition.org. Here dreams are send in with subject titles marked with a "d." indicating a dream, or a regular subject title for conversation. The group has different levels of self-revelation, from full anonymity to full disclosure. Everyone is on a first name basis and the feeling tone is very friendly.

http://www.intuitions.org select Conferences to find the Dream list.

MorpheusDreams is a new list that specializes in dreams and spirituality. The forum leader, Dr. Deus, is quite active and responsive and the center of the group. Special topics, such as dreams of the dead and transcendent dreams will cycle from one week to the next. The moderator likes to generate lots of mythological associations, and has as his stated motive the proof of a divine soul.

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/MorpheusDreams

The Electric Dreams community offers three different dream journal opportunities via e-mail. The first is a list called dream-flow. This is an open list, where dreams and comments on dreams flow in and out from a variety of sources. The dreams and comments are doubly recorded. The e-mail posts are archived publicly and they are also published once a month on the Electric Dreams e-zine, which is the second e-mail list. Electric Dreams also allows dreamers to send in pictures and dream inspired graphics in an illustrated version of the same e-zine. Electric Dreams is also archived online in a distributed manner, with members keeping full and partial collections on mirror sites, creating a redundant and thereby robust memory and archiving system.

The Electric Dreams community offers a third e-mail group, called the DreamWheels. [No connection with the wonderful Ramsay Raymond Dreamwheel] These are more private groups that are limited in number and time or duration. They experiment with various kinds of dream sharing, the most popular being the styles developed by John Herbert for electronic channels in the early 1990s. [see Cyberphile 1997 ASD Newsletter 14(1)] The records of these groups are usually keep confidential, though they are occasionally published with the permission of the participants.

http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams

Bulletin Boards, Usenet Newsgroups and Web Sites.

Another way to use the Internet as a dream journal is to post dreams on a bulletin board. The most popular bulletin boards on dreams and dreaming are the Usenet Newsgroups. To contact these, you really need a news-reader program and your Internet provider [ISP] has to carry the groups. If you are on America Online, you can use the keyword "usenet" and then subscribe to the newsgroups you want.

The most popular dream boards are alt.dreams, alt.dreams.lucid and alt.dreams.castaneda but there are several others that talk about dreams and dreaming as well, including alt. jung alt.psyhology, alt.psychology.help and talk.religion.newage.

Posting to these boards creates two kinds of archived records. The first lasts about two weeks. During that time, people can comment on your posts, creating "threads" of notes that are connected to the original post. After that time, the posts go into long term holding archives. The best way to access these archives right now is via a search engine called Deja-News www.dejanews.com This service will also allow you to post messages without having direct access to the Usenet Newsgroups.

As an archiving service, these groups are very convenient. Dreams sent in to them will be time stamped and dated. Researchers can search via keywords. Don’t expect too much in the way of intelligent comments at this time. The Oneiroatti have not yet found these groups. There are Internet Service Providers (ISP) such as America Online, MSN and Prodigy that offer bulletin board posting of dreams as well in their local forums. But the status of the posts, how long they will last and what happens to the archives over time is at present unclear. See for example the AOL Psych Online forums or the Alternative Medicine Forum, Altmed.

An alternative to the Newsgroups and ISPs is the individually owned web site. Jeremy Taylor, for example, provides a dream discussion area where dreams can be posted in the same style as on a Usenet Newsgroup. The guestbook has archives, but it is unclear what will happen with the posts over time.

http://www.jeremytaylor.com/

An artistic variation is as site by Gail Bixler-Thomas, where dreamers can post the dream with a picture and the dreamer’s own interpretation.

http://members.aol.com/gbt1/index.htm

Jesse Reklaw has been providing a unique dream recording service for years, but only a few special dreams get chosen. He turns the chosen dreams sent in into comic strips, and these are archived.

http://www.nonDairy.com/slow/wave.cgi.

Again, the length of the post is up to the individual Web site owner. The solution is to put up and maintain your own private Web site.

The private dream journal sites are too numerous to mention individually, but I wanted to point out a few of the characteristics and general flavor of these sites. Often they are like a normal journal, with dream collections from various time periods. These can vary widely. Some people have put online dream journal collections that cover many years of dreaming, while others have put up collections that cover a few days or months. Many of the sites include illustrations and are more like dream inspired art galleries, while others are completely text entries and pages. Some of the online journals include feedback forms and comments to the dreamer, while others allow for sorting and searching of particular dream themes. A new appearance has been the appearance of Web-Rings, which tie together themes, such as dream journals, together in a connected hyperlinking indexing system. Dan Cummings attempted a similar project within one web site. He linked themes within dreams to other sites. For example, creating links from a dream alligator to a site about mythic alligators and save the crocodile clubs. [see ASD Newsletter, 1995 12(2), 7]

Storing dreams and recording dreams in computers offline have been discussed by Peggy Coats (see above article) and others, such as Sarah Richards [http://www.iris-publishing.com/] and Cynthia Pearson. ["The Dream Index: Thanks to Bill Gates, It's Working." Paper presentation, ASD-12, June 22, 1995.]

The channels of these journals used to be read-out-only or print. That is, we could print the files or read from them verbally or to ourselves. Now they are becoming more integrated with online programs and beginning to distribute themselves across the global network.

If you have been feeling anxious about this dispersal of private material into the public arena, you are not alone. The Internet has made the issue of private vs. public as problematic as the issue of nurture vs. nature. What happens, for example, when your boss reads your dream journals, or your husband, or children?

For those concerned about how dreams might expose material too personal to share, but still want feedback & social interaction, there is always anonymous sharing. This is the Internet’s solution to confidentiality. E-mail accounts online are now free. That is, once you have established one e-mail account, you can sign up for several others. Netscape, Hotmail, Tripod and other ISP’s give these away free in exchange for attention. AOL offers its members 5 or 6 e-mail name accounts. With these accounts you can send and receive mail anonymously. To protect people with dream about close friends, some people use the global find and replace on word processors to exchange personal names with pen names and pseudonyms.

Anonymous intimacy, public privacy, exteriorized interiors, networked emotional fields, computer mediated souls. Sound crazy? Welcome to the 21st Century! Here the boundaries of recording dreams and sharing them are in flux. Archiving can now just as easily be publishing. Recalling dreams may include a wide range of computer mediated assistance. The word "journal" becomes more of a perspective than an object, an organizing intelligence as well as a repository of data. We needn’t get lost in the chaos. As the term "journal" begins to take on additional meanings and values, it forces us to more carefully extract and define the essence of these activities and practices. We begin to unfold the value that we place on dating and time stamping our dreams. We begin to explore the differences within and between the textual, verbal and graphic recordings.

We begin to examine the boundaries of representing and presenting dreams, of their beginnings and endings, their resistance and persistence. Is the dream over once we wake up and begin recalling it, or when we semi-lucidly begin recalling before fully waking up? What kind of record is it when the text is distributed over global networks and returned with comments?

There is one thing we can be sure of and that is the methods for recording and keeping dreams will continue to evolve and overflow the boundaries of our present day techniques and practices. This becomes especially so when the Internet itself is used as the village fire that acts as the pages of the manuscript. This digitally mediated journal is a fountain of networked flows through which you can truly transverse the inscription of your own dreams.

 


The Computer Café opens July 1999

The Santa Cruz ASD conference will offer a drop-in computer and Internet lounge. This center will be for those who are just curios and want to learn more about dreams and computers as well as those who have extensive online dream projects to share. Your host for the Café with be Peggy Coats and if you have any special dream projects online or related software please contact her at pcoats@dreamtree.com Also, if you have something special you would like to see or learn about in the Café, send in your requests or comments.

Answering Questions about Dreaming

Why do we dream? What’s the latest scoop on MRI scans and dreaming? What do dreams tell us about human nature?

We have two online projects that help to answer these and other questions that continually come to ASD. The background project to build up the Common Questions and Answers list is being addressed by the Education Committee. The second project is more urgent, the continual questions from people posted on the ASD Bulletin Board.

We get several questions a week and the answers given to a child in 8th grade are obviously not the same as given to a college student. This is where you can help. You don’t have to answer questions everyday or every week to make a big difference. If you can stop in once a month and answer one or two questions, this would build up an enormous spectrum of response as we have hundreds of members. The procedure is very simple. Just point your browser to the ASD bulletin board, find a question and post an answer in the form box. Be sure to add the ASD bulletin board to your hot list for easy access.

http://www.asdreams.org/subidxdiscussionsbboard.htm

If you don’t use the Web, but have and email account and would like to help, I will even post the questions for you. Just send me an email saying you are willing to answer questions now and then. I will send questions out as they come in, and you can pick the ones you want to answer and send them to me for posting.

Many thanks to those of you who have been voluteering time, including Art Funkhouser, Robert Van de Castle, Ernest Hartmann, Harry Bosma, Nichole DiSorbo and the many anonymous helpers!

Different paths lead to our bulletin board:

From our Splash Page: www.asdreams.org select Discussions/ Bulletin Board

There is also a quick link from www.asdreams.org

Secrets of the ASD Web Site

If you are using the web site regularly for getting news and information, joining discussion groups, posting messages or just enjoying a stroll through one of the wonderful online dream art galleries, then you may want to *hot link to the site map. This gives you links to all the major pages on our site in one glance.

http://www.asdreams.org/subidxhelpmap.htm

*Hot Link? Depending on the web browser you use, there is a way to save the addresses (URL) of the web sites you visit. If you are using a Netscape browser, you can pick up the little icon next to Location and drop it on the icon for Bookmark. If you are using an MS IE browser, select the drop down menu Favorites and then Add To Favorites. The most popular browser visiting our site is from AOL. If you use the America Online Web browser, simply pick up the heart and drop it up at the top of the screen where it says Favorite Places. You must be ~on~ the web page you want before taking any of these actions.

Research Requests Page – Now Open!

Get subjects for research project, join a project, or find out how to reference online material. All these and more are now available to you as an ASD member in the Research Requests forum hosted by Peggy Coats.

For researchers, we provide a free Web page that explains your research project and allows you to make request for subjects. Whether you need information for a book, want people to take a survey or have a more complex request, the Research Requests forum can help. Also, we have information on how to cite material gathered and referenced online from APA, MLA and Chicago Styles.

You can help the research projects listed by stopping by and picking the appropriate study.

http://www.asdreams.org/subidxprojectsresearch.htm

 


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