“I’m no artist,” many teachers and instructors have said while attempting to draw on a board to explain something.
They proceed to turn then out a homely illustration to make a point.
Sometimes the students or other people in attendance will chuckle.
“Ha! You sure aren’t,” they said. “What, exactly, is that supposed to be?”
Who the hell knows? Hopefully, they’ve labeled the illustration. Circles and sticks make up the typical hastily sketched illustration. Labels are going to be the only way the casual reader is going to be able to tell what it’s supposed to be.
What kind of artist are you?
You may be lacking any kind of self-confidence. You could be one who looks at the way others draw, on their writing, and sees what they sketch as ugly.
If you do, that’s too bad. Don’t compare yourself to others. It’s journaling, it’s reflecting after your wake up from your nightly sleep; it’s not any kind of contest.
It’s journaling, it’s reflecting after your wake up from your nightly sleep; it’s not any kind of contest.
The page is a receptacle for your thoughts and emotions. Anything that helps you access them, that helps you get in touch with them is good. Anything like that leads to a better life. A better, happier life is what this is all about in the end.
People who are good at drawing, draw more
Practice makes perfect, they say. While that might not exactly be 100 percent true, it’s true enough. Drawing, or doing anything else more often, makes you better at it.
You might be limited to making stickmen and women who live in stick houses. You might be one of those people who are forever apologizing when you find yourself at the front of a room drawing something on a dry-erase board. You might cause others in the room to grin and laugh when they see how you draw.
Do it anyway. Drawing your dreams in your dream journal or diary can help stir up the faded memories of the dreams. Illustrating helps access a different part of your memories.
If you’re good at drawing and generally enjoy it, dream diary drawing gives you a chance to record your dream and communicate it to a future you. If you choose to show it, to others as well.
Pertinent article: How To Really Benefit From a Rehearsal Dream
Does it matter how good the illustrations are?
Not really. Label them and if they’re really bad it’ll help the future you decipher what you were trying to sketch out.
The illustrations also help break up the sloppy handwriting that’s found in the typical dream journal that someone keeps when they first wake up.
After childhood, many people stop drawing altogether. They don’t think that they’re very good at it, and it’s more pleasurable to do things that you feel you’re good at.
Yet, in order to draw, you don’t have to be good. You simply have to draw. The goal of dream journaling is to remember and understand your dreams. Dream journal sketches help you remember and give you a chance to pause and mentally ruminate on your dreams even if you think you’re untalented in the area. If you have a problem that you’re working on, that pause you take to sketch it out just might give you the change to work out a solution making even lousy sketches useful.
When it comes to sketches in dream journals, it’s still true a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Also on the blog:
Don’t use your phone as a journal
No time to write in your journal? Then do this!
Besides dreams, what else should you write in a dream journal?
Why should you give every dream a title in a dream journal?
Dream journaling is the least expensive hobby you can pursue
James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
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