Journaling is a practice that is highly overlooked within occult practice. It is a lost art which many mystics and seers utilized to bring light to their inner experiences and bridge their conscious mind to the subconscious mind. Whether we are trying to develop our intuition or gain stronger control over our dreams, journaling is an invaluable means of exploration. Journaling is highly personal and that is one thing that keeps people from it. To get personal with themselves and reflect upon their experience may cause ill feelings and thoughts to arise and it may make someone feel uneasy doing such a thing. As we continue to adhere to the practice of journaling, this starts to subside on a large scale, and even those shy of themselves gain a personal connection with themselves which is worth more than they could imagine.
In many cases, most people do not know where to start when it comes to journaling. The mere thought of reflection alone is an uneasy topic but what are we really suppose to journal? The protocol shared here will help aid in advancing your journaling in your practice. It is best to do this at night, before you go to bed. Pre-Dreaming Journaling is important to also stimulate dream recall. If we already have reflected on the day, the brain has less to do for cataloging the day’s experiences because we have already reflected upon it. This should always be done about 1 hour before bed every night.
It is important to have a physical connection with your journal. If you prefer to type, an electronic journal is fine, but it is best to have a hand written one. Your full energy is being instilled into the words and it bridges a stronger connection. There should be 3 journals. This may sound excessive but they are all specific to the faculty of the occult praxis. Each journal should truly be hand picked and form a connection with it. The initial intent that we put into picking out and choosing the correct paper and style of journal draws a stronger connection between you and it.
You should have three of them for these purposes -
Journal 1 - Daily Reflections - Conscious Mind
Journal 2 - Meditations - Subconscious Mind
Journal 3 - Dreams - Superconscious Mind
Journaling should work on 3 levels. The first level is the conscious level and is found in the first journal which is the Daily Reflections. Here is where we relive our day and go over some major mental and emotional hit points. When we do the daily reflection, we are also training the mind to have a stronger memory of the inner projections and experiences that we have through the day. This not only makes you more in tune with your mind and emotions during the day but also enhances actual memory and recall that will transfer into the dreaming side. When we have conscious control over the day within our reflection of it in journaling we also ignite our intuitive capabilities of seeing patterns within our own life. Following these guidelines gives us a deep picture of our inner world and brings the inner outwards.
A proper Daily Reflection should be laid out as so - (this is done 1 hour before bed every night)
• Daily Experiences: Relive and retell your day from the moment of waking up. Write it down like a story about your day up until the time you are writing your journal. Express how you felt, what you did, what you thought and what you experienced. Try not to miss any detail if you can. Even the colors of things you noticed will help enhance your retention.
• Hinge on Emotions: Reflect on when you felt the emotions of joy and gratitude specifically. This does not mean that we do not pay attention to the negative ones, but hinging upon the moments and feelings of joy and gratitude will help us internalize this vibration to more readily tune to it in other meditations and visualizations which are often discussed in our work. Hinge on where you and when you felt it, make sure to note it in your journal while doing your daily experiences.
• Manipulation: Reflect on which experiences and situations you tried to manipulate and control. How did it make you feel? Why did you want the control over it? How were these connected to your lower vibrational emotions outside of joy and gratitude?
• Triggers: What situations made you feel uneasy or trigger anxiety? How did these experiences happen and express the emotions of the others also involved if possible. Try to understand both sides of it.
• Synchronicities: What synchronistic events transpired? Any important gnosis or thoughts through out the day that may have come through. If there were number synchronicities, pay attention to what thoughts you were having at the time and take note of them during the daily reflection.
The next journal should be the Meditation journal and is really our subconscious connection. Many would think that a dream journal would be this connection, but if we understand that meditation is those moments we are doing the most inner connection we can gain even deeper control over the subconscious mind through the use of conscious journaling of our experiences in meditation. This only draws a stronger link into the dream journal allowing us to have stronger and more clear dreams which are often more higher in nature.
Meditation should be done for 30 minutes a day for best progress. Every small bit helps, but if we focus on it for 30 minutes a day the results are more exponential and you will see faster progress in it. It is also highly beneficial to do this in the morning as part of your routine. Nightly meditation is great, but doing it in the morning will aid in manifestation and conscious control over the energies. It is important to note though that all meditation is beneficial and if you can not adhere to an exact morning time or night time, trying to find a rhythm is the most important.
The Meditation journal should be comprised of these components -
• What was the meditation: Was it a specific breathing meditation? Visualization? Channeling? Etc...
• What did you see, feel, or experience? Any colors? Sounds?
• What inner feelings and messages did you feel guiding you or being with you?
• How do you feel afterwards?
The meditation journal is a critical part in the process of journaling. This is the grimoire of the self. This will hold all gnosis and ideas, experiences, and ideas of your spiritual practice while you are doing it. If we look at this as our personal grimoire it will allow us to go back into it and revisit our experiences and techniques to connect even deeper than we did previously. Because the Daily Reflection is done at night, the Meditation journal is adhered to during the day, through times of waking and before bed and is specifically for moments of meditation which is planned and adhered to.
The last part of the journaling process is the most popular but still often under utilized and that is the Dream Journal. This is the 3rd level of of the mind also and is connected to the superconscious mind. This is where we reflect and retell the dream state like if it was a daily reflection. Trying to cover every detail including events, characters, feelings, colors, symbols, sounds, smells, etc is very important and we must be as detailed as possible.
It is best to follow a layout similar to this-
• Date and Time
• Type of Dream: Is it Reoccurring? Lucid? A nightmare?
• Title/Name: It is good to name your dreams relating to the theme. When you go back through the journal the titles and names will give you similar themes for organization.
• Dream experience: List it all in full detail and make sure to try not to miss a thing. If it is a new skill and not much is remembered it is best to right at least something down. Even it is an assumption of a feeling or experience. One word on the page in the journal for the day for dreaming is better than leaving it blank. This entry, if nothing is remembered can be simple reflection on how you slept and how you felt or feel. This will start to help gain more conscious memory recall. If the Daily Reflection is adhered to, the natural dream recall will become stronger naturally.
• Drawing/Sketching: Drawing the dreamscape is an important part in externalizing the internal landscape. Having a visual representation of your dream will help you connect to it deeper. This is often better than writing the experience, but both should go together. Try to get in the habit of this to strengthen the inner visualization abilities and image recall.
• Emotions: Include how you felt in the dream, how other characters made you feel, and whatever emotions may have stood out. Perhaps you felt excitement and that's all you remember. Take note of it.
• Symbols/Colors: These are the most important factors of a dream. In most dreams they are filled with characters (all of them us in reflection) but when we start to see symbols and colors specifically, we have a stronger connection to the superconscious mind and the hyperspace levels of dreaming. These will always be highly symbolic and if remembered clearly are highly pivotal.
• People and Places: Try to explain and describe the dream characters and places which create your inner surroundings. These are direct reflections of our inner world and knowing the terrain and characters allow us to have stronger control of dreams when we start to become more lucid within our practice.
• Interpretation: This is a part that is most overlooked. We should spend time trying to interpret the dream ourselves to our best of our knowledge. Try not to use dream dictionaries but get tuned to yourself and reflect upon what the dream is telling you and what the aspects of the dream your journaled about are telling you. Using your own intuition and inner connection is better and will help strengthen your psychic ability.
If it is strived to adhere to a rigid system of journaling, the power it has over our spiritual and psychic development is unmatched. It creates the strongest connection to our inner world and our inner guidance. Through proper journaling as explained here, we create a stronger connection to what we call the “Dream Voice” which is found through intense dream work and journaling where we find the deepest form of guidance. This guidance is not found outside of us, but within. This process of journaling is a gateway into the inner realms of your soul and should be a staple in everyone's practice.