Lots of people say they want to remember their dreams, but are they serious? I'm not so sure. Seems like many dream-interpretation systems (including Freud's) treat dreams as tricky, devious, out to conceal. My anima, Silky, who often appears in my dreams as a horse, has loudly and repeatedly disagreed with Freud, telling me two things:

• Your dreams aren't out to trick you. Your dreams LIKE you.
• Remembering is the problem, not interpretation. She uses the punning phrase "Remember your REM embers."

When she first told me "Remember your REM embers", I printed the bare message out and hung it over my bed where I'd see when I woke, to remind me to grab the notebook and record even scraps of memory.

A year or two later, that seemed kind of stark, so then I drew the little poster above, and hung that up instead. But it faded over the years, as inkjet prints do. So recently I painted a still larger version in acrylic, to remind me.

Oops! I forgot. Here's Silky's third maxim:

"Do you ACT on the messages you do get?"

No?

That's like snubbing your friends! For dreams are friends.

So never mind all that psychological theory. Just lay out a notebook within reach, and give yourself time to remember your REM embers. And then try acting on your friends' advice.

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