# Lucid Dreaming > General Lucid Discussion >  >  A Practical Introduction to Dream Cartography

## Phantasos

*What is Dream Cartography*
Dream Cartography is a modification of Dream Journaling. The idea behind DJ is to keep journal of dreams and try to write down dreams as detailed as possible. The problem is that this proccess usually emphasize plot of the dream: often you can found DJ with amazing details about who talk with, what dreamer and DCs did while dreaming and so on. It indeed trains recall but the plot is not one thing that deserves dreamer's attention.

Another one - dream world itself and its geography, so Dream Cartography is a technique which suggest to emphasize dreamer's surroundings and a place where dream takes place over dream's plot.

*Basic features*
Exploring your own dream world is fun and interesting.It may appeal to people who enjoy exploring and researching.Comparing to the number of possible plots, the number of places is much limited (in non-lucid dreams), so it is possible for frequent ones to serve as dream signs.The goal to explore dream world gradually becomes incentive of your's dream counterpart, and you may start to see dreams about places where you have never been (or just do not remember) or have not been for a while (often in adulthood we tend to visit some places more rare than when we were children).Dream Cartography do not exclude Dream Journaling, it may be a supplement to this.Dream Cartography allows to use more effective your non-lucid dreams which usually are majority. More, for creating first draft of your map you can start with already recorded dreams. If you already have long DJ with a lot of entries - that's great. You can process them right away and draw a draft of the map based on this dreams.Useful side-effect of this practice is that one start to remember other dreams which took place in the same place.

*Advanced features*
Interesting feature of dream maps is that some elements are rather common among dreamers.Dream maps can be shared and discussed: it is one of the best features!Dream Journaling significantly improves dream recall: some of the DJs features very detailed descriptions of events happened during a dream. Dream cartography also has significant influence over dreaming. It deserves own articles on this topic, so I will only outline it briefly here.

A lot of dreamers perceive dreams as a set of non-connected or loosely connected dream scenes which changes oftenly. At the other side, some may notice scenes which are reoccuring from time to time, and even more - they may often get from one place to another using the same route. Example: when I was younger I often had dreams which took place in small town which I used to visit in real life. In dreams I usually went there by train. When I processed my old DJ for creating list of places, I realized that this route was quite stable, and more - after train station in this town there a couple of others which I also visited several times.

So the more we see dreams the more patterns we find, the more dream scenes become connected and "ordered". It become to make sense. This process is somewhat natural: if one have a good recall then in his, say, fifties (s)he will know a lot of places in her/his dreams and how they are connected to each other. Dream cartography allows to force this process of dream space ordering and (as ultimate goal) give dreamer a complete map within reasonable period of time.Many people (both "skeptics" and "mystics") agree that dreams are key to one's inner self. Dream cartography gives dreamer a sane, simple and fun method to explore it. Even if you do not know what aspect of your personality is represented by this cute castle on the hills, you at least know how to get there!  ::D: 

*Which dreams are most useful*
One of the good points of dream cartography is that the main source are non-lucid dreams, though some will be better than others. The best ones are those which took place not only inside but also outside because these dreams allow to judge about where different elements of the dream world are situated relatively to each other. 

At first it will be hard to notice such connection because often in dreams we move from one dream scene to another by sudden change of it. During practice of dream cartography brain figures out (or creates - hard to say really) these connections.

*How to start*
As with DJ there are no universal way how to create and update a dream map, so I will provide general guidelines and share my own experience. 

First you should to process dreams you already have and create list of the places which you will put onto map later. Alternatively you can start over and put them right away if you want - it may be different for everyone. Personally, I am lazy and first write dreams into DJ and once in a while update my map. 

DJ entries can be slightly modificated for dream cartography's purposes. You should add to each a title and/or description of place where dream took place and transits (if any). Transits are objects which led to sudden change of dream scene. For example, you touched a statue in dream and was teleported - this is a transit. Or you went through mirror and found yourself somewhere else - this is also transit.

If you have have drawing skills, you may also draw this place.

Personally I keep DJ as Excel file with five columns: date, title, brief description of the plot, places and transits (the last is usually empty). My dream map is vector image - I use open-source editor Inkscape.

*General layout*
Dream map usually built around one's home (i.e. it's dream counterpart) because this is the place which one usually dreams very often about. Around Home usually there is an area which called Home City. It includes school, college, work and other typical places which we often visit in dreams. Also there are may some other towns (usually smaller than Home city).

Borders of dream world are represented by impassable obstacles like ocean and mountains. Often before such obstacle there is a river. 

Another important note is that dream world is actually multilayered. We make map for a "main" layer but there are few others. One of them - subway which a lot of people see in dreams. It also may be explored if one desires. Even "below" (we need to remember is that it is not actually below, it is how we interpret some aspects of our mind) are situated layers which shamans call "Lower worlds". One rarely visits this "worlds" until he is mystic of some sort, drug addict, heavily sick or just advanced dream cartographer who is interested in what else his inner self have. 

Probaly there are should be layer perceived as being "above" main layer but as with "lower" ones they should not interest us for now. 

Last important topic which should be noted is that for historical and traditional reasons north and south are switched on the dream maps. Of course, you are not bound to do this  :smiley: .

*How detailed map should be*
It is the same as for question "How detailed dream journal should be" there is no common answer. Personally I make one global map and later I intend to make separate maps for a Home city (with streets), a couple of small towns which are represented with small icons on general map, and subway. 

*Epilogue*
I hope this small tutorial was interesting and will help you to build your own dream map if you decide to give it a try.

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## ThreeLetterSyndrom

I certainly will give it a try  :tongue2: 
It's a cool way to explore your dreams, very original  :wink2:

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## oniman7

Thanks Phantasos, but I had a question. There is this one place in my dreams ( school to be exact ) where I have walked out the front, and there have been two completely different things. Maybe I should put one in front of the school and one out to the side entrances?

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## John11

I have the same concern as oniman.  Rarely are the surroundings the same for me in any of my dream locations.  Also, I have dreams where I'm in a place that I know is supposed to be my apartment, but it isn't at all, or I'll be in a building that is a combination of my apartment and my parents' house.

This is a cool idea though and I might try to map out the things that seem to stay fairly constant.

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## oniman7

Never mind, I think I have answered my own question. I have seen a track ( as in a running track ) in both the front and back of my school. I think I will put it in the back of my school in the dream map. I am hoping it will force my brain to think that way. That's also where the graph is at my real school. I think I will do my maps on graph paper.

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## oniman7

John, try doing what I am going to do. Map the surroundings as the place that makes the most sense. Then maybe go over the map before you go to sleep to remind yourself of where the proper surroundings should be?

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## SleepyCookieDough

As other have said, we don't always get from a place to another place the same way... Is it that if we do a map, our brain will make connection? cool. And thinking about it, I remember using the same or similar way to go from school to home (because I always miss the damn bus in my dreams so I'm obliged to walk back home)! lol!

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## Phantasos

*oniman7*
Well, it is hard to advise anything. Your solution is pretty fine, lately you may have other dreams about this place and decide what is more "right". After all, it is our conscious effort which stabilize dream world and helps to connect places to each other. 

Personally, my Home city currently is very chaotic - I have no clue about how different places are situated relatively to each other except street where my home is located and subway entrance (it is roughly the same as IRL but I am sure this is not the case for other places), so as you could see in my pre-draft (which I posted in another topic) I just roughly placed all important city locations into Home city area.

Funny but I better know a small town to which I can get by train. Maybe because it is much smaller - a couple of areas (few street each) connected by trolleybus route.

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## ThreeLetterSyndrom

My places seem to be connected in one way or another. I travelled a great distance last night. By bicycle. Whatever  :tongue2: 

My home city is quite structured, I must say, it looks a lot like my usual home town, with a few exceptions, and also the school is a bit strange  :tongue2:

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## Timothy Paradox

Cool stuff! But making a map of all of my dreams will take an eternity!

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## OpheliaBlue

Huh.. interesting, I never gave the dream setting that much attention before. I wonder if it would help improve dream recall in a kind of 3-dimentional way. Definitely worth a try. I'll read through it again when I have more time.

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## oniman7

Hey Ophelia, did you get my PM about maybe making this a sub-topic under Additional Resources? P.S. Phantasos, I PM'ed ninja9578, OpheliaBlue, Man of Steel, and Asher about making Dream Cartography a sub-topic under Additional Resources.

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## oniman7

Just thought everybody might like to see an example of a dream map. It is poorly drawn, but it should give you an example of what one looks like. Well, here it is.
Sorry, I could only get it in a thumbnail. As you will see, I use the most frequented area ( the school ) as the center. Due to unkown correlations in location, I will do certain areas instead of a global one. For example, this map is of my school area.

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## Phantasos

Looks nice. Probably I should also make "minimaps" of areas around important locations. I will post my general map when I finish current version. 

But what is this green area?

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## Maeni

Awesome!

Actually, I've been drawing maps of my most vivid dreams before, but I've noticed that my dreams almost never happen around where I live. Sometimes it does, but mostly not.


I think I'll do that before I go to bed, then while I'm at it, i'm gonna look for some dreamsigns aswell  :tongue2:

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## oniman7

> Looks nice. Probably I should also make "minimaps" of areas around important locations. I will post my general map when I finish current version. 
> 
> But what is this green area?



The green area is just grass on the inside of the track.

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## oniman7

If anybody would like to participate in an experiment, go here: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...659#post985659 and refer to my posts. PM me if you would like to participate.

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## JET73L

Cool. Very detailed opening post. Nice.

I've always wanted to map my dreams, but I've only had a few areas that were stable enough to even think of mapping. I did draw charts for a couple of places that were both stable and recurring, and that was cool.

So yeah, great idea, great job on writing it out!

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## Phantasos

I've added an entry into my DJ with general map of my dream world and descriptions of some points of interest. It is a subject to change of course because there are much more to add and location of most of elements is mostly guesswork for now. Also submaps for Home city, small towns and subway should be done.

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## OpheliaBlue

yeah I got your PM

have to wait and see if this generates enough interest to necessitate adding a sub topic

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## oniman7

Thanks Ophelia.

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## tommo

Hm I think this is very interesting.
Where did you get this idea from?  Is it yours or did you read it somewhere?

Ok first, are you going to explain the 'lower level' soon?  It sounds interesting.  Why do drug users, mystics, sick people find these?  Is it a more deep level or something?
Second, I would suggest, since you are using vector, (and I would recommend it for everyone else) just use one map, not multiple.  With vector you can zoom in (theoretically) infinitely.  Therefore you would start off with a general map; probably of your home town, then the places you visit around there.  Then once you get more dreams after starting this endeavour you can just go in and add extra areas within here that you've found.  Then you could have separate bits on the same picture like on a game map if you find a place which isn't connected to your home town *yet.*  Eventually you might connect it up, but maybe not.

Does that sound better than putting a new map on every DJ post?  Just have one at the top which you add to.

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## ChaybaChayba

This is a brilliant idea, this way, you have an overview over all your dreams in once! This guy who posted a thread here once had a similar idea, he used a mindportal, the map all the dreams on.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocyp5OTsz8E. But I think this Dreamcartography idea might even be better.

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## tommo

I don't get that mind portal at all.

I'm going to use some google map images for my dream map.  For places that I know IRL at least.  That way I don't have to draw it all.  Places like my house and school.

Alright here's mine.  If only there was some way for other people to zoom in as well, without much effort on my part.  Maybe it's for the best that they can't lol
I put little boxes with text saying what I did there in my dream world.  Barely even started though.  Too late.  I might put a date on those too, but yeah, another day lol.
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...383#post373383

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## John11

I apologize if my following thoughts appear to ramble on or don't really add to the thread.  I am mildly drunk and I tend to ramble on in this state.  I originally wrote this in a response to Oniman in a PM with regard to his experiment, but it grew into something I felt like posting here.




I started a map, but there are just too many places I've been and too many of them are just on their own out there in dreamland and don't yet appear to be linked to anything.  So, I took Phantasos' suggestion and just wrote up a excel spreadsheet of all the places I've been and their connections.  Even that is getting to be a chore though.  I have about 500 locations listed (many sub-locations of major locations though) and I'm only about two-thirds through my dream journal.

I feel dream cartography appeals to my nature for things to be structured and because of that I feel compelled to continue it.

I am confident that I will finish my spreadsheet soon.  However, I am quite concerned that once I have mapped out my dream world in the logical sense in the spreadsheet, I will never have enough drive to actually map it out visually (especially since there seem to be so many disjointed locations currently).  I am far from an artist in any sense of the word and I fear I will just get discouraged in my attempt to do my dream map justice to my dream world.  Any help or suggestions in this area would be appreciated.

I looked up dream cartography on Google and from what I've read it can take years to find connections between various locations in your dreams.

I plan on continuing though.  I've already found interesting connections between the dreams I've recorded in my journal and it has also caused me to remember some past dreams that I've forgotten due to location similarities.

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## oniman7

I am FAR from artistic, but take a look at some of mine. Simple rectangles and circles drawn on paint. If you want more information, I can tell you how, but it's pretty simple.

EDIT: I just looked up dream cartography, dream mapping, map of dreams, etc. and found nothing on it.

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## John11

Yeah.  I guess so.  I just don't feel like creating my dream world with rectangles really represents my dream world very well.

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## oniman7

I just don't know what to say then.

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## tommo

lol.

I also remembered dreams From mapping just a little bit out.  3 places to be exact.
John11 you should just map out the main places.  Maybe in the excel thing, put a x2 or whatever number next to each place.  Anything above say, 5, put onto the map.  I've got TONNES of places that I've been to in dreams that I'll probably never visit again, no point putting them on there.

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## Phantasos

> Hm I think this is very interesting.
> Where did you get this idea from?  Is it yours or did you read it somewhere?



It is rather well-known method on Russian dreamscene from where this incarnation of this tech is originated. I say "incarnation" because it seems that the the guys who invented it actually rediscovered and adapted for common folk the method used by ancient mystics and shamans. Siberian shamans used to map "Lower worlds", and a lot of mythological descriptions of the world fit into "general layout" of dream map, and similarity of some elements is also striking. I bet one may earn doctorate in the psychology field if s/he make serious research on this topic like Laberge did with lucid dreaming  ::D: .





> Ok first, are you going to explain the 'lower level' soon?  It sounds interesting.  Why do drug users, mystics, sick people find these?  Is it a more deep level or something?



Well, actually you are asking questions which no one have definitive answers to. 

They are "deeper" (just remember that it is brain's interpretation of something which it shows us like more deep level of your dream map) but as for what is it - there may be numerous explanations. Typical skeptic one may state that dream world is projection of our psyche or inner self (currently this explanation is the most close to my perception of the issue). 

If you like mystic approach you may take shaman one - they considered those lower worlds as actual "parallel" worlds. Guys who developed Dream Cartography often compared dream world with computer programms and had rather unique views on what dreams are and how they behave. The real problem is that there is no scientific explanation what dreams are, so we are left to mercy of our beliefs.

Still the method itself is very interesting. fun, yields interesting results and allows to look at one's dreams from another standpoint (than used by classical DJ).





> Second, I would suggest, since you are using vector, (and I would recommend it for everyone else) just use one map, not multiple.  With vector you can zoom in (theoretically) infinitely.  Therefore you would start off with a general map; probably of your home town, then the places you visit around there.  Then once you get more dreams after starting this endeavour you can just go in and add extra areas within here that you've found.  Then you could have separate bits on the same picture like on a game map if you find a place which isn't connected to your home town *yet.*  Eventually you might connect it up, but maybe not.



Thanks for a nice advice!

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## Phantasos

> Yeah.  I guess so.  I just don't feel like creating my dream world with rectangles really represents my dream world very well.



Just you have not to be writer for keeping DJ, you do not really have to be artist to draw maps (though if one can draw dreamp places it will not hurt either).

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## SleepyCookieDough

I haven't been here, but I prefere drawing scenes and not a map because I don't travel too much in my dreams other than home to school and school to home. And when i do it I have to walk 'cause I always miss my bus  :Sad:  XD

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## Iamerik

I really like this idea though I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep it up. Nevertheless this has inspired me to try to explore more, rather than just follow the plot or find someone/something.

This should be interesting, I usually don't change location all that much unless the plot makes me. It's time for some random walks!  ::D:

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## OrionStyles

I've mapped out my dream locations before as well. Very helpful in navigating or becoming lucid if you memorize the map (hey, I know where I am! Shazam! Lucid!). Though my map was more like a bunch of different scenes drawn in bubbles connected by lines and not a real map you would use in the waking world.

Aslo, things break down a bit if you do things like teleport etc... then the adventure is to find the connections between the place you teleport to in relation to the places you already know.

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## DuB

Phantasos! I love this guide. Thank you for writing this!

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## oniman7

> yeah I got your PM
> 
> have to wait and see if this generates enough interest to necessitate adding a sub topic



How much interest would you call " enough interest "?

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## ray

you know something freaky that my brother and i stumbled upon one day? we have almost the same exact dream worlds.we found this out one day last year when i was bored. we live on a dirt road and in the summer i like to take a stick and draw into the dirt(its bigger than paper that's why...). anyways one day i was drawing my dream worlds/places and my brother comes up and asks what i'm doing.after i answer he just stares while i keep drawing and then he gets another stick and starts drawing.i tell him to stop cuz i don't want him ruining it and he says he just drew a lake i forgot. when i draw i always start with buildings so i hadn't started drawing the geographical features yet and i wondered how he knew there was a lake there.i asked him if i had told him about that dream and he said no and said that i was drawing crap out of his dreams and it was creeping him out.i argued that it was from my dreams and told him to go away.he started to draw again and i got mad and started yelling at him to get away and stop ruining my drawing but he came over to where i was drawing and at that point i was drawing our school so he finished it and started to draw the tower which is next to it in the dream world.i wondered how he knew it was there so i told him to go down the road some and start drawing and work back towards me to see if everything matched up.we were out there for a couple hours and the result was about a quarter of our dream worlds in high detail.it astounded me to realize most things matched with only a few blurs and odd buildings/places here and there.the map started near our house and slowly worked its way to the other end of the map at this giant temple which neither of us has gotten to yet but only seen twice each.this temple stretched off the road on either side and was surrounded by this absolutely massive series of fortified walls and trenches.at the south end toward our house is the most glorious gate and roadway stretching for miles back into the more populated, busy dreamworlds by our house.the scale of the dream worlds themselves are as massive, at least, as our universe.the temple is almost incomprehensible.

so this got us thinking...what if people all had the same dream map but just experience different parts of it and the goal in all of our dreams is the temple?
imagine how enormous the dreamworld must be...

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## Phantasos

> the temple is almost incomprehensible.



The temple you have seen is rather common element of the dream map. It is called The Tower and connects different levels of the map. Probably it is archetypical. Ancient dreamers (due to lack of high buildings or less urban mindset) often saw it like giant tree - for example, Iggdrasil in Icelandic mythology or Tree of Life in Kabbalah.

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## oniman7

I've only seen a tower in one dream, and it was collapsing from the top. I was running down to the bottom with my friend, saw our English teacher, and stopped to chat.  ::lol::  This was before I joined DV. I don't see many stereotypical dream places.

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## tommo

Are you guys twins?

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## Bu5hman

> you know something freaky that my brother and i stumbled upon one day? etc..



I'd guess that if you both grew up in the same area and generally think about things in a similar way then your subconscious would poduce the same result (dream world) from the input (real world).  This being my entirley material spiritless heathen view.

That said I like the "one big world" idea, and hell anything's possible.

Also you mentioned the huge scale, my dream world seems to contain a lot of places that correspond to real places (they look completley different but I "know" they're the same while I'm dreaming) that are always much larger than their real life counterparts.

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## tommo

Yeah that knowing thing is weird.  You can't explain it in language.  I get it a fair bit when you see a person, they look completely different from how they do IRL but you just know it's them.  I wonder why that happens....

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## SleepyCookieDough

Just like you know what you're suppose to do and not to do... It is weird. Maybe since it comes from us, we know a bit of it? ... ::roll::

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## ray

no, were not twins,we are actually four years apart  :tongue2:  
 bu5hman, your theory makes sense, but our dreamworlds do seem a little too similar. oh wells i don't expect to find an answer but maybe i'll get lucky  :smiley:

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## Phantasos

Today I have a big insight on what this Big Building is. 

As I already wrote earlier, mythological models of world are actually may be true... just that they represent not a real world but a dreamworld which was "ordered" either by special practice, or just due to a good recall and a decent life longevity. One of my hobbies is North mythogy, and one happening revived my interest to lucid dreaming is that I was browsing an archive of Russian site from which Dream Cartography originated (i.e. its modern incarnation), and one thing striked me immediately:

_The general layout of the dream map was similar to Norse mythological model of the world._  ::shock:: 

One of the most interesting and crucial element is the Big Building. It is also known like Iggdrasil, World Tree, Tree of Life etc. It is usually connect different worlds - from lower to higher. So it was obvious it is very archetypical thing, no wonder it is featured on a lot of maps. 

One thing (and it is also very mysterious) is that ancient dreamers had this tree in the center or near the center. On the modern maps it is usually in the north, we can say - near the center of the northern half of the map. I hope, you understand me  ::D: . 

So, this thing fascinated me very much. What is it or projection of what is it? (If we take that dreamworld is projection of some phenomenon)  ::hrm:: 

And today a hypothesis on what it is was born!  ::D: 

The Big Building is a projection of the corpus callosum into the one's dream world.





> The corpus callosum is a structure of the mammalian brain in the longitudinal fissure that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres. It also facilitates communication between the two hemispheres. It is the largest white matter structure in the brain, consisting of 200-250 million contralateral axonal projections. It is a wide, flat bundle of axons beneath the cortex. Much of the inter-hemispheric communication in the brain is conducted across the corpus callosum.



Think about it, like Iggdrasil in Norse mythology and Tree of Life in kabbalah which connect different worlds, corpus callosum connects different parts of the brain. And like Iggdrasil which go from the Asgard (Heaven) down to the Helheim (Hell), corpus callosum spans across all the brain, connecting different parts  :Exclaim: . 

The reason why it moved from the center to north is the next. North in Icelandic mythology was associated with gods which brings order, and south - with Jotuns which symbolized chaos. In my opinion, moving of the Big Building to the north is that our left hemisphere which is responsible for logic, rational thinking and language (especially writing one) dominates in modern society.

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## ray

hmm thats interesting, especially since i have norse ancestors.

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## Marsupilama

Very Nice Tutorial, I actually mapped a dream once and since it was lucid I could remember the approximate distances to make an accurate map of the location I was dreaming of.

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## OrionStyles

Way to necro... still the pic is kind of funny.

Right up there with things like "My girlfriend asked me what I lucid dream about, and I said doing her friend"  ::D:

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## Vulpixel

Making my map. Anyone else seen a field with golden grass,or a forest with small dirt dams?

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