Thread: Digital Dream Journal for Computer?

I think that if you are willing to sacrifice on aesthetically pleasing, you can get most of what you want.

To be perfectly honest, most typical text document processors are pretty decent, and for this particular purpose I can make several standard recommendations, plus I'd like to include DV's DJ here as a suggestion, but please read the notes below too.

Here's a bullet-point list with short descriptions for each thing:

• Open Office Writer - If you don't have or can't get a license for Microsoft Word, this is free and open-source software with a similar feature-set. I have not personally used it, though free is free and that's important sometimes.
• Microsoft Word - I have used Word a lot and in terms of organising a document, it can do a lot, including creating Tables of Contents and Indexes, which I imagine OO Writer can do too.
• Google Drive Documents - It works pretty much like the two above, except that it's linked to a Google account and as such all its documents are kept on your Google Drive. It's worth noting that Google Docs by default do not take up space from Drive. Google Docs are also a bit more limited than Word in some respects, but they're pretty close on all the important features.
• Dreamviews' Dream Journal Section - The DJ section of the website works pretty much like making an advanced post here on the forums. All the features you can see in the advanced editor are the same that you'll find over on the DJ editor. Your DJ here can be kept totally private and hidden from other members, if that is important to you.

Important things to note about all of the above, minus the DJs here:

• Server-hosted solutions, such as Google Docs and DV's DJ have one big problem; posterity is harder for you personally to guarantee. Because companies can have accidents or go bankrupt and so on, there's no guarantee that any data you hold with them will stick around forever. Therefore, if you choose to use either of these solutions, it's still a good idea to either download the documents directly to your computer (Google Docs) or to copy your DV DJ entries manually every so often to a text document on your computer. Even so, if it's really important to you, it's also worth backing up whatever is in your computer, too. Ultimately, all of the options can also be printed in paper, which gives you hard copies if you find that helpful or feel safer about their posterity.
• All of them have some way of letting you find keywords. In the case of my first three suggestions, you just use their respective search functions to find a word, and it'll be able to go through all the options, but any word processor with decent indexing capabilities can be helpful there too. In the case of DV DJ, you can have up to 10 tags per post, which lets you find all your DJ posts with identical tags. The issue with such things is that you need to remember to use the same word/tag every time it would be relevant, rather than a slight variation (for example "car" vs "cars").
• All of these have a potential issue, maybe DV DJ a bit less because of how it's dedicated to just being a DJ. If you would like to have one entry per document, you will end up with hundreds or thousands of entries as separate files/online documents, which means that in the long run it may be difficult to find things if you want to find them by keywords. It won't be impossible, but it won't be headache-free if you don't have specific knowledge on how to do it. Keeping all of the entries in one document has that going for it, searching the document means you'll get all hits for a specific word across all dreams. On the other hand however, very long/large text documents may develop performance issues, so a middle ground approach might be to keep documents as chapters, up to a certain number of entries or pages.

Lightened Dream, written by yours truly back in high school and I try to update it when I can.

I hope the astethics are pleasing and the keyword searches make sense. Let me know what you think of the monthly charts!

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

...

Thanks so much for the in depth post. I really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

...

Thank you. I do like it, how it automatically counts certain emotions, characters, locations, etc. Very useful. Wish there was a way for it go full screen though, and it keeps crashing today.

Oh noes, how is it crashing - is there an error message? I can work on a quick update to make it go full screen!

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Oh noes, how is it crashing - is there an error message? I can work on a quick update to make it go full screen!

I appreciate your service. There's no error message. It just crashes.

Thanks. Does it crash as soon as you open it or on a certain function. Can you uninstall and delete the directory in \My Documents\ and reinstall? I've added a View menu option to make it full screen.

Originally Posted by andreasdevig

Are there Dream Journals for computer? All the digital Dream Journals I see are for cell phones. I don't like typing on a telephone. I'd like something for computers. Preferably something that can go full screen, is aesthetically pleasing, and can do progress reports and keyword search, etc. I know that's a lot to ask for, so please don't feel your answer has to include all of those. It's just my ideal situation, I don't expect my Dream Journal to have all these features.

Thank you in advance.

You could also draw your dreams too. That may help with your recall. DJing shouldn't have to be a chore, you know? Make it fun!!

~Humble.

Personally I use Notion with a database(?)/table document format that I categorize everything in... I like it because I can use it across devices and through web as well! https://youtu.be/H486AXMRoLs found it through this random clip that got recommended to me one day.
The thing with notion is that its very customizable even with a premade setup. So Id say its very aesthetically pleasing. I use the downloaded desktop version.

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Lightened Dream, written by yours truly back in high school and I try to update it when I can.

I hope the astethics are pleasing and the keyword searches make sense. Let me know what you think of the monthly charts!

This looks super interesting! I will try this program out too!

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Thanks. Does it crash as soon as you open it or on a certain function. Can you uninstall and delete the directory in \My Documents\ and reinstall? I've added a View menu option to make it full screen.

Thank you. I would enter the program and it would index the stuff and then it would enter the program and crash as soon as it would enter the program after indexing the stuff.

I uninstalled and deleted the directory now. It's not crashing anymore, but now the previous dreams, emotions, characters, locations, etc. are gone. I guess 'cause I deleted the directory.

Originally Posted by HumbleDreamer

You could also draw your dreams too. That may help with your recall. DJing shouldn't have to be a chore, you know? Make it fun!!

~Humble.

You're absolutely right. I do that sometimes. I mostly don't do it though. I did it this morning though.

Originally Posted by Wool

Personally I use Notion with a database(?)/table document format that I categorize everything in... I like it because I can use it across devices and through web as well! https://youtu.be/H486AXMRoLs found it through this random clip that got recommended to me one day.
The thing with notion is that its very customizable even with a premade setup. So Id say its very aesthetically pleasing. I use the downloaded desktop version.



This looks super interesting! I will try this program out too!

Thank you. I'll have to check that out.

I like your signature, by the way. I watched that show as a child. And still watch it now as an adult. I get very emotional when I watch those fall and winter episodes especially. I always cry a lot when I watch those episodes.

Originally Posted by andreasdevig

I like your signature, by the way. I watched that show as a child. And still watch it now as an adult. I get very emotional when I watch those fall and winter episodes especially. I always cry a lot when I watch those episodes.

Hey thats really cool to hear! Moomins is what gave me my sense of wonder, I rewatch them a lot, and I completely agree with the winter episodes, they have an eerie, sad but special feeling.

Hope you find a good program for your journal writing!

Originally Posted by andreasdevig

Thank you. I would enter the program and it would index the stuff and then it would enter the program and crash as soon as it would enter the program after indexing the stuff.

I uninstalled and deleted the directory now. It's not crashing anymore, but now the previous dreams, emotions, characters, locations, etc. are gone. I guess 'cause I deleted the directory.

Thanks for testing that! And sorry that the dreams are gone! Maybe they are still in the recycle bin... I wonder if there weren't any strange letters or keyboard characters in there that through something off. Will investigate... thanks again!

Originally Posted by Wool

This looks super interesting! I will try this program out too!

Thanks, let me know if anything doesn't work as expected!