What do you record in your journals?

Thanks for all input, I've got a large A4 journal now so I've got room to record as much information as I can think to add, should help!

I record:

Time I went to sleep.

Times I woke up in the night, with a little clock logo indicating if it was with an alarm, or natural.

If the time I woke up was from REM.

All about my lucid dreaming practice, what technique worked or not, and why.

Some interesting thoughts and ideas about LD.

If I've had insomnia, or any uncomfortable conditions, and the temperature if I was too hot (to improve my sleeping conditions in the long run).

The position I slept (maybe it has an impact on LD, and I'm also trying to get used to sleeping on the side or the back, because on the stomach isn't that great for the neck...).

And finally, the time I started to journal and the amount of time I took, I find it useful, to organize my morning.

I record dreams and dream signs and If I know what may have caused me to dream what I did, what happened in the day.

I write down similar things as you Dan, although I should probably start adding in more, as you are- I need to write down the time I go to bed, and techniques I try (although lately I'm so busy with school that I've mainly just been journaling and practicing reality tests and being mindful as opposed to using "techniques" like WBTB or The Dreamwalker, etc. When I wake up in the night I think about the schoolwork I need to do in the morning and just roll over back to sleep haha). I've been relying more on spontaneous DILDs just from noticing weird oddities in dreams - its gotten me lucid 6 times so far, although they have been short, and at a "low level" of awareness. More work to do! I have a few more days of school then I can really attempt all the techniques!)

Anyway, back to your question, I've taken screenshots on my phone when I wake up in the night of the sleep tracker, to see how long into the night it's been...the screenshots also come with a time stamp on my phone :)

When writing in my journal I'll add in parentheses any dream seeds I recognize right in the middle of writing the dream itself. I tend to write my dreams in complete sentences as opposed to bullets most of the time. I use a digital app (Lucidity) to quickly record dreams as I wake in the night (blue light filter, dim light setting, and dark-grey night-time mode) so I can write quick and get as much detail as possible. I do this in the morning too. Later in the day I hand-write them into my physical journal and try to analyze the dreams.

But as of now I'm just recording the given date, taking screenshots of the tracker, the dream itself, with sprinkled in dream seeds. You seem to have a good list and I'm going to adopt what you record and implement them into my routine my own way haha, such as the time of bed, technique, and diet.

In my dream journal I will of course describe everything I can recall about the dream, including possible day residue (a.k.a. dream seed) sources, and in the case of lucid dreams, the techniques I used, how well I feel I handled the situation, and what, if anything, I would have done differently in that dream if I could do it over.

In my day journal I always list the times I wake and go to bed, and in the dream journal I used to have a habit of also recording the approximate amount of time into sleep I woke up from each dream. I was actually tracking my sleep cycles back then without really realizing it. I think the reason I started doing that was because I wanted to find out if there was a difference in dream content from my early-night dreams vs. late-sleep ones. More recently I ended up discontinuing the practice because it seemed like a hassle, but I may bring it back because it can be interesting and useful to know sometimes.

I also record any interesting non-dream experiences I have during the sleep period, such as hypnagogia, unusual sleep patterns, or becoming conscious and lucid during non-dream sleep (that has happened to me occasionally, and can be a fascinating exploration in itself!).

I also have a tagging system, so if there are dreams that have particular attributes or aspects I want to keep track of, I can mark them so I can find them later or analyze trends.

I've been doing all my dream recording and data collection digitally, which I know isn't advised but I find myself much faster at recording a lot of information that I know I wouldn't get if I wrote it all by hand.

I use my Fitbit to track my sleep, and I use it to track went I to bed, when I woke up, and every REM period start and end so I can graph my sleep cycle.

I also note techniques used and supplements, which I'm just now getting into trying out. Then also if a dream was lucid, or if it's a favorite of mine.

I'm also starting to set up a spreadsheet for tracking specific characters, locations, objects, emotions, dream signs, and any possible dream seeds that occur in the different dreams so I can tally the total counts and also see trends quickly as I look back through the list.

This is something new I've been setting up, so it's taking a bit to get it together but I'm hoping to expand it with more information as I progress.