One weekend a while ago I went to our cottage with my friend. We packed the car full of magazines, cardboard, glue and other craft supplies . The intention, as you might guess from the title, was to make our own dream maps.
What is a dream map?
A dream map is a way to express your own dreams to yourself. Sometimes you can forget to dream in your everyday life. You forget to think about what you really want from your life. Or like me, you have achieved your old dreams and have not dared to dream any more because of the difficulties you had in achieving older dreams. Making a dream map is a great way to find new dreams for yourself.
So the goal is to collect pictures and words related to your dreams and create a map of them on cardboard. When the map is complete you can imagine how it feels when your dreams are achieved. By imagining and reminding yourself of your dreams, they will come true easier. It's a good idea to hang a dream map in your home somewhere, where you can often see it.
How to make a dream map?
There are no absolute rules for making a dream map, you can make a map just the way you want it. The basic principle is to look for images and texts that somehow speak to you, cut them, and finally collect them on a cardboard.
I approached making the map from an intuitive perspective. I was very interested to see what dreams would be found in my subconscious. I had gone to the local flea market to buy a bunch of different magazines, and collected all the old ones from home. Cardboard, stick glue and scissors were also needed. I had also brought various craft papers, pencils, etc., but they were mostly left unused.
Finding dreams
I started my process with a little meditation, trying to connect with intuition. While browsing the magazines, I listened to meditative music and tried to stay in my own intuitive bubble. Sometimes we made such good finds that we had to present our discoveries to each other, it was sometimes a real roller coaster of emotions, but at the same time very therapeutic. Sometimes we cried and sometimes we laughed. At times we wondered together why certain pictures or words had spoken to us. Finding dreams was addictive, we didn’t want to stop and spent several hours doing that.
In the cutting phase, the goal is to cut out all the pictures and words that speak in some way. At this point, you’re not supposed to think about why. However, not all of the cut stuff is likely to end up on a dream map.
Assembling the map
Seuraavana aamuna lähdettiin kasailemaan karttoja. Itse lähdin käymään läpi omaa kasaani taas intuitiivisesti. Tässä vaiheessa oli jo aika varmaa, että yksi kartonki ei tulisi riittämään, joten otin heti kaksi kartonkia eteeni ja lähdin lajittelemaan niihin unelmia. Olikin jännää, että aika pian kumpaankin kartonkiin näytti syntyvän oma teema. Toisesta tuli ”kotona omanmakuiseen elämään” – kartta ja toisesta ”kultakausi” -kartta. Kotona omanmakuiseen elämään -kartta sisältää sellaisia unelmia, jotka ovat ehkä lähempänä kotoa ja lähempänä ajallisesti. Kultakausi taas enemmän sellaisia kaukaisempia unelmia. Kummassakin kartassa on lisäksi eri osa-alueita, intuitiivisesti muodostuneita.
During the assembly phase, it was exciting to notice how the cut words and pictures found their place, sometimes in a completely different theme than what I had thought in the cutting phase.
Presentation
Finally, we presented our maps to each other. I think was an important step too, even though we had talked about our maps during the whole process. It was still nice to go through our own finished maps once more. The circle closed, so to speak, in the presentations.
My dream map
I’ve been wondering for a long time if I want to present my own maps here on the blog in entirety, or if I won’t show something. However, my goal has been to become more visible as myself, without being embarrassed of who I am. That’s why I wanted to upload pictures of my maps here. I’m not going to go through all of the maps here, but below are a few details I want to highlight from the maps.
The biggest surprise
The biggest surprise for me on my dream map was the phrase “This is how I became a runner”. I have never ever been an athletic person, f. ex. I suffer from severe school sports traumas. Of course, I have always liked walking and in recent years hiking has become a passion. Through yoga, I have begun to know my body and become to enjoy and trust it. By no means, however, would I have wanted to cut from a magazine, “This is how I became a runner”, written in large font. That’s why I tried hard to ignore my intuition and leave the text uncut. But, because I had wanted to go through this with an open mind, I was forced to go back and cut the text. At that point, though, I still thought, I wouldn’t glue it to my dream map. However, mind works in mysterious ways and my subconscious started bringing up memories of the few times I dared to run, just a few steps. And every time that running had raised feelings of genuine joy. So the sentence ended up on the map, I’m interested to see how it will come true, I already have small plans in my head, even though my mind is trying to say “you can’t do it, don’t be ridiculous, etc.” But, time will tell, maybe I will beat that pesky little voice this time.
The mystery
In one part of my dream map, I glued a picture of a woman swimming in a lake. Next to it came the texts “Rhythm of the Heart”, “Harmony” and “Jumping into the Unknown”. This is a bit of a mystery as to what these things are about. So I'll just have to wait and see what jump to the unknown is waiting for me.
Predicted
There are also a lot of things in my map that I had already guessed in advance, e.g. writing, nature, family and relationship stuff. I was a little nervous in advance if there would be any surprise dreams or if the map would be full of predictable dreams. But I surely got a surprise and it was a big one (running). Of course, it’s wonderful to see that I’ve learned to find and recognize dreams for myself again
Finally
This was a wonderful project and it was great to do this with a good friend. Throughout the weekend, we talked about a some many things and had in-depth, emotional discussions. Many thanks to the friend! It was wonderful to go through this journey with you!
This dream map project is surely one that I want to do again sometime. I never want to forget dreaming again and this is a good tool to finding them and remind yourself about them.
Dream maps elsewhere
There are a lot of information around the internet about dream maps. I haven't look at english sites so I have no recommendations in english. I'm sure you can find lots of information by googling "dream map" or "vision board". I have learned of dream maps first from Saara and Meri Aalto's podcast No Fear. In their 9th episode the talk about dream maps I recommend it for all who speak finnish. They have a lot of good talks so I recommend listening to all their episodes.
A little different kind of way of making a dream map can be found in Happy mind, happy life-blog (in finnish) Tee itsellesi unelmakartta! | Saavuta unelmasi! (happymindhappylife.fi)
If you are not keen on cutting magazines, you can find tips on making dream maps in different techniques in duuritori (in finnish) Unelmakartta auttaa visualisoimaan tavoitteet – näin teet sen – Duunitori
English 
Suomi