I've finally got school holidays, so I actually have some time to organise it. It's something I've been wanting to do, but the reminder is all important.
Note: This link will only work for users who've been made members of the Dream Team. For those of you who are wondering about it, I'll post more information about the Dream Teams soon. For now, it's a work in progress.
Probably too much to ask at this point, but if somebody here knows programming it would be great is we could create an iPhone application that in its most basic form that would sync itself to our personal dream journal and dream team on this page and allow uploading of dreams from an external application. Something a la Blogspot would work- we just need a personal e-mail which would allow us to email dream to ourselves, which are then automatically posted.
Another idea is that as a community we could create our own dream dictionary. If each user is allowed to upload their own meanings to symbols within their dreams, then at specified intervals they could be collated and combined to form a common meaning.
These are both great ideas! There is definite potential for synchronising of dreams - importing the data is a possibilty, but I'm thinking I'll look into this further down the field.
The dream dictionary is more immediately realisable. I even had something like this setup - I got the site to automatically create a page for any new 'symbol' listed on the site. Users could then add comments of their own in relation to that symbol. However, my main frustration with this approach was that the site generated thousands and thousands of pages, but didn't really give any focus to the process of adding commentary about symbol (who would know where to start?).
I like your idea of building a community library of information around our dream symbols. Can you share your ideas about how you would imagine this functioning? It sounds like a great concept.
I was imagining a two layered construct. Each dreamer would have their own individual list of dream symbols which they continuously add to and define. These would then automatically be transferred or added to a 'master list' of symbols; where all the various definitions appear. At some stage, the list would start becoming messy- so a moderator (or whoever volunteers I suppose) would need to periodically collate/summarise/tidy up the list.
This list could either exist on a separate page or be back-linked to symbols that appear in dreams.That way, if anyone feels stuck analysing their own dreams- there's a readily available source to look to for suggestions. I imagine the list becoming increasingly accurate / relevant as the dream team gels.
Oh, and it be nice to be able to download one's dream journal (+ personal dream dictionary!) as a handly little word/pdf file for back-up on one's own computer or for easy printing.
I suppose some money could be made out of this as well. If you collate with a printing house, dreamers who would like to have their journals professionally printed, bound and posted to their home address, could elect to do so. I imagine one could choose between various types of bindings, paper-types, lettering, formats, black & white / colour and so-on. I for one, wouldn't mind paying for such a service to receive a yearly/bi-annual/whatever matted, leather-bound tome of dreams printed in some fancy script instead of having to deal with deciphering hastily written dreams in fading inks from a decade ago.
I like your comment about the list of dream symbols.
Reading your post, it became clear to me that there are indeed these two tiers of functionality:
- the individual list of symbols AND - the community list of symbols (the master bank so to speak).
I also realised that in order to make any of this functionality a practical reality I would have to choose ONE feature as a starting point. It would be great if I could get both going instantaneously but it seems to me unrealistic.
My first thought was to focus on the individual list of symbols but then I reconsidered. If the development of the website focuses on supporting a community list of symbols then I feel there will be a number of advantages:
- Individuals will not have to start their personal dream dictionary from scratch - Each dreamer will immediately be able to access a much larger community library of symbols and their definitions than they could possibly create themselves. - Enthusiasm in the community for recording symbol definitions will thus grow more rapidly. - Some of the technical questions around how best to keep personal symbol definitions private will be able to be left to further down the line when the needs of users are more clear.
So, working on from this decision, it seems we have two key aspects that need to be thought of as far as the user interface:
1. Symbols that have been tagged in a dreamer's dream journal.
This list is created by the simple process of the dreamer tagging particular symbols whenever they add a dream to their dream journal. It's primarily designed to highlight key symbols.
2. Symbols which a community members has given a public definition / interpretation to.
This list is created by a community member choosing to give a definition to a particular symbol. Multiple dreamers will be able to commit their own definitions. Possibly a voting or ranking system (similar to that used by ask yahoo) could be used to help us decide the favourites.
I also like the idea about being able to download one's dream journal in a .PDF form, however once again I think I'll leave it to further in the future, so as to keep our goals around the symbol library real.
