Thread: Is school bad for recall?

Yes! School is bad for recall. Especially if you were like me and stayed up well past midnight and still had to wake up around 7am. Here are two suggestions:

1) This is obvious. Go to bed earlier.
2) Set your alarm clock to go off every hour after 6 hours. I tell a lot of people this but it really works. If all goes well you should remember a dream every hour on. If you sleep in expect 4-6+ dreams.

Well, give it a try at least.

Definitely. The stresses of homework and tests, the atmosphere of the school, and waking up so early kills my recall. Over the winter and spring breaks, I had 3-4 LD nights a week, some with multiple LDs in a night, then I get to school and my recall and LD rate drops significantly.

I really need to get to bed earlier.

If you happen to dream of school, it can actually facilitate the induction of becoming lucid. It gives you the excuse to check your watch to see if you're late for your lessons. ^_^ Or maybe that's just me, I was always late. ;p

If you go to bed the same time on the weekends as you do the weekdays (along with waking up), you can rid yourself of that monday-tuesday slump. Our bodies' can get used to the schedule a 24 hour day, not a 168 hour week. Every single weekend you sleep 'till noon screws you over and over. Of course, it sounds like you should adjust the time you go to bed on weekdays, as well.

Originally Posted by StephenT

Definitely. The stresses of homework and tests, the atmosphere of the school, and waking up so early kills my recall. Over the winter and spring breaks, I had 3-4 LD nights a week, some with multiple LDs in a night, then I get to school and my recall and LD rate drops significantly.

I really need to get to bed earlier.

I know what you mean; with my approaching exams and part-time job my sleeping patterns have been knocked out a bit. I could do with going to bed earlier also; at least to help with my stuying if not my recall.

Is school bad for recall?
Hell ya.
Your shift in attention & on focus of dreaming will changed to your studies and worries & stress about school.

It takes time and your energy to dream.
Try to find time in your daily routine to think & remember dreams where possible.
Good luck

Yeah, it is horrible for recall. Can't wait for summer! Ooh man that is going to be SUHWEEET!

I just found my reason to recalling about 5-10 SECONDS of a FRACTION of a NON LUCID dream EVERY FAHKIN' NIGHT!

Not even kidding, this thread has answered my recall problem, but I must admit, it didn't do anything to help. Can't wait till summer vacation...

If school is an exhausting, high stress experience for you, then it will have an effect on your recall. I only remember two dreams from boot camp, and I was there for three months. In both of the dreams I was drilling which we did for a few hours every day to begin with.

Do you dream about school frequently?

Yes, it is bad ..
I had a long dream last night and I remember my dream after waking up, but because of my final exams I forgot my dream and I am trying to remember it now, really can't wait for summer

Last summer, my dream recall was pretty good. Once school started, it dropped considerably. I hardly remember my dreams during school. During the summer I remember them far better.

I searched for this topic and while it is relatively old, its advice is still pertinent.

I've had this problem too. Here's my number of dreams recalled during my vacation on each day, respectively: 2, 2, 5, 1, 5, 2, 5, 10, 1, 2, 2.

During the school/work week: 1, 0, 2, 0, 1.

I thought my recall was getting worse, but sure enough, the weekend came and I recalled 6 dreams on Saturday and 6 dreams on Sunday.

This correlation between poor recall and school/work probably has something to do with the different sleeping time. Personally, I average six hours of sleep on school/work nights and thirteen hours on nights without anything going on the next day.

This topic deserves to be on the first page of the recall section. I'm sure some of the advice in this topic will help out modern-day lucid dreamers and un-discourage people who have had school/work hurt their recall.

Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

2) Set your alarm clock to go off every hour after 6 hours. I tell a lot of people this but it really works. If all goes well you should remember a dream every hour on. If you sleep in expect 4-6+ dreams.

Well, give it a try at least.

I'll try this tonight; I've had bad recall every night when I've had school in the morning.
To be honest, the only nights I've recalled dreams properly have been on weekend days. How awkward ;(

Originally Posted by rampage

I started trying to lucid dream over the Easter holidays and found that I was able to recall two or three dreams a night. Now that I have returned to school I have found that my dream recall has taken a turn for the worse; sometimes I remember one dream a night and sometimes I don't. Is there anything I can do to get my recall back to what it was?

School is stressfull. Dream recall suffers at the expense of stress, so technically, school IS bad for recall.

I agree. School distracts you and adds stress. Stress, I think is a MAJOR factor. For instance, I don't have any lds over winter break due to Christmas time stress, but almost every other break I have had at least one ld.

I also think that stress can induce dry streaks. Sometimes when I have alot of projects (sometimes I have at least one per accedimec class at a time because I am in gifted) I don't have good recall or any dreams for up to 2 weeks afterwards.

Like the above posters, I think school is horrible for your recall.

For me, I get too much homework and I have to study a lot of material so I'm usually exhausted once I'm finished and don't atempt to try any Ld techniques. Or sometimes I decide to go back to sleep when attempting a WILD with WBTB because I'm too tired or forget why my alarm went off.

Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

Yes! School is bad for recall. Especially if you were like me and stayed up well past midnight and still had to wake up around 7am. Here are two suggestions:

1) This is obvious. Go to bed earlier.
2) Set your alarm clock to go off every hour after 6 hours. I tell a lot of people this but it really works. If all goes well you should remember a dream every hour on. If you sleep in expect 4-6+ dreams.

Well, give it a try at least.

Whoa, dude! That's a f***ing great idea! I've been having shitty recall as of late, but having a surplus of lucids. But because of the recall, the lucids are only the realization, after that I don't remember anything. And plus that means my recall won't rely on my ability to journal in the morning, I can do it much earlier. If this works, 9001 internetz are yours!

man, this is depressing. especially for those of us who are just getting into LDing and going to school. and especially those of us who dont want to set our damn alarms every 6 hours.

Originally Posted by xerod1

man, this is depressing. especially for those of us who are just getting into LDing and going to school. and especially those of us who dont want to set our damn alarms every 6 hours.

Hey, don't look at it that way! The glass is half full - if your recall is bad, it's probably because of school. Just keep trying and enjoy the weekends of great recall! Look at all the great lucid dreamers who can LD every day. They work, they go to school, etc. School certainly hurts recall, but perhaps recognizing and addressing this issue will help moreso than if we ignored it...

You don't have to set your alarm every 6 hours, but it is a suggestion to help out with recall. Has anyone tried it yet? I'd like to hear its effectiveness.

IT is horrible D: On the holidays I can jump straight onto the computer to write down my dreams here. Now that school's on, I have to write it down somewhere, but I barely do because I hate writing them out (hurts my hand). In turn I usually end up forgetting them. Then there's also screwed up sleep pattern, and not getting enough sleep, which doesn't help much either.

Dream recall is worse if you have to wake up and go somewhere. You're usually waking to an alarm which can hurt recall. And even if there's no alarm, your first thought upon waking is usually, ah carp, I have to go to school, work, whatever.

It's much easier to remember your dreams if you can wake up on your own, peacefully, and lie there and go back through them in your head.

So if there really is somewhere you have to go, it's best to go to bed early enough that you can awake when your body is ready and have time to lie there and remember your dreams without rushing to get wherever you have to go.

I have no recall on mondays!!

More evidence for this is mounting every day! After recalling only 11 dreams throughout the entire week, I could recall 9 on Saturday! That's almost a week's worth of dream recall, all in one night! Go figure...

Hmm, odd, for me, my dream recall is considerably better during the week. I guess it's because I sleep earlier than most people on weekdays, and I get up early on weekends.