Thread: What the hell happened to my recall?

Originally Posted by jahnauasca

It's been two weeks since I've been able to write down a dream. Once I decided I wanted to become lucid I was able to wake and write down my dreams at least twice a night. Now nothing. Is it possible to plateau in dream work as it is in body conditioning?

Woah, I've been having the same problem!

Now, do you remember them at all? Because I only seem to remember like one. And somtimes it's vivid, mostly not though.

trouble shooting

-waking up earlier?

-going to bed later?

-stressed?

-got lazy with the journal and went downhill from there?

-got distracted with things outside of 'lucid dreaming?'

Originally Posted by james-25:22pm

trouble shooting

-waking up earlier?

-going to bed later?

-stressed?

-got lazy with the journal and went downhill from there?

-got distracted with things outside of 'lucid dreaming?'

Thanks! Those are all good tips.
The journal one is one that has particularly got me in a rut. I would write in it more, but my dreams are either to veg to document, or non-exsistant. I dunno.

Originally Posted by james-25:22pm

trouble shooting

-waking up earlier?

-going to bed later?

-stressed?

-got lazy with the journal and went downhill from there?

-got distracted with things outside of 'lucid dreaming?'

ok, here's the deal, I'm finally in a place of lower stress. I go to bed at about the same time every night. The past 12 days I have been waking up at exactly 6:07, three minutes before my alarm goes off.
I was very diligent with my journal up till the point where I went dry.

Dry-spells without recall happen to me every so often. It's really annoying, but it always passes.

thanks to everyone for the advice. just like at cat... it came back

It's good that is has come back

Just like Moonbeam said, dry spells just happen, nothing you can do about it really except move on from it.

yea happened to me too, I had one stressful weekend, where I didn't really write down dreams from friday to yesterday because I was having a little too much fun to alleviate the stress, if you know what I mean. I remembered a little bit more today, but it sucks because I was getting up to 3 1/2 pages a night. Hopefully it'll come back even more tonight and I'll be able to pick up my lucid dreaming attempts more.

I don't know wtf is wrong with me either. I'll wake up at several points during the night, knowing that I just had a really long dream. But I can not remember any details of it. Maybe one thing that I was dreaming the instant before I woke up. It's been 4 days in a row. This hasn't happened to me since I started with LDing. I've had a hard time becoming lucid, but never until now have I been so long without even remembering

Originally Posted by unseen wombat

I don't know wtf is wrong with me either. I'll wake up at several points during the night, knowing that I just had a really long dream. But I can not remember any details of it. Maybe one thing that I was dreaming the instant before I woke up. It's been 4 days in a row. This hasn't happened to me since I started with LDing. I've had a hard time becoming lucid, but never until now have I been so long without even remembering

What has changed? Are your sleeping habits the same (retiring and waking)? Are you feeling well or under stress of some kind?

If it makes you feel any better, I too have days where I KNOW that I was just dreaming but as soon as I try to grasp just the "tip" of it.. the whole dream seems to evaporate from my mind.

Perhaps you're worrying too much about trying to remember them?

I do know that sleeping longer helps greatly with my recall.

ok, here's the deal, I'm finally in a place of lower stress. I go to bed at about the same time every night. The past 12 days I have been waking up at exactly 6:07, three minutes before my alarm goes off.
I was very diligent with my journal up till the point where I went dry.

this has been happening to me too! i've been waking up 3 to 4 minutes for 3:00 and i've been tempted to not use the alarm and try to FILD.

This happened to me too about 2 weeks ago! I was SO frustrated! I kept waking up and not remembering a single detail about any of my dreams. For awhile I thought it was just because I wasn't getting enough sleep (around 5-6). But then a couple of days I got 11-12 hours of sleep, and I still found it hard to remember anything.
I thought I might have just dropped my habit of writing down dreams after 3 months, and I just had to concentrate harder on it, but that didn't help. After 2 weeks though, I finally started remembering them more and more and was able to write down a page to a page and a half at a time again.

It's good to know I'm not the only one going through some dry spells!

I'm not sure if this makes any difference, but I did get really drunk the night before this dry spell happened, and I haven't really drank much at all since.

I'm having a dry spell again. But I'm not giving it much attention (outside of this post of course ) I think like all things related to being a human being, not having dream recall is occasional and possible cyclic.

i've been having problems recalling my dreams too and I haven't had any changes in my sleeping hours. I just can't understand why i'm not able to recall anything, it's really frustrating. But after reading this thread, I think im just in a dry spell hope to be out of it soon!

I think in my case it was because I was about to get sick. Once I actually got sick, the recall came back, and now that it's over, I'm doing better again.

Or, it may just have been a cyclic thing and went away on its own.

Originally Posted by james-25:22pm

trouble shooting

-waking up earlier?

-going to bed later?

-stressed?

-got lazy with the journal and went downhill from there?

-got distracted with things outside of 'lucid dreaming?'

No, no, no, no and no. I've been having problems with my recall lately although not as bad. When I started on my quest for lucid dreaming (again) my dream recall quickly shot up from 0 to 1-2 a night (usually just one) but now it's gone down the toilet and I haven't been able to record a dream in 4 days. I want to stop this before it gets worse. Any other advice?

I mean beyond "these things happen" and as for what Clairity said, I think I get plenty of sleep, usually 8 1/2-9 hours

I've been having a dry-spell myself. I guess i've just been getting lazy with the journal.
Last night I remember a few dreams and wrote a whole page on them!
I did not do anything different ether, didnt focous on remembering or anything. I think its just a thing that happens to everyone, and will come back eventually.

If your intent on remembering the dreams now, heres one tip I used to get started..

Get a cell phone alarm, or alarm clock ect. and set it to go off around 90-110 min after you go to sleep. (just in case you do not fall asleep right away)

Put the alarm across the room, so you have to get up to turn it off.

Set your journal on top of the alarm so you have to pick it up to turn the alarm off.

If all went well, you should have entered REM sleep as the alarm went off, and should have started, or just finished, dreaming and the dream should be fresh in your head.

Quickly write the dream down, or just put inportant details so you can remember it later.

Now reset the alarm for another 90 minutes and go back to bed. You should wake up again, while dreaming, and remember it.


I tried this when I first wanted to establish dream recall, and I worked really well. My cell phone let me set 3 different alarms, so I didnt have to keep setting it. I remembered six dreams that night.
Besides remembering my dreams, I did not feel any more tired than normal, but if you think it might make you tired, be sure to try this on a weeked, or a day off.

Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions, and send me some feed-back if it worked or not.


Edit: "3. If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream in a more vivid way than you would if you woke from a full night sleep."

It's very hard to pin down the causes or non-causes for dream recall but I am inclined to agree with others in that it will come back, just give it time right now.

as for me, i've been having a hard time with my dream recall too, and this makes my motivation to pursue LD's go down the toilet. For a time I just stoped thinking about it, and didn't care anymore, then woops, my recall came back, just like that. I think the best thing is to stop worrying about it, don't make it into such a big deal, and don't try too hard! I don't think u can just force recall, it has it's own little world

I don't know if this is the way to go, I am not an expert and everybody should to what they think is the best for them. anyways it worked for me. And I think it's an important thing not to get to stressed up about it, especially if ur new to this. These things will happen sooner or later to almost everyone.


P.s sorry if my spelling's bad, I am swedish u know d.s

well, it took forever but i finally got it back

Originally Posted by Through the Looking Glass

well, it took forever but i finally got it back

Told you so.

Here are some things which work for me...

When regaining consciousness (waking up)- don't move! Allow time for the memories to percolate through to your waking consciousness. Ideally you aren't using an alarm that you have to turn off.

Form some key idea for each dream memory to help recall the entire dream.

If you forgot them when you woke up, lie back down in bed and clear your mind sometimes the unconscious memory isn't as "loud" as your waking thoughts. If I provide a little space for them by clearing my mind, they percolate up..

Mine better come back soon, I haven't been able to remember anything except lucid for the last month. It's terrible...