Thread: How Good Was Your Recall

Originally Posted by eggbert

Hello there.
How good was your recall before having your first LD?
How is your dream recall after having a bunch of LD's?
I have been trying to have an LD for quite some time, and I'm trying to figure
out what my problem is.

I usually remember about 3 snippets of dreams
per week, although Its much easier to remember them while doing WBTB,
and I recall a bunch that I forget later. I do journal most of the dream snippets I recall.

Thanks!
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Before I had my first LD I started to improve my dream recall (often by going up in the middle of the night and write down all of my dreams). I can't say my dream recall has improved since I started having LD's but having a good recall is still an important milestone on your way to LD's.

If you think it's hard to go up in the middle of the night and document your dreams, buy yourself a dictaphone. That way you can document your dreams still in bed and write them down in the morning. The way I understand it, everybody wakes up a few times every night, problem is, most people don't realize this but simply go back to sleep. To overcome this myself I always tell myself every night before I go to sleep that I will recognize when I wake up and remember any dream I've had (this works in 99% of the cases). I document about 2-3 dreams every night.

I've always had excellent dream recall. I've been keeping dream journals since I was about 9 years old. My dream recall now is pretty good, but I can't remember any dreams I had last night at all. I had an LD 2 nights ago, but I doubt that had something to do with it haha.

i remember usually 1-2 dreams a night. somtimes 3 and on rare occasions 4+

if dream recall is anything like memory, one word descibes mine, and that word is godlike. i can remember almost anything i see/hear/am told. the only problem with my dream recall is, that i don't have dreams to recall. if people had a memory like mine, i doubt they would need a dream journal in the first place.

That's not true. Everybody dreams. You just don't seem to remember. Memory of the waking life and of dreams are two different things.

hmm, could it be that my dreams are just so ordinay that i just choose to forget them? if it interests me, i am not likely to forget things.

So am I. xD This is why I purposely forget some dreams over the coarse of the night.

my dream recall is usually quite good by its standards and I havent had any LD's yet but If I move around too much I tend to slowly forget them which is weird cuz whenever I wake up or get woken up I'm usually quite forgetfull like say if some one rings me up like 11:00am (I usually sleep till 2:00pm aaah gotta love the freedom of being unemployed) I commonly forget the phonecall or the conversation I just had! o.O

Yeah man 3 snippets of dreams a week is not good heh, you got a ways to go. I wouldn't say I have good recall, and I usually remember 1 dream start-finish (like a story), and then snippets of previous dreams that night. That's on an average night. My dream recall has gone downhill, if anything, after I started having LDs. I got lazy and stopped journaling except when I had really cool dreams.

Define "quite some time", because it took me a couple weeks to start getting any kind of respectable recall (I started off never remember any dreams whatsoever) - and by that I mean like maybe a couple snippets a night. If you've been trying for months or something, I suggest trying something different. Anything different, because whatever you're doing now obviously isn't working Try waking up in the middle of the night (try telling yourself "I will wake up at 4am", it'll be much less abrasive than an alarm clock) to record dreams, or anything else.

I dunno dude, just

lol ya.. I think I may be making this alot more complicated than it needs
to be. I think ill try the techniques in the book "Lucid Dreaming" by
Stephen Laberge. They are very simple, and simplicity might just do the trick.

Thanks for the replies!

You probably already know this but i'll tell you exactly what i do, and it increased my dream recall from 0 to 2-8 a night: Get enough sleep 5-9 hours. Keep a dream journal. Take B6 a few times a week. Wake yourself 90 minutes before you usually get up. Then every night before bed, read about 4 or 5 dreams from your journal. I've also noticed that if I try and recall what i've done throughout the day it helps me recall dreams from a start to finish kind of perspective. I don't know if that all makes sense, but thats what works for me.

And some dreams you just don't WANT to remember. Like tonight, I woke up feeling truly sad after a dream I had where my parents died. This particular dream I decided not to write down, and I'm glad I didn't because now I only remember that I had a dream about it (not the details that got me sad )

The most important thing is that you try to document your dreams one way or another. My experience is that you can't stop doing that even after you start getting LD's. Regular dreams can also be quite amusing to analyse and look back at. Some of mine (especially the ones coming in the morning) can be quite long and I even had one where it was like watching a film. After the happy ending the credit text rolled on. It was so hilarious I woke up laughing. If I hadn't developed a good dream recall that "film" might have slipped by "unnoticed".

Good luck on that dream recall eggbert!!

Well I remember some of last nights. I woke up just a tad before I usually wake up(I think) as my darn iPod alarm didn't work (usually does) what I did was right after waking up, im like darn, its not 4:30, then im like o ya, recall.

So I recalled key points, something about sneaking around somones house, and then they find us see if we know them by how many kittens there cat had, not knowing them, I cleverly guess 'none' which was right... lol weird.

I then dropped off avout 30 sec later. Seemed like that worked; even though I didn't write it down or anything, just woke up and recalled. Some just come back by themselves though, like I was looking at some
big headphones, and then remembered a dream about my rotund uncle on a bus handing me his bose quietcomforts (though he doesnt have any) to try out.

Hopefully this works again tonight!

Well it seems my recall is getting much better.
I remembered at least snippets of dreams 4 night in a row!
I think thats a record for me... Thanks!