Dream

I don't even enter dreams very often! How can I increase the amount of dreams I have?

Well, it appears to me that your problem isn't with how many dreams you have, as you can't even count how many you have each night - what I mean is, you're not remembering the dreams you've been having, my friend! A common mistake, easily remedied; work on your recall. Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up (as often as you possibly can during the night) strain to remember every last little detail of the dream or dreams you just had. Like most anything, recall builds and improves with practice, and suffers without being exercised.

Practice remembering anything at all from your sleeping experience, you'll start to remember some dreams. :) How many hours of sleep do you get each night?

I had the same problem about a week ago, but then I decided to get back into lucid dreaming and back onto this forum, so I started to wwork on dream recall. The first night, I remembered a few small chunks of a dream after telling myself that I would wake up after every dream. Then, the next night, I remembered more. The night after taht, I remembered two fooo dreams.

My point is that you should jus tmake a simple goal for youself to remeber a dream one nightand it will work.


Clyde, what difference does amount of sleep make on recall? Just wondering-does it make recall better or is it that dreams become longer?

The more sleep you get, the better your recall is going to be. Dream length is determined by if you sleep all the way through a REM phase or not, meaning that if you have 8 hours of sleep or less, it's very unlikely you'll have any one dream that, in real-world time, lasts beyond an hour. In a way, sleeping more can make dreams longer, because in the morning when you're getting close to having 7 or 8 hours of sleep, you'll have more frequent REM phases of sleep, where your dreams usually occur. Therefore, your dreams may seem longer, and at some point will actually be longer due to the increased amount of REM sleep you're getting that late into your sleep cycle. I've had many vivid dreams and lucid dreams after intentionally getting more than 8 hours of sleep. If you're having trouble remembering your dreams, get more sleep than is necessary!

By the way, welcome back to the boards and to the world of lucid dreams, Motley. :shadewink:

Thanks for the long message, very informative.

The last time I ws goind this, i never understood how REM periods become longer if we sleep in 1.5 hour intervals. How does that work?

I've never heard of that specifically, but I'll bet the answer to that is REM rebound. You make yourself lose sleep by sleeping in an odd way like that, and later on (after you're done sleeping in 1.5 hour intervals and let yourself sleep normally) your body will try to compensate for that lost sleep by giving you more REM sleep than you usually get. Thus, REM rebound. :)

Sleep periods are 90 min, and every 90 min the stages of sleep restart. REM is one of those stages, and it ends every 90 min. Is that what you mean?

But then if what horsey said was true, how do REM periods get longer?

Well the 90 min period remains, but the REM phase gets longer near the morning; you spend more time in REM per 90 min cycle later in the night.

Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying.