Thread: I was so close!

I read that dreams don't get stored in your long term memory unless you make the effort to go over them in your mind as you remember them, essentially copying them to your long term memory. Writing them down works well not only because you then have a written reference, but because you think faster than you write/type. I've ditched my written dream journal in favour of replaying the dream over in my head a couple of times when I wake during the night and typing it up in the morning or afternoon, which works but I find the discipline that comes from mid-night writing gave me better results, so I will probably return to it.

What I do is my phone is always on my bed. If I happen to wake up after a dream, I usually write down the time, and some key notes. Then when I wake up in the morning, I'll glance at the notes, fill in the gaps, and write down any other dreams I had in my phone. I'm lazy and keep them in my phone to write down on paper "later", lol. I spent an hr writing down about 15 dreams that I had saved as drafts in my phone, haha!

So for an example, here's how I layout my stuff:

Date (day of sleep and day waking up, though I usually don't go to sleep until after 12, but w/e. It works). Time I go to sleep (about). Time (If I wake up from a dream). The times are supposed to help me find how long it takes for me to enter REM, but it's never worked for me... and haven't really used it how I wanted to use it, but still do it for record keeping purposes. I should really use it. I usually have my dreams in the early morning, so don't wake up often

7/6-7. 12. 5. [I didn't wake up after it, but using as an example]. Ashley's house [friend]. Calander. Star Trek. Transporter. Hand messed up. LD! Fix hand.

Then, using those key words, I'd fill everything else in in the morning:

At Ashley xxxxxxx's house. Checking out her room, small, yellows. See a calendar and flip through it. People’s pictures on their birthday. Some look like Mai xxxxxxxxx, Josh, and Chingy. Then I’m at some business place. Star Trek like. I’ve just come through a transporter and my fingers get messed up so try to transport only my hand to fix them. Count my fingers by sight but miscount, so move them as I count and count 7(2 completely extra) and become lucid! Doesn’t hold and I lose lucidity but keep dreaming. Try to fix my hand again, but doesn’t work. Count fingers(same as before) and I have 6(coming out the middle of a finger, but seems to be like it was a pin and not actually attached), become lucid again! Start to lose lucidity again. Dream fades into a poor video quality look and darkening. I’m looking at a girl. Then back into dream and my fingers are fixed. Hit on girl working at the computer bank [lol]

However, like I said, I rarely wake up after a dream, so I'm usually stuck remembering 2-4 dreams and writing them down at once, lol

I have found that once you wake up, keep your eyes closed and think about the dream and what happened to solidify it further. It seems once I open my eyes, I start to lose it (depending)

As for keeping focus, I've heard of people rubbing their hands, saying "stabilize" or "clarity", RC... I'm sure there's more, but find something good. In one LD I shouted "stabilize/ clarity" and it worked

Sorry I've kind of just yammered on, lol. Hope something helps