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The first step to having lucid dreams is to remember your dreams in general (if you can't remember your lucid dreams, what's the point?). It's a common misconception that lucid dreaming will automatically cause you to remember. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Lucid dreams can be easily forgotten, even if the experience was significant and meaningful. This is just the nature of dreaming and how our brains work while we're asleep. We're physiologically wired to forget, regardless of our awareness.

The good news is, there's easy ways to train your mind to start recalling your dreams. Once you start training yourself to recall dreams consistently, it gets easier and more "natural." This is a skill you can develop to override the brain's default tendency to forget, allowing for permanent, effortless recall habits over time.

This guide will teach you different ways (besides just journaling) to remember dreams and experience them presently in vivid detail.
If your goal is lucid dreaming, recall guides should be paired with lucid dreaming method guides. Here's two good ones I recommend:
MILD: https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/
WILD: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...d-guide-94340/


But what if I don't have dreams at all? It's not that I can't remember them...
You'd be surprised what can be forgotten in sleep! Most people who say they have no dreams simply have poor recall. Once recall is developed, they report having dreams!
If you suspect you are a rare case and that you literally don't have dreams at all (nothing to recall), talk to your doctor. Lack of recall is normal, but true lack of dreams is a serious medical concern that this guide can't help with.

How many dreams should I be able to remember?
It's recommended that you get yourself to a point where you can remember 1-3 dreams per night. It doesn't have to be every single night (it's normal to have lapses in recall sometimes), but consistently remembering 1-3 dreams on average gives you 1-3 chances to have lucid dreams on average. The more you can remember, the more opportunities you'll have for lucid dreams.

How long will it take?
It may take days or weeks to start seeing results from your recall training if you have low recall to start with, but once you get the ball rolling, it gets easier.

What can recall help with?
Recall does more than just improve your memory of dreams. Here's a list of other benefits:
1. Makes your dreams more vivid and detailed. Many people notice significant improvements to vividness of dreams after developing better recall. It turns out that their dreams were always highly vivid and detailed—they just couldn't remember those details! Lack of recall is one of the most common causes of non-vivid dreams.
2. Increases your sense of presence in the moment during dreams. Instead of feeling like a memory, you will start to experience dreams more like real time occurrence just like you experience your waking life.
3. Increases your chances of becoming lucid. As your perception of dreams shifts from past memories to present experiences, you'll be primed for higher rates of present-moment awareness (aka lucid dreaming). Even though recall isn't considered a lucid dreaming method, it can greatly enhance your practice.
4. Allows you to notice dream signs that can be used for MILD (a lucid dreaming technique). If you're working with MILD, recall can help you apply this particular lucid dreaming technique with greater effectiveness.
5. Allows you to improve dream control of both lucid and nonlucid dreams through better understanding the way your dreams work, rewriting dreams, and incubating what you want to happen in future dreams.


How to Develop Recall

Recall Upon Waking
The first and biggest thing you can do for recall is to make it a habit to always think about your dreams the moment you wake up. Dreams will be fresh in your memory in the first few minutes (even seconds) upon waking. So before you get up to journal or go to work or school, devote a few minutes to thinking about your dreams in as much detail as possible. You should also make a habit of thinking about your dreams every time you wake up in the night. By training yourself to attempt remembering dreams 100% of the time when you first wake up, you can vastly increase your recall and even encourage lucidity close to these times.

Many people say it helps them to stay in bed laying in the same position they woke up in. This can help tremendously, but is not a requirement if you need to get up and do things. The important thing is that dreams are on your mind. I personally have a strict routine of thinking about dreams first thing when I get up. Though I may brush my teeth while doing it, I remain actively thinking about dreams for the first few minutes. When this is done consistently, you can remember hours worth of dreams without journaling or interfering with morning routines. It is by far one of the easiest hacks for dream recall.

If you only remember a fragment at first, that's okay! Most beginners start with fragments. Try to expand on it. Did anything happen before that? How did it look or feel? Sometimes memories can be recovered by slowly working your way backwards, or reflecting on various different senses, thoughts, and feelings. Approaching your memory from different angles can also help. See what you can dig up, as if you are trying to remember an important childhood memory or a crime scene. You may not instantly remember every detail, but they will slowly unravel the more you think about it. Writing it out can help, which is where journaling comes in.

Even if you don't remember anything at all, just the practice and intent of doing this every time you wake up eventually encourages your mind to start paying attention to dreams and, consequently, to actually start remembering them. Intent to remember itself is very powerful, and when intent is backed by consistent action, it's strengthened.

Dream Journaling
Dream journaling is a popular method of recall and supports the process of thinking about your dreams and unraveling the details. Best of all, it allows you to record dreams for later. Anything that you don't want to forget should be journaled. Journaling should be done after you wake up for the same reasons. You should first think about your dreams upon waking, then write them down, or think about them and write at the same time.

You can journal with any medium (pen and paper or your phone, it doesn't matter). The crucial part is that you think about your dreams and remember as much as you can. The physical way you go about this task doesn't matter as much. This is a mental practice.

It's recommended that you write out as much detail as you can remember, but if you can't do that in the moment, just writing down keywords is a powerful way to retain dream memories. Instead of writing a fully detailed entry, you can put down key words and phrases like 'ran outside, slayed dragon, ate peanutbutter' and then leave it at that or flesh out the details later. This can be helpful with WBTB (wake back to bed) or when you don't have time to dream journal right away.

Intention to Remember
As mentioned above, intention can be a powerful tool for recall. Before going to sleep, tell yourself that you'll remember your dreams upon waking. Imagine remembering your dreams the previous night, and what it may be like to remember them the following night. Walk yourself through the process of remembering dreams in your mind, and remind yourself that you'll remember to go through your dreams immediately upon waking up. Hype yourself up with the possibility that you might have a really good dream to recall.
Setting intention to remember your dreams can be done in the same way you set intention to get up early in the morning or do something like a household chore during the day.

Daytime Dream Recall
For even greater boosts to your recall practice, you can think about your dreams at any time of day (in addition to morning and nighttime wake-ups). Sometimes you can remember details of a dream in the middle of the afternoon. This is a great way to develop better recall! The more you remember to think about your dreams, the better. You can even combine this with lucid dreaming day practice such as ADA, SAT, or daytime MILD (works the same as regular MILD).

Daytime Waking Recall
If you still have trouble remembering any dreams whatsoever, it can help to develop better memory of your every day life. What did you have for breakfast? What were you doing ten minutes ago? Ask yourself about little things like this throughout you day to develop better recall habits that will carry over into your dreams. If you just wake up but can't remember any dreams at all even after a few minutes of trying, think back to what your last thoughts were before falling asleep. Keep walking yourself backwards until you remember something, anything at all.

Note: For convenience, you can combine this with daytime lucid dreaming awareness practice by asking yourself “Am I awake or in a dream currently?” whenever you do this. This is not required, but can cause lucid dreams if you decide to add it.

WBTB + Recall
WBTB stands for Wake Back to Bed and is another way to enhance your recall because it gives you more opportunities to remember dreams upon waking. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night (whether naturally or with alarms), you can practice thinking about your dreams as described above. This provides more chances to remember dreams, and can be done to capture early night dreams.

Normally the later night dreams are easier to remember simply because they are more recent from the moment you woke up, but by using WBTB, you can more easily recall early night dreams. This can also be combined with MILD or WILD lucid dreaming techniques.

In-dream Recall
Last but not least, recall can be done while still inside of your dreams. I recommend in-dream recall for people who already have good recall, or more frequent lucid dreamers. Although it's a misconception that lucidity will automatically be remembered, you can train yourself to make "notes" in your dreams (even dream journaling in your dreams) that can help cause meaningful activities to trigger the 'oh, I want to remember this later' intention. I've found that this works for both lucid and nonlucid dreams.

Here's some things you can do:
- Develop the habit of noting "I want to remember this when I wake up." any time something meaningful happens.
- Make a habit to journal (or think about) dreams at the end of each dream while you're still inside of it. Doing this consistently can be very powerful.
- Get into the habit of asking yourself what you were doing a few hours ago, to aid in retaining memories of previous dreams.
- Before you wake up, take a few minutes to think about the dream while still asleep even if the dream has ended (when and if you experience limbo states).


Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Should I write down nightmares?
A: That's up to you. If you don't want to, you don't need to. I personally (usually) skip writing down nightmares. Another way to handle this is to rewrite nightmares in a way you would prefer them to happen, which can cause positive changes to your future dreams.

Q: Can I rewrite my dreams?
A: Yes! This is handy if you had a dream you didn't like. You can rewrite it to incubate different results for next time.

Q: Can drugs or medications prevent dreaming?
A: Alcohol and THC are known to cause recall issues. There may be other medications that can also affect dreams and recall.

Q: If lucid dreams can be forgotten, how do I know whether I've had lucid dreams before?
A: You could already have had lucid dreams before without knowing it. There is no way to know, but you can start improving your recall to remember future lucid dreams so this will no longer happen.

Q: But how do you know that you forgot your lucid dreams?
A: Personally I notice it when recall chaining between dreams. For example:
Dream #1 is a lucid dream at the beginning of the night.
In Dream #2, I remember Dream #1.
In Dream #3, I no longer remember Dream #1, but can remember remembering it in Dream #2.
Thus a lucid dream is remembered indirectly as a memory of a memory, but otherwise forgotten.
I've also done a lot of other experiments to test out how dream recall works in different scenarios.