Venting a bit

The last 15 days, I have been practicing MILD based on Naiya's Simple MILD guide. I admit, I wasn't doing it 100% perfectly, but I have been journaling daily. Sunday night, I recalled a good bit a dreams, but I made a rookie move and waited a bit to jot down notes. Naturally, no dreams were recalled after a few minutes.

Last night, I was also a bit more focused, and even started practicing a few dream signs (walking through doors I would do RCs; walking around I would check my breathing limits). Last night, I had very few dreams recalled, and by the time I woke up, I had no recall.

It's really frustrating and a minor setback. I am going to up my recall, sleep earlier tonight, and try to prepare my journal a bit more.

This is mostly just me saying this out loud, but are there any other tips to jogging my memory? I contemplated meditating a bit to see if I can recall anymore dreams from last night.

Yeah my recall tends to get worse as I try harder to LD! Good luck!

Dont force lucid dreaming, know you will have it, dont go 'I NEED ONE TONIGHT I MUST HAVE A LUCID DREAM'. Just do simple mantras and know they work and will up your recall.

Yeah, I think that is my biggest problem.

I attempted to WILD earlier, got into either SP or a false awakening, then wasn't sure how to transition. I tried to open my dream eyes, but they felt too much like my real eyes, same with turning over. I basically wasn't sure what to do, and then I got into these really vivid, albeit cartoony dreams. It's a process.

Read the dreams you have written down in your dream journal before bed, think about your dreams often, try to find similarities between dreams you've had. Works for me. As stated before in this thread dont force yourself to lucid dream, you'll burn out your enthusiasm when you don't have them.

It's important to practice confidence, but don't start saying things like "I'm so gonna remember my dreams tonight!!" It might sound productive at first, but if you end up not remembering anything, it can do more harm than good because you wake up a bit disappointed. Practice being more observant and mindful of what's happening around you, making mental notes of things and essentially practice waking memory. Doing this, along with waking up in the middle of the night to record dreams, and lying still in bed after waking to catch any fading recollections, can really help.

Good luck.