Mnemnoic Based Dream Recall--How to dream journal without writing a single word

Introduction

Let me make a confession. I have never kept a physical dream journal until now. I have had no need, because of an easy-to-learn personal recall technique which I will share with y'all today.

The two main applications of this technique are:

1. When you wake up at night, remember the dream without getting out of bed (or even moving) to write down the dream
2. Creating a mental dream journal which takes a LOT less effort than writing down every single dream

Preperation

Remember the layout of a shopping centre you frequently visit. Imagine walking into one of the entrances. What are the first ten shops you see? Once you can answer this, you are ready to use mnemonics to record dreams.

Record dreams without moving

I'm sure this scenario is familiar to lucid dreamers: You wake up in the middle of the night. You are too tired to get up and write down your most recent dream, or you cannot sacrifice precious sleep time because you must wake up for school/work tomorrow. What do you do?

Use mnemonic based recall!

First, make sure you have mentally recalled as much of the dream as you can remember. After that, bring up the mental image of the shopping center. What's the store closest to the entrance? Conjure up one item that would be sold in that shop.

For example, if the shop closest to the entrance is a sushi bar, i imagine a sushi roll lying on the counter.

After you have chosen an item, somehow connect that item to the FIRST thing you remember from your dream. My favorite linking image is having somebody pick up the item and throw it "into the dream"

Example: Pretend the first thing I remember in the dream is talking to a DC. I imagine a sushi chef walking in, picking up the sushi roll and throwing it in the air. The sushi travels across the air and the scene changes. The sushi roll lands on the DC's head. Then I run the dream through from start to finish in my mind.

When you wake up in the morning, imagine the shopping center again. Picture yourself going to the first shop you see. You will find that you easily will recall the item associated with that shop, and thus the dream scene associated with the item. Once you remember the first scene, the whole dream usually floods into your memory, or you can chronologically re-piece the dream.

The next time you recall a dream, repeat the steps, but use a different shop. A shopping center would usually contain over 50 different stores, so one location can store over 50 dreams.

This technique has a 100% success rate for me, given that I don't fall asleep while performing the visualizations.

You don't have to write your dreams down!

The best thing about this technique is that it makes writing down dreams unnecessary. The mental shopping center acts as a dream diary. To recall dreams take a "Mental walk" through the shopping center, recalling the dream associated with each shop. To make a new "diary entry", simply associate a dream with another location.

Thanks for reading. Using mnemonics is a difficult to explain technique, but very easy to learn.

Wow, you have a very good memory, but not everybody has your ability.

No disrespect to you guide, but writing your dreams down serves more purposes than to have a record of your dream. And forgive me, but having a record of all my dreams only in my mind doesn't seem like such a good idea, even if I could achieve it.

Nothing beats the ability to flip through pages of your paper DJ or read through your dreams you store on your PC, even decades from now. You can find patterns, identify connection of daytime activities/stress to your dream/recall, find out the best time for a WBTB or a nap, ideal number of hours of sleep, keep track of any supplements, re-read your dreams to get yourself motivated, write down other cool related stuff like transition efects, and many other reasons.

And more time you spend on writing or thinking about your dreams, the better your mind understands, that they are important to you. So I don't mind writing in my DJ and I encourage everybody who wants to better his recall to do the same.

I agree that a DJ is helpful, gab. Now, i'm recording all my lucid and interesting non-lucid experiences, and started a DV dream journal. However, when you start remembering multiple dreams a night, it becomes a pain to write it all down. Also, exceptional memory is not required for this technique. Ordinary people can use mnemonics to do perform extraordinary feats of memory (eg. remember a string of 100 numbers) with a few days of training.

Edit* I realized my guide sounds like I am putting down the notion of keeping a physical dream journal. That was not my intention and i'll edit it later.

Ahhh. When I read it, I was thinking you meant this technique is used for the recalling itself, then writing them later. That IS what you meant, right? :D

This seems a variation of one of the most powerful memorie techniques known to man so far, called Method of loci

Basically, the use of specific locations to "store" the rest of the memories has a great effect, because spational memory has been proven by studies that is our best kind of memory.
This is also the technique used by memory champions, and it even led a simple journalist to win the memory award when he just joined the contest for fun.

Nice job :)

I have read about this memorization technique or whatever it is called, but had never thought about using it to recall dreams. Definitely gonna try this.

Yep, this is basically method of loci applied to dreams :) Writing down your dreams are optional, but highly recommended for interesting, vivid or lucid dreams. You'll find that, as zoth said, method of loci is very powerful and the memory of your dream will last a long time

you use the same method I use. it's a well known memory improver method, I don't use a store but objects in my home, with a little variation: after estabilished an association with the dream I construct a "chain" that helps me in reconstructing the dream. for instance if in the dream I start fighting aliens, then having a drink in a pub and at least having a conversation with einstein, I associate my home's object with an alien, then I imagine in the alien's head a cup of beer, from wich a little mushroom cloud emerges.

I think Paige yemps is right. Thad what I was thinking to. Im definately going to try this out.

Great post ....gonna try this tonight !!