Pluses and Minuses of Dream Recall

[JoannaB]

I have decided that improved dream recall has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include: I strongly believe that my moods during the waking day are influenced by my dreams whether I recall them or not, and so it is nice to know why one is grumpy for example. Of course, dream recall is essential for lucid dreaming, and LD is awesome. Dream recall allows me to interpret my own dreams, gain a better understanding of myself and the issues my mind is struggling with or what it is excited about. Disadvantages include: By recalling dream fragments that were not meant to be recalled, I am putting a greater weight on what may actually be non-issues, over analyzing, and spending more time on a piece of info than it warrants. For example: my dream where in the dream my mind asked the question whether seasonal hunting is cruel, and answered it with "no." I was ready to move on and not ponder this issue further, but by recalling this dream fragment, writing it down, and analyzing it, I have spent more time, coming up with a more nuanced answer to this question - in reality, I do not hunt and neither does anyone I know, and so this should be a non-issue for me. So my waking mind is now distracted with a non-issue (unlike usual when I always focus on only essential stuff - yea, right!) What do you think about advantages and disadvantages of dream recall? EDIT: Only after writing this did I finally understand why I dreamed about whether or not seasonal hunting is cruel, and it's not a trivial issue for me after all! Which totally negates my "disadvantage of dream recall": We have an aquarium and fish are our pets. And yet during the summer my sons like to fish for sport, throwing the fish back in. This is great fun for them and I enjoy watching them have fun. I know that last year I struggled with whether or not to talk to them about the fact that this is scary for the fish and hurts them. Now that summer vacation is coming up, my mind needed to resolve this issue, and apparently it decided that it is ok to fish for fun and have fish as pets. So dream recall did not blow a non-issue out of proportion here. So maybe this is not a disadvantage after all. Are there any disadvantages?

[Scionox]

I don't think there are any disadvantages unless you are writing dream journal, in which case the only disadvantage is that it takes time, and it can be 'fixed' by planning out the day better, you are just thinking about it too much i guess.

[JoannaB]

No, I am not thinking about it too much! I am beginning to realize that there is no such thing as over thinking an issue! Perhaps if I spend a vast majority of time pondering the importance of trivial nonsense, I shall finally arrive at a significant insight that would elude me if my mind were better at prioritizing its focus. Now back to contemplating the significance of fish for the survival of the human race! 42

[Sensei]

Yeah, I would say that the only disadvantage is time, but I don't even take the time anymore because I have found out that other techniques work better for recall for me. Advantages for LDing are: Increased amount of tries to LD. Increased awareness Increased vividness

[Linkzelda]

Yeah, I would say that the only disadvantage is time, but I don't even take the time anymore because I have found out that other techniques work better for recall for me. I agree completely that time is really the only disadvantage to sustain dream recall. Even if you think you'll have trivial nonsense or speculating too much on how hard you hammered banana to a wall or how much you savored eating a camera that tasted like Escargot, it's just really time and your attention span to put as much effort as you can. Sometimes the recall gets so exhausting that your fingers can't type everything at once. All I can say is that you make do with the time you have and do your best. If you can't recall everything, just jot down quick notes of anything else you didn't have time for. Chances are, if you go back to that dream that you put so much effort into recalling, you're going to remember how you felt before when typing in, and potentially remember the other dreams you put on reserve.