Dream recall without Dream journal

[Iwon]

Hey! I just wanna ask you if you have the same dream memory as me. About a month ago i started getting in to Lucid dreaming and dreaming in general, I started write and dream journal but then stopped after a while. I' still on "rock bottom" because I don't remember dreams everyday but when I do I remember my dreams vividly without writing it down. All I do is staying in bed a few minutes recalling and I remember my dreams with such a vividness it's incredible. I thought that maybe it is because the latests dream I've been dreaming has been in an place like at my house,my room or anywhere where I offen am in real life. Do I have an unordinary dreaming memory? Do you also remember your dreams without writing them down?

[JoannaB]

I don't think that memory works the same for all people and at all times in their lives. A dream journal is a useful tool not just for dream recall but as a message to one's mind that dreams matter and to enable better pattern analysis across different dreams. However, yes sometimes I have remembered dreams in detail without dream journal in the past, just never regularly, whereas dream journal has increased the frequency of dreams that I recall. My dream recall seems to fluctuate a lot even with dream journal though.

[Zoth]

Dream journal is a reinforcer, nothing more. The reason why you see so many people advocating it it's because recalling a dream is one thing...remembering it later is far different. The reason we don't recall dreams is due the "neuro-soup" present in our mind during dreaming. That specific chemistry that we possess is responsible for the initial fog when we just wake up. Of course if you include higher levels of sleep inertia, the less chance you'll have to remember them. Now, when you wake up, you can basically stick them in your short-term memory until you write them down. And that's why we use a dream journal: to make sure we don't end up forgetting our dreams later. Why does a DJ seem to help then? Simple: association. You associate the habit of recalling to the habit of writing your dreams down, but the first can be achieved just with a simple intention of recalling them. Many people go to bed and think "I'll remember my dreams when I wake up" while visualizing themselves writing them down. The deal is, you're must likely to fill in more details if you write the dream down than if you simple recall it. And dream recall is most useful when you can access the dreams at a later point Conclusion: don't assume your Dream journal only function is helping you recall dreams. You won't get much help for things like dream signs or other sort of dream insight if you don't write them down Moving this to Dream signs and Recall.

[Scionox]

Some epic dreams i can easily recall for days, it was even before i started DJ, i think i even recall one or two dreams from when i was 6 or so. But even with DJ my recall is pretty chaotic and all over the place so far. So uh. But as JoannaB said, dream journal exists not only to boost recall, but the whole writing/typing and analyzing dreams, as well as thinking about lucidity during it, increases chances for lucidity as well, that's why dream journal is so important. *Moved to Dream signs and recall* EDIT: zoth00 be

[matthewebbert]

When I don't have time / am too lazy to write down my dreams, I usually just commit them in my memory. you just need to remember some of the kye events and try to recall it... i think its a easy technique..

[Sirocco]

I didn't have a dream journal until a couple of yrs ago, and even then, I didn't really need to write them down to remember them. In fact, I don't even write down ALL my dreams; just the ones I consider "cool enough" to record. Otherwise, I'd spend far too long on an almost daily basis doing this. Furthermore, I sometimes don't even write things down until days, or weeks later. I find that allowing for some extra time sometimes allows for some odd details or realizations to come back. I find that it's definitely nice to keep one, particularly during times where the wells have been running dry, and you need a little bit of inspiration from your past self to get the gears going once again!

[Sensei]

I have had 1 dream every single night forever. I jumped it up to 6 dreams a night DJing (check DJ in sig). I now don't use a DJ, because I have better ways of recalling them. I think that at least until you can remember 2+ dreams a night you should keep a DJ. Sounds to me like you have normal recall with not remembering and then one night having excellent recall. If you keep the same hours every night your recall should go up (the hours of the nights that you remember dreams), because you are probably just waking up during REM at that time, which is the easiest time to remember. Sleep the same 8 hours every night, think about your dreams. That is the key to recall. DJing helps to think about them more than anything.