Hello Dreamviews,
First of all, regardless of the problems I am encountering now, this site and all of its members are amazing, there is no other place where I have learned so much, a big thanks for that :D of and sorry about the long post too xS I've tried to give as much information possible so It would make the situation clear.
Moving on to the actual reason for me posting a new thread, so as mentioned above I have some issues, about dreaming of course :P The main problem is that I don't seem to be able to recall nearly any dreams any more! Now I am open to any and all tips or advise, but do know that I didn't just post here because I had one week of bad dream recall. No I am talking about a time span of over a month and have tried many many things to fix things myself as you'll read below. Also I am not being too anxious about the problem, meaning that I don't think I am in a mental state of “Oh god why am I even trying, it's not going to work anyway!” every night, that which would definitely prevent me from having the results I am looking for. In the past there were times where I had tried to get into LDing, but my schedules at the time simply didn't allow it. So as I started college this year I've decided to give it another go and start fresh.
So some info about how I am tackling things as it is right now, to improve dream recall I have read numerous posts on the matter and from them have tried combinations of different techniques. I have a varied class schedule, so the time to wake up varies if I start early, nonetheless I go to bed each night around 22.30 – 23.00 and wake up around 07.00 – 07.30, on an early day I have to get up at 06.00 – 06.30. Unfortunately, I am still having a hard time adapting to the dynamic schedule and don't know if this is preventing me from having better dream recall.
As for alarms and sleeping environment, I have a decently comfortable bed and use an iHome alarm hooked up to a high quality surround speaker set. In case you don't know, this type of alarm wakes you up with a music play-list of your choice and goes gradually louder up to a set point of volume. I also use the sleep function which means that once I turn on the application, it plays music for 15 minutes with volume decreasing over time until the music stops.
My room used to be very dark, and I mean pitch-black, when sleeping but I have changed this recently. There now is a dim LED lamp in the corner of my room, that indirectly lights up the place in a colour of my choice (set to orange/yellow as a mimic for sunrise colour). I also have other LED-strip lights behind my bed and behind my desk but these are turned off at night. I don't sleep with the window open because, although I'd like to do this, there is the noise of the free-way in the distance so that's a no go.
On dream recall, I have a dream journal lying next to me and a tag-book that's always open with a pen ready on top of that, I usually write the date of today before going to bed on the tag book, and when I recall a dream I'd open a new entry in my DJ but sadly the last entry is about 1.5weeks ago :( To increase my chances of remembering a dream I have set alarms right after the most common REM-cycle period stops, so the iHome alarm is set up to go off 4.5hrs into sleep and 7.5hrs into sleep, these both use the same “smooth wake” method. As for determining my own REM-cycles and using them as alarm times instead of the standard ones, I really would like to try but don't actually know how to find out what my personal cycles are, perhaps the varied sleeping schedule makes it even more difficult. So any advise on that is very welcome :)
Adding to the dream recall, I try to write a short version of my day in a small diary a couple of hours before going to bed, as this was advised by another post, you can see it as a way of clearing your head before going to sleep. I try using mantras too, I haven't tried any during the day but usually start saying one when I turn on the soothe music, so that lasts 15 minutes.
Up to this point I haven't really noticed any effect but apparently that can take a while with mantras, so I'll keep up with that for now.
About half an hour going to bed I usually drink hot milk with honey or apple juice and during that I watch a light-headed anime, usually comedy/slice of life, nothing too heavy right before bed. That or some youtube playtroughs. I do watch these things in a very relaxed and dim environment, alas on my computer and with that I have to admit that the general idea of sitting behind a computer right before going to bed isn't recommended when it comes to achieving good dream recall. If anyone believes this has a major impact on my dream recall, please tell. Although it is a habit of mine, I'll gladly change it into reading a book, just as much fun in that.
When waking up in the middle of the night because of the alarms, or at any other time, I jot down a few words in my tag-book, regardless of whether I remember a dream or not. When I do remember a dream, or fragments of one, I write down some keywords about it and go back to sleep. Once it is time to get up, I stay in bed for around 15 minutes and attempt to recall any dream that I might have had.
During the day I do reality checks every 30 minutes, starting at 06.00 (so before waking up, to increase the chance of LD) and ending around 23.00. This is via an application that vibrates in a certain pattern. One more thing about a daily routine, I used to drink a lot of coffee, and I mean a LOT, but have changed this habit into one cup of Earl Grey each morning, which shouldn't have any effect, right?
That about sums it up, again I'm sorry for the terribly long post, but I have no clue what to do next so this is the first place I came to.
I thank everyone that took the time to read my post or comment with a remark or advise for reading, remember anything's welcome! :)
ps: (lol)
In case anyone is interested, the play-list I use for sleep and wake is:
The Piano Guys - Arwen's Vigil
- A Thousand Years
Michael McCan - Deux Ex HR OST - Home
- LIMB Clinic
- Penthouse
- Endings
Rainy Mood ft. Daniel Wisenhoff
Rainy Mood ft. Trentemoller - Miss You
Paul Collier - Air
Paul Collier - Time for bed, Time for sleep
Taylor Davis - Naruto Sadness & Sorrow cover
Ramin Djawadi - Game of Thrones OST - the Kingsroad
- Love in the Eyes
- A Raven form King's Landing
- Things I do for Love
- Goodbye Brother
Next artist is my all time favorite,
I highly recommend checking him out :D
Atra Aeterna - Black Fog
- When the world ends
- the Forgotten
