Streaks of vivid dreams, and then nothing?

[Revision]

Lately I have been going through periods of having extremely vivid dreams which I write in a journal in great detail. Then I'll have a period in which I remeber nothing. Its very frustrating because just when I think I am getting closer to a LD I get set way back to the beginning. I've attempted to track the source of this problem but I can't seem to come up with anything. The only remote possibility I can think of is stress. I'm not really sure what if any effects stress has on dreams and recollection, but it is all I can come up with. Anyone have a problem similiar to this or know if stress can play a significant role in dream recall?

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Revision Lately I have been going through periods of having extremely vivid dreams which I write in a journal in great detail. Then I'll have a period in which I remeber nothing. Its very frustrating because just when I think I am getting closer to a LD I get set way back to the beginning. I've attempted to track the source of this problem but I can't seem to come up with anything. The only remote possibility I can think of is stress. I'm not really sure what if any effects stress has on dreams and recollection, but it is all I can come up with. Anyone have a problem similiar to this or know if stress can play a significant role in dream recall? Many instances of natural growth do not describe linear straight lines. It is more ordinary for growth to occur in spurts, followed by periods of plateau consolidation. The important thing about your periods of Vivid Dreaming is for you to evaluate whether or not you made any personal or spiritual progress within these dreams. Your dreams journals from this year should certainly read differently then from your dream journals from 5 or 10 years ago. Also, Lucid Dreams may not represent that highest stage of dreaming, contrary as that may seem to all the propaganda. Lucidity is only necessary if the Primitive Dream Self is seriously out of control -- if your Dream Self's conduct, choices and behavior are so out of synch with that of your waking self, then Lucidity becomes necessary in order to help integrate your Waking Self Persona with your Dream Self Persona. However, if your Dream Self is relatively evolved and the choices your Dream Self makes are roughly the same choices that your Waking Self would make, then one can hardly see what Lucidity could do but disrupt the texture of what otherwise would be seamless dreams. As wonderful as Lucidity is, it always presents something of an interruption. Also, Lucidity is inherently a betrayal of Dream Content. For the Dreamer to know that he is dreaming, the personal bias of his judgment must lean toward the idea that his Dream is no longer Real. I found even myself doing it -- saying to myself that the scenary, the hills, the bottlecaps laying on the ground "look so REAL", with the underlying supposition being that THEY ARE JUST A DREAM. In this way Dreamers who are Lucid tend to fundamentally dismiss the importance of their Dreams by negating their REALITY. In a Non-Lucid Vivid Dream, the dreamer has the psychological advantage of supposing his Dream Reality is Real. This solidity explodes with the onset of Lucidity. I cannot see how this must automatically make anything better, when, in fact, it argues for a lesser dream.

[UnReaL]

I go through the same thing sometimes, lots of detailed dreams I record in my journal followed by a stretch of no remembered dreams or just dream fragments. Sometimes I have a guess about the cause. Once I was visiting family and their dog kept waking me up. This past week I was experimenting with lucid MP3s and music while I sleep to induce lucid dreams, but that didn't work and interfered with my dream recall. I don't know if stress is a problem or not. I need to have the discipline to get up and write down my dream when I wake up before I fall back asleep and forget it.