Thread: Difficulty with Dream Recall

I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of recalling my dreams after parking it for a few months. The thing is, I’ve been trying for 2 weeks so far, and I’m struggling to recall anything -- at most, a few fragments. My dream recall used to be very good -- I could remember almost everything that happened in the dream, and in a good amount of detail -- whereas now, I recall next to nothing.

I do set intentions to remember my dreams and what usually happens is I wake up and almost immediately think “oh wait, what was I dreaming?”. It feels like there was a lengthy dream moments ago, but I just can’t seem to recall any of it. Would anyone have any advice? Thanks!

Don't know if this helps and I'm new to this, but one thing I notice is if upon awakening I put too much effort into reaching for a dream I know I just had, it seems to slip away. If I can keep my mind in a relaxed and receptive state, much like when I meditate, recall seems to just naturally arise.

Try setting your alarm with a snooze feature. Hit snooze the first time and then when it goes off again, immediately find just two words that relate to what you were just dreaming. repeat just the two words until you will not forget them. After about 15 minutes try to remember why those two words stuck out. Keep this up until you are able to get that far. After that you should be primed for improving your recall.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

JustASimpleGuy:

Good advice! Yeah I’ve noticed that as well that when I try too hard to remember it -- it just becomes more distant for some reason. I guess I’ll have to learn to relax.

Sivason:

That’s a great idea -- I’ll be sure to try that

I've often awoken in the middle of the night and tried to remember something about the dream I just had thinking "oh I won't DJ it now, I'll write it down in the morning", but in the morning I couldn't remember a single thing about it, even though I had good recollection of it at the time. So this would be a good exercise.

If you have a hard time immediately DJ'ing elaborately (I know I do), take a look at this: http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...ok-method.html

You don't have to do this as extensively as described in the thread but the essence of writing small tags and going back to sleep seems like a good idea. See for yourself whether you like it!

I've thought about trying the Tag Book method. It seems like the process of recall is deferred or stretched out? For instance when I DJ immediately, the first thing I have upon awakening is the impression I was dreaming. Then some broad themes come to mind and then a few specific dream events. After a minute or so it starts to fill in and I turn on the light and start writing. Once I start writing the whole dream begins to flood into memory, sometimes in amazing detail.

So for me doing it immediately seems to use the same mechanics as the tag book method, only in a very compressed timeframe. The only thing preventing me from tag booking is I can easily get back to sleep after spending 10 or so minutes with the lights on writing, and I'm afraid if I wait for the morning I'll lose a lot of detailed recall.

Yes I agree. I have some trouble falling asleep after WBTB so jotting down some keywords and stuff really works for me. It is, like you said, mostly postponing the recall process. I notice no difference in detail between DJ'ing immediately and postponing it, but I can imagine some people do. My associative memory has always been quite decent so the smallest reminder can bring back a full-blown memory for me.

Thanks for the link, InnerVision. Yes the tagbook method does seem like a good one -- I never really tried it properly -- at most I just tried to get the main idea of what happened hoping I would remember it in the morning, but I can definitely see the benefit of doing this properly (at least taking some notes ) -- especially if you're determined to remember more than one dream per night.